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Fritz Kortner

Fritz Kortner

Fritz Kortner (12 May 1892 – 22 July 1970) was an Austrian-born stage and film actor and theatre director.

Kortner was born in Vienna as Fritz Nathan Kohn. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduating, he joined Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911 and then Leopold Jessner in 1916. Also in that year he made his first appearance in a silent film. He became one of Germany's best known character actors. His speciality was playing sinister and threatening roles, though he also appeared in the title role of 1930's Dreyfus.

With the coming to power of the Nazis, Kortner, being Jewish, chose to flee Germany in 1933. He emigrated to the United States, where he found work as a character actor and theatre director for a time before returning to Germany in 1949. Upon his return, he became noted for his innovative staging and direction, particularly of classics such as his Richard III (1964) in which the king crawls over piles of corpses at the end.

Kortner died in Munich.

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Movies Starring Fritz Kortner (25)

Kortnergeschichten (1980)

Documentary about director Fritz Korner ...

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Hitler: A Career (1977)

A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse. ...

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Fünfter Akt, siebente Szene. Fritz Kortner probt Kabale und Liebe (1965)

This documentation of a Kortner stage rehearsal shows in detail and fascinatingly how Kortner developed psychological tensions with meticulous precision in linguistic expression and gestural construction. ...

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Bluebeard (1951)

Just before wowing international critics and moviegoers with his adventure romp Fanfan la Tulipe, director Christian-Jaque dashed off the lampoonish Barbe-Bleue. Ostensibly the story of the famed wife-killing potentate Bluebeard (Pierre Brasseur), this lig ...

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Epilogue (1950)

The reporter Peter Zabel stumbles upon the sinking of the luxury yacht Orplid in Hamburg on August 14, 1949. The ship went down with a wedding party run by artists on a pleasure trip from Hamburg to Scotland . In spite of good weather and no technical prob ...

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The Last Illusion (1949)

Professor Mauthner, after many years of exile (having emigrated in 1933 to the USA), returns to Germany in 1948. He can in fact return to his teaching post, but the rejection and petty intrigues of his reactionary colleagues and students make his work almo ...

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The Vicious Circle (1948)

In Hungary, a rich baron discovers that there are extensive oil deposits underneath nearby properties owned by villagers. He manages to convince all the property owners to sell to him, except for a few properties owned by Jewish families. Infuriated at the ...

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Berlin Express (1948)

In post-war Europe, a diverse group of passengers aboard a U.S. Army train to bombed-out Frankfurt becomes involved in a Nazi assassination plot. ...

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The Brasher Doubloon (1947)

Mrs. Elizabeth Bright Murdock hires Marlowe to find an old rare coin, the Brasher Doubloon, that belonged in her deceased husband's collection. Marlowe begins investigating, but quickly finds himself entangled in a series of unexplained murders. ...

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The Razor's Edge (1946)

An adventurous young man goes off to find himself and loses his socialite fiancée in the process. But when he returns 10 years later, she will stop at nothing to get him back, even though she is already married. ...

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Somewhere in the Night (1946)

George Taylor returns from WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, he tries to track down his old identity, stumbling into a 3-year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million. ...

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The Wife of Monte Cristo (1946)

In this sequel to the original story, Monte Cristo count Edmund Dantes (Martin Kosleck) returns to Paris to get revenge but soon finds himself pursued by a cruel policeman (John Loder). The count's brave wife Haydée (Lenore Aubert) throws the cop off her ...

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The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler (1943)

Austrian actor Franz Huber, known for his impressions, is captured by the Gestapo and forced into plastic surgery to become Hitler's body double. Their plan is to poison Hitler and use Huber to take control of the Reich. Meanwhile, Huber's wife Anna sees h ...

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The Purple V (1943)

German expatriate Fritz Kortner plays the largest role, as an anti-Nazi schoolmaster who helps a downed American flyer (John Archer) reached Allied lines with vital war information. As usual, the Nazis are incredibly stupid and lead-footed, enabling the fl ...

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The Eternal Jew (1940)

A Nazi propaganda film made to promote anti-Semitism among the German people. Newly-shot footage of Jewish neighborhoods in recently-conquered Poland is combined with preexisting film clips and stills to defame the religion and advance Hitler's slurs that ...

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Midnight Menace (1937)

When a reporter is killed under mysterious circumstances, the political cartoonist on his paper begins to investigate on his own. He finds that a vengeful industrialist may be trying to manipulate an international peace conference to stage a bombing attack ...

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The Crouching Beast (1935)

In 1915 during the First World War, a British secret agent is killed while stealing secret Turkish plans for the Gallipoli Campaign but manages to pass his information to an American journalist. ...

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Abdul the Damned (1935)

In 1908, Sultan Abdul Hamid rules the Turkish Empire, but he is faced with the threat of revolt by the Young Turk party. He allows Hilmi Pasha, the leader of the Young Turks, to return from exile and form the country's first constitutional government. With ...

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Little Friend (1934)

A girl becomes an unwilling witness in her parents' scandalous divorce case. ...

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Evensong (1934)

Loosely based on the story of the singer Nellie Melba... ...

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Chu Chin Chow (1934)

Musical retelling of the "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves" Arabian Nights tale. ...

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The Murderer Dmitri Karamazov (1931)

Suspicion surrounds a lieutenant for killing his father; based on Dostoevsky's novel. ...

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Danton (1931)

This pre-WW II German costume drama chronicles the French Revolution with a particular focus upon Danton, Robespierre, and Marat. It depicts the dramatic downfall and execution of Georges Danton in 1794 at the hands of Maximilien Robespierre. The film also ...

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Movies Made By Fritz Kortner (12)

Die Sendung der Lysistrata (1961)

Persuaded by Lysistrata, the women of Athens agree to withdraw all sexual favours from the men until the men agree to end to war with Sparta. ...

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Sarajevo (1955)

The film portrays the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914. ...

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Secrets of the City (1955)

An industrial plant gets into difficulties. The factory owner then decides to sell the company and makes all the employees redundant. How do the dismissed employees deal with the new situation? ...

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The Last Illusion (1949)

Professor Mauthner, after many years of exile (having emigrated in 1933 to the USA), returns to Germany in 1948. He can in fact return to his teaching post, but the rejection and petty intrigues of his reactionary colleagues and students make his work almo ...

Watch Now

The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler (1943)

Austrian actor Franz Huber, known for his impressions, is captured by the Gestapo and forced into plastic surgery to become Hitler's body double. Their plan is to poison Hitler and use Huber to take control of the Reich. Meanwhile, Huber's wife Anna sees h ...

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A Girl You Don't Forget (1933)

A GIRL YOU DON'T FORGET can be thought of as a backstage musical that treats the whole world as backstage. Melodies seem to be buzzing through the air, available to anyone in the right state of mind. Willi Forst always is, and he is also an actor who can t ...

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The Upright Sinner (1931)

Leopold Pichler is a very orderly and trustworthy chief cashier who is asked by his boss to get a large sum of money from the bank which the boss urgently needs on a trip to Vienna. Due to some circumstances, getting the money takes a little longer than ex ...

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