Continental Strangers: German Exile Cinema, 1933-1951

Hundreds of German-speaking film professionals took refuge in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s, making a lasting contribution to American cinema. Hailing from Austria, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine, as well as Germany, and including Ernst Lubitsch, Fred Zinnemann, Billy Wilder, and Fritz Lang, these multicultural, multilingual writers and directors betrayed distinct cultural sensibilities in their art. Gerd Gem�nden focuses on Edgar G. Ulmer'sThe Black Cat(1934), William Dieterle'sThe Life of Emile Zola(1937), Ernst Lubitsch'sTo Be or Not to Be(1942), Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang'sHangmen Also Die(1943), Fred Zinnemann'sAct of Violence(1948), and Peter Lorre'sDer Verlorene(1951), engaging with issues of realism, auteurism, and genre while tracing the relationship between film and history, Hollywood politics and censorship, and exile and (re)migration.