Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood

Directed by Karen Thomas
2009    1h 57m
7.880%
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.
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Cast of Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood
  • Sigourney WeaverNarrator (voice)
  • Marlene DietrichSelf (archive footage)
  • Hedy LamarrSelf (archive footage)
  • Elsa LanchesterSelf (archive footage)
  • Peter LorreSelf (archive footage)
  • Billy WilderSelf (archive footage)
  • Fritz LangSelf (archive footage)
  • Lupita TovarSelf - Interviewee
  • Fred ZinnemannSelf (archive footage)
  • Peter ViertelSelf (archive footage)
  • Rudi FehrSelf (archive footage)

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