{"id":122,"date":"2008-12-02T11:27:01","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T16:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/cinemasexiles\/2008\/12\/02\/biography-robert-siodmak\/"},"modified":"2011-09-30T14:26:25","modified_gmt":"2011-09-30T18:26:25","slug":"biography-robert-siodmak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/cinemasexiles\/biographies\/the-directors\/biography-robert-siodmak\/122\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography: Robert Siodmak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dartmouth.edu\/~germ43\/resources\/biographies\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Biography by Gerd Gem\u00fcnden<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nProfessor of German Studies, Film and Media Studies, and Comparative Literature<br \/>\nDartmouth College<\/p>\n<p>(b. Dresden 1900 \u2013 d. Locarno, Switzerland 1973)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/cinemasexiles\/files\/2008\/12\/rsiodmak_post.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-123\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/cinemasexiles\/files\/2008\/12\/rsiodmak_post.jpg\" alt=\"Robert Siodmak\" width=\"200\" height=\"302\" \/><\/a>Director. Robert Siodmak&#8217;s directorial debut was the famous Berlin film <em>Menschen am Sonntag<\/em> (1930), which establishes him as serious filmmaker. Yet the subsequent productions do not return to the neo-realism of his first feature. <em>Abschied<\/em> (1929), an early exploration into sound, is a Kammerspiel set in a boarding house; <em>Voruntersuchung<\/em> (1931) probes the corruption of the legal system, while <em>Brennendes Geheimnis<\/em> (1932) is a melodrama after a novella by Stefan Zweig. Forced into exile in 1933, Siodmak becomes a seminal \u00e9migr\u00e9 director in France. In this second career, which lasts until 1938, he shoots eleven features, including the much-lauded <em>Pi\u00e8ges<\/em> (1939).<\/p>\n<p>The transition to the Hollywood studio system proves harder and his first assignments as director remain conventional. When he collaborates with his brother <a href=\"\/wnet\/cinemasexiles\/2008\/12\/02\/biography-curt-siodmak\/\">Curt<\/a> on <em>Son of Dracula<\/em> (1943) he can score a popular and critical success. Yet it is only with three films made for Universal that he establishes himself as the master of noir as which he is remembered today: <em>Phantom Lady<\/em> (1944), <em>The Spiral Staircase<\/em> (1945), and <em>The Killers<\/em> (1946). His first film in technicolor and his last US film is <em>The Crimson Pirate<\/em> (1952). In Germany, he tries to build on his Hollywood and Weimar reputation. <em>Die Ratten<\/em> (1955), after Gerhart Hauptmann&#8217;s play and produced by Arthur Brauner, and particularly <em>Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam<\/em> (1957) gain him huge critical success, but are followed up by disappointing fare. He concludes his long career with Karl May adaptations and the monumental <em>Kampf um Rom<\/em> (1968).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biography by Gerd Gem\u00fcnden Professor of German Studies, Film and Media Studies, and Comparative Literature Dartmouth College (b. Dresden 1900 \u2013 d. Locarno, Switzerland 1973) Director. Robert Siodmak&#8217;s directorial debut was the famous Berlin film Menschen am Sonntag (1930), which establishes him as serious filmmaker. Yet the subsequent productions do not return to the neo-realism [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3323],"tags":[3434,2755,3448],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-directors","tag-biography","tag-director","tag-robert-siodmak"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Biography: Robert Siodmak | Cinema&#039;s Exiles | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/cinemasexiles\/biographies\/the-directors\/biography-robert-siodmak\/122\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biography: Robert Siodmak | Cinema&#039;s Exiles | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Biography by Gerd Gem\u00fcnden Professor of German Studies, Film and Media Studies, and Comparative Literature Dartmouth College (b. 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