Joe May
German postcard in the Film Sterne Series by Rotphot, no. 101. Photo: Karl Schenker / May-Film.
Joe May (1880-1954) was an Austrian film director and producer, considered one of the pioneers of German cinema.
Born Otto Julius Mandl in Vienna, and after his study in Berlin and many odd jobs, May started his career as an operetta director in Hamburg, before making films in Berlin. In 1902 he married the actress Mia May (Hermine née Pfleger). In 1914 he founded his own production company, May-Film, and started to produce a series of crime films with the detectives Joe Deebs and Stuart Webbs. In 1917 he offered Fritz Lang one of his first jobs in the film world as the screenwriter of Die Hochzeit im Excentricclub. At the end of the First World War, May-Film founded a studio complex at the Weissensee outside of Berlin. There he continued to produce and direct a series of popular and exotic adventures, e.g. Veritas vincit (1919), Die Herrin der Welt (1919-20), as well as the two-part film Das indische Grabmal/Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1921) interpreted by Conrad Veidt and scripted by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou. Mia May worked under her husband's direction in a number of melodramas such as Hilde Warren und der Tod (1917) and Tragödie der Liebe (1922-23). Their daughter Eva May (born in Vienna in 1902) tried to break through as actress as well, but she committed suicide in 1924 after the failure of her third marriage with director Manfred Liebenau.
Towards the end of the 1920s May left the adventure genre and focused on realist films, such as Heimkehr ((1928), with Dita Parlo, Lars Hanson, and Gustav Fröhlich, and the contemporary comical thriller Asphalt (1929), staring Gustav Fröhlich and Betty Amann. During the early sound film years, May worked as a producer for Erich Pommer at UFA and afterward for several other companies in Germany, Austria, and France, directing a series of multilanguage films in German and French, a.o. Ihre Majestät die Liebe/Son Altesse l'amour (1930), one of the best musical comedies of the Weimar era, with Käthe von Nagy and Francis Lederer in the German version and Annabella and Roger Tréville in the French version. In 1933 May, his wife, and many colleagues emigrated to the US, where he was capable to establish himself as director, mainly at Universal Pictures, even if his American work never resulted in making A-pictures. Among the most notable films were the Kay Francis vehicle Confession, an exact remake of the German film Mazurka (Willi Forst, 1935), The House of the Seven Gables, and The Invisible Man Returns (1940). He also worked on The Dead End Kids, You’re Not So Tough (1940), and Hit the Road (1941), despite frictions with his younger colleagues because of his dictatorial behavior. May's last film was Johnny Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1944). After his retirement in 1950, May ran The Blue Danube Restaurant in Los Angeles. He died on 29 April 1954 after a long illness.
Sources: Wikipedia (French, German and English).
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Joe May
German postcard in the Film Sterne Series by Rotphot, no. 101. Photo: Karl Schenker / May-Film.
Joe May (1880-1954) was an Austrian film director and producer, considered one of the pioneers of German cinema.
Born Otto Julius Mandl in Vienna, and after his study in Berlin and many odd jobs, May started his career as an operetta director in Hamburg, before making films in Berlin. In 1902 he married the actress Mia May (Hermine née Pfleger). In 1914 he founded his own production company, May-Film, and started to produce a series of crime films with the detectives Joe Deebs and Stuart Webbs. In 1917 he offered Fritz Lang one of his first jobs in the film world as the screenwriter of Die Hochzeit im Excentricclub. At the end of the First World War, May-Film founded a studio complex at the Weissensee outside of Berlin. There he continued to produce and direct a series of popular and exotic adventures, e.g. Veritas vincit (1919), Die Herrin der Welt (1919-20), as well as the two-part film Das indische Grabmal/Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1921) interpreted by Conrad Veidt and scripted by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou. Mia May worked under her husband's direction in a number of melodramas such as Hilde Warren und der Tod (1917) and Tragödie der Liebe (1922-23). Their daughter Eva May (born in Vienna in 1902) tried to break through as actress as well, but she committed suicide in 1924 after the failure of her third marriage with director Manfred Liebenau.
Towards the end of the 1920s May left the adventure genre and focused on realist films, such as Heimkehr ((1928), with Dita Parlo, Lars Hanson, and Gustav Fröhlich, and the contemporary comical thriller Asphalt (1929), staring Gustav Fröhlich and Betty Amann. During the early sound film years, May worked as a producer for Erich Pommer at UFA and afterward for several other companies in Germany, Austria, and France, directing a series of multilanguage films in German and French, a.o. Ihre Majestät die Liebe/Son Altesse l'amour (1930), one of the best musical comedies of the Weimar era, with Käthe von Nagy and Francis Lederer in the German version and Annabella and Roger Tréville in the French version. In 1933 May, his wife, and many colleagues emigrated to the US, where he was capable to establish himself as director, mainly at Universal Pictures, even if his American work never resulted in making A-pictures. Among the most notable films were the Kay Francis vehicle Confession, an exact remake of the German film Mazurka (Willi Forst, 1935), The House of the Seven Gables, and The Invisible Man Returns (1940). He also worked on The Dead End Kids, You’re Not So Tough (1940), and Hit the Road (1941), despite frictions with his younger colleagues because of his dictatorial behavior. May's last film was Johnny Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1944). After his retirement in 1950, May ran The Blue Danube Restaurant in Los Angeles. He died on 29 April 1954 after a long illness.
Sources: Wikipedia (French, German and English).
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.