Hungarian Heritage Review, 1991 (20. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1991-03-01 / 3. szám
phants, snakes, and tarantulas, among other exotic talents. Ivan Tors trains his proteges with his special brand of "Affection training" at "Africa, U.S.A.", a 260- acre preserve he owns outside Los Angeles. Micheál Curtiz' directorial career in America spanned 5 decades and embraced close to 100 pictures. In his native Hungary Curtiz (Mihály Kertész) had been a director as well as a cinematographer. He was esteemed as a dynamic man with a superb artistic instinct, an ever-bubbling fountain of creative ideas. A partial roster of his films includes God's Gift to Women, the 1931 Joan Blondell-Frank Fay picture; The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Case of the Curious Bride (1935), Captain Blood (1935) and The Sea Hawk (1940), all starring the then international heartstopper of the silver screen, Errol Flynn; Front Page Woman (1935) starring the incomparable Bette Davis; Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) featuring Cagney and Bogart; Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) with James Cagney and Joan Leslie; Casablanca (1942) with a star-studded cast including Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre, and Claude Rains; Life with Father (1947) featuring William Powell, Irene Dunn, and Elizabeth Taylor; White Christmas (1954) with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney; The Proud Rebel (1958) with Alan Ladd and Olivia de Havilland; and A Breath of Scandal (1960) with Italian screen goddess Sophia Loren and the French Maurice Chevalier. Born in Budapest on April 1st, 1918, Jan Kadar is hailed as a brilliant director with an avid following in the United States. After the Battle of Budapest he fled to Czechoslovakia where he turned out such works as the 1965 Oscar winner for best foreign film, The Shop On Main Street (sometimes referred to under the variant translation, The Shop on the High Street, 1964), Kidnap (1956), Death is called Engelchen (1958), The Accused (1964), The Angel Levine (1969), Adrift (1971), and Lies My Father Told Me (1975). Andre De Toth was born in Hungary as Endre Toth. His film career was launched in Europe in 1931 as his Hollywood affiliation in 1940. Like many other directors, the first rung in his career ladder was that of cinematographer. He was associated with Bavarische Piktura in Germany until 1931 then with Hunnia Films in Hungary until 1939. In 1940 he was assistant to Sir Alexander Korda. Andre De Toth has directed films in Great Britain, Hungary, and the United States. One of his earliest pictures was screened in the United States in 1939 underthetitle,WeddinginToprin. Made in Hungary, it starred Pal Jávor, "the Magyar screen's'matinee idol'". De Toth was ultra-progressive for his time - according to a New York Times review (November 6, 1939). Among De Toth's U.S. motion picture credits are: Dark Waters(1944) with Merle Oberon and Franchot Tone, Dishonored Lady (1947) starring Hedy Lamarr, Ramrod (1947) with Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake, Other Love (1947) co-starring Barbara Stanwyck and Richard Conte, Pitfall (1948) with Dick Powell and Slattery's Hurricane (1949) with Richard Widmark and Veronica Lake. He directed several Westerns, including the Gary Cooper picture, Springfield Rifle, and The Man In The Saddle with Randolph Scott and Joan Leslie, both 1951 releases. His House of Wax (1953) starring Vincent Price is most memorable for being the first 3-D (three dimensional) film ever produced by a major studio. Some of De Toth's later efforts include Day of the Outlaw (1959), Morgan the Pirate (1961) starring Hungarian-born musclemen Steve Reeves, and Play Dirty (1968). The latter was reviewed in New York's Village Voice (March 6, 1969) as being exemplary of De Toth's "directorial personality which has aways revealed an understanding of the instability and outright treachery of human relationships." According to scholar Leonard Maltin, Andre De Toth's films are currently the subject of a cult among the young generation of American directors and cinemaphiles. MARCH 1991 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW-continued next page 17
