Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood

Jan 1, 2009

1h 57m

★ 6.0

Overview

Eight hundred German filmmakers (cast and crew) fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The film uses voice-overs, archival footage, and film clips to examine Berlin's vital filmmaking in the 1920s; then it follows a producer, directors, composers, editors, writers, and actors to Hollywood: some succeeded and many found no work. Among those profiled are Erich Pommer, Joseph May, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Peter Lorre. Once in Hollywood, these exiles helped each other, housed new arrivals, and raised money so others could escape. Some worked on anti-Nazi films, like Casablanca. The themes and lighting of German Expressionism gave rise in Hollywood to film noir.

Genres

TV Movie

Documentary

Production Companies

Deutsche Kinemathek für Film und Fernsehen

Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Sigourney Weaver

Self (archive footage)

Marlene Dietrich

Self (archive footage)

Hedy Lamarr

Self (archive footage)

Elsa Lanchester

Self (archive footage)

Peter Lorre

Self (archive footage)

Billy Wilder

Self (archive footage)

Fritz Lang

Self - Interviewee

Lupita Tovar

Self (archive footage)

Fred Zinnemann

Self (archive footage)

Peter Viertel

Self (archive footage)

Rudi Fehr

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