Curt Siodmak

Curt Siodmak
Born Kurt Siodmak
(1902-08-10)August 10, 1902
Dresden, Germany
Died September 2, 2000(2000-09-02) (aged 98)
Three Rivers, California, US
Occupation Novelist and screenwriter
Nationality German-American
Period 1929–2000
Genre Short stories, novels and screenplays

Curt Siodmak (August 10, 1902 – September 2, 2000) was a German-American novelist and screenwriter. He is known for his work in the horror and science fiction film genres, with such films as The Wolf Man and Donovan's Brain (the latter adapted from his novel of the same name). He was the younger brother of noir director Robert Siodmak.[1]

Life and career

Siodmak was born Kurt Siodmak in Dresden, Germany, the son of Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak.[2] His parents were both from Jewish families in Leipzig. Siodmak acquired a degree in mathematics before beginning to write novels. He invested early royalties earned by his first books in the movie Menschen am Sonntag (1929) a documentary-style chronicle of the lives of four Berliners on a Sunday based on their own lives. The movie was co-directed by Curt Siodmak's older brother Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, with a script by Billy Wilder in collaboration with Fred Zinneman and cameraman Eugen Schüfftan.[1] Siodmak was the nephew of film producer Seymour Nebenzal, who funded Menschen am Sonntag with funds borrowed from his father, Heinrich Nebenzahl.

In the following years Siodmak wrote many novels, screenplays, and short stories including the novel F.P.1 antwortet nicht (F.P.1 Doesn't Answer) (1932) which was adapted into a film featuring Hans Albers and Peter Lorre.

Siodmak decided to emigrate after hearing an anti-Semitic tirade by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and departed for England where he made a living as a screenwriter before moving to the United States in 1937. His big break in Hollywood came with the screenplay for The Wolf Man (1941), starring Lon Chaney, Jr., which established this fictional creature as the most popular movie monster after Dracula and Frankenstein's monster.[1] In the film, Siodmak created several werewolf "legends": being marked by a pentagram; being practically immortal apart from being struck/shot by silver implements/bullets; and the famous verse:

Even a man who is pure in heart,
And says his prayers by night
May become a Wolf when the Wolfbane blooms
And the autumn Moon is bright

(The last line was changed in the sequels to "And the Moon is full and bright".)

Siodmak's science-fiction novel Donovan's Brain (1942) was a bestseller that was translated into many languages and was adapted for the cinema several times, beginning in 1943 with The Lady and the Monster, then 1953's Donovan's Brain and 1962's The Brain. Other films he wrote the screenplays for include Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, I Walked With a Zombie and The Beast With Five Fingers. An extensive interview with Siodmak about his career in both Germany and Hollywood is found in Eric Leif Davin's Pioneers of Wonder. In the plots of his work, Siodmak utilised the latest scientific findings combining those with pseudo-scientific motifs like the Jekyll and Hyde complex, the Nazi trauma and the East-West dichotomy.

In 1998, he won the Berlinale Camera at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival.[3]

Siodmak died in his sleep on September 2, 2000, at his home in Three Rivers, California.

Works

Novels

Short stories

Non fiction

Partial filmography

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Wettbewerb/In Competition". Moving Pictures, Berlinale Extra. Berlin: 85. 11–22 February 1998.
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ "Berlinale: 1998 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2012-01-21.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/19/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.