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Robert Siodmak |
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Director / Producer |
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1900 - 1973 |
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Born August 8,
Dresden, Saxony, Germany |
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Key
Production Countries: USA, Germany
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Key Genres:
Film Noir, Crime Drama, Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Crime Thriller |
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Key
Collaborators: John Goodman
(Production Designer), Arthur Hilton (Editor), H.J. Salter (Composer),
Samuel S. Hinds (Character Player), Burt
Lancaster (Leading Player), Ella Raines (Leading Player), Elwood Bredell
(Cinematographer), Martin Obzina (Production Designer), Joan Harrison
(Producer), Dean Harens (Leading Character
Player) |
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Highly Recommended: Phantom Lady (1944)#, The
Spiral Staircase (1946), The Killers (1946)*#, Criss Cross
(1949)# |
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Recommended: People
on Sunday (1929)* [co-directed by
Edgar G.
Ulmer], The
Suspect (1944)#, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)#, The Dark Mirror (1946)#, Cry of the City (1948)#, The File on Thelma Jordon
(1949)#, The Crimson Pirate (1952) |
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Worth a Look: Son
of Dracula (1943), Christmas Holiday (1944)#, The Devil Strikes at Night
(1959) |
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Approach with Caution:
Preliminary Investigation (1931), The Burning Secret (1933), Cobra Woman
(1944) |
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# Listed in TSPDT's
250 Quintessential Noir Films
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Classic
Film and Television Home Page ] [
Wikipedia ] [
Village
Voice Article
] [
Moving Image Source Article (2010) ]
[
New York Times Article (2012)
] |
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Books: [
The
File on Robert Siodmak in Hollywood: 1941-1951 ] [
Robert
Siodmak: A Biography with Critical Analyses of His Film Noirs and a
Filmography of All His Works ] |
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"Siodmak's
most successful projects - Phantom Lady, Christmas Holiday,
The Suspect, Uncle Harry, The Spiral Staircase, The Killers
- represent a fortuitous conjunction of such attractive
actresses as Ella Raines, Dorothy McGuire, Ava Gardner, and even
an absurdly lurid Deanna Durbin, with perverse subjects and
expert technicians all whipped together with a heavy Teutonic
sauce and served to the customers as offbeat art."
-
Andrew
Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"Being
Jewish, Siodmak had to flee the Nazis, arriving in Hollywood in
1940. Film noir gave him the opportunity to use
his pictorial sense and his narrative skills, and he directed a
string of atmospheric thrillers, including Phantom Lady
(1944), The Killers and The Dark Mirror (both
1946), Cry of the City (1948) and Criss Cross
(1949)." -
(The Movie Book, 1999) |
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"An
innovative and cinematic director, he explored the criminal or
psychotic impulses in his characters through the ambience of his
elegant mise-en-scène. The control of all cinematic tools at his
command - camera angle, lighting, composition, movement, and
design - was used to establish effectively a world of fate,
passion, obsession, and compulsion. Although his reputation has
been elevated in recent years, his name deserves to be better
known." -
Jeanine Basinger (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers,
1991) |
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"During the 1940s, Siodmak developed into a formidable director
of suspense and crime films. He was influenced by the German
schools of expressionism and realism prevalent in the 20s. Both
rubbed off into a blend which distinguishes his Hollywood
period." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director that we
haven't seen include
Personal Column
(1939), Fly by Night (1942), Time Out of Mind (1947), The Great Sinner
(1949), Deported (1950), The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951), Flesh and
the Woman (1953), The Rough and the Smooth (1959), Katia (1959), My
School Friend (1960), Escape from East Berlin (1962), The Last Roman
(1968), and Custer of the West (1968). |
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"The
reputation of Robert Siodmak rests on a number of thrillers
made during a few brief years in the '40s. Although his work
in Europe both before and after that period is now rarely
seen, he remains an important, if underrated, figure in the
development and exploration of the style now known as
film noir... Siodmak's murky, morbidly fatalistic and
expertly crafted thrillers focussed on a gallery of vividly
drawn characters involved in deathly struggles... Time and
again, the pitfalls of melodrama are avoided by finely
judged performances and the director's astute, economic
characterisation through visual means. In the '50s Siodmak's
career went into decline... But his late '40s crime films
have rarely been bettered, and his work is ripe for
reappraisal."
-
Geoff Andrew, The Film Handbook |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
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●
Expressive Esoterica |
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●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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