Lothar Mendes
1894 - 1974Lothar Mendes (19 May 1894 – 25 February 1974) was a German-born screenwriter and film director. who began his career as an actor in Vienna and Berlin in Max Reinhardt's famous troupe. He went to America in the early 1920s and there he remained until 1933, directing more than a dozen features, mostly frothy comedies, while under contract to Paramount. His films included the last silent film made in America, The Four Feathers (1929) and the murder mystery Payment Deferred (1933) starring British expatriate Charles Laughton.
After Hitler ascended to power, Mendes travelled to Britain in 1934 to work at Gaumont-British Pictures, directing films with Sir Michael Balcon producing. Under that banner, he directed Jew Süss (1934) starring one of Germany's most famous emigre actors, Conrad Veidt. Mendes' Jew Suss is not to be confused with the later Nazi film of the same title (1940) which is a Reich-made, virulently anti-Semitic film that deliberately contorted the exiled German-Jewish writer, Lion Feuchtwanger's original novel of the same name, on which Mendes' film was based. Mendes' 1934 film version of Feuchtwanger's novel received strong notices at the time, and was considered an important and early film in exposing the origins of the violent anti-semitism of the then-newly empowered Nazi Party; in particular, it was praised by Albert Einstein and the Jewish American leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, who encouraged its distribution in America under the title Power, though the film itself did not attract an audience in Depression America.
In 1936, Mendes directed his best-known film, the H.G. Wells short story, The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936) starring Sir Ralph Richardson, for which Wells himself co-wrote the adaptation. His last British film was Moonlight Sonata aka The Charmer and starred the aging piano legend Paderewski as himself; it's notable for containing rare performance footage of the legendary pianist, then in exile from his native Nazi-occupied Poland.
By 1941, Mendes had returned to Hollywood where he co-directed the pro-British International Squadron (1941), one of several films on the Eagle Squadron of American pilots who volunteered to fly in the Battle of Britain before the US entered the war. His last feature films were patriotic World War II fare with such stars as Rosalind Russell as a Navy reconnaissance pilot who must fly one more mission before getting married in Flight for Freedom (1943) and Edward G Robinson as a man who may or may not have married a spy in Tampico (1944). He retired from films in 1946, and the remaining decades of his life remain murky. "A competent, dependable director," comments film historian Larry Langman, "he never achieved the critical success in America that came to some of his compatriots."
Die drei Kuckucksuhren
Lothar Mendes
Lillian Hall-Davis, Nina Vanna
Lord Ernest Clifton lives with his beautiful wife, Gladys, at Easton Lodge. He has lost immense wealth in the lap of his uncle's death. One day Lord Clifton receives a mysterious package with an even more mysterious letter from his uncle. Three cuckoo clocks that strike only once a month should show him the way to find the second part of the pot of gold buried somewhere. Ernest's thirst for adventure only awakens and waits for the first cuckoo clock to mark the room number of a hotel in Cairo, where the second cuckoo clock hangs.
Die drei Kuckucksuhren
Illusion
Lothar Mendes
Charles Rogers, Nancy Carroll
A vaudeville magician team is broken up when Carlee, an ex--circus performer, becomes infatuated with socialite Hilda Schmittlap. Meanwhile his vaudeville partner, Claire, has chosen a new partner, but her "heart isn't in it" because she is disconsolate over Carlee. Curious about her new act, Carlee attends a performance and sees Claire nearly killed when she fails to substitute fake bullets for real ones. Rushing to her aid, Carlee realizes how much Claire means to him.
Illusion
Payment Deferred
Lothar Mendes
Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan
Bank clerk William Marble is desperate for money to pay his family's bills. When his wealthy nephew visits, Marble asks him for a loan, but the young man refuses. Marble decides to kill his nephew. It is a twisted path to justice after Marble is transformed by the crime he committed and the wealth he gains.
Payment Deferred
A Night of Mystery
Lothar Mendes
Adolphe Menjou, Evelyn Brent
Bound for Africa the next day, Captain Ferréol visits Gilberte Boismartel, his former sweetheart who is now married to Rochemore, a French magistrate, to return her love letters. Leaving he witness the murder of Rochemore.
A Night of Mystery
Jew Süss
Lothar Mendes
Conrad Veidt, Benita Hume
A historical satire critical of the rising tide of Anti-Semitism in Germany. Based on the novel by Lionel Feuchtwanger, Jew Süss is the story of life in the 18th century Jewish ghetto of Württemberg. Süss (Veidt) works himself out of the ghetto and into a position of power himself with the help of an evil Duke.
Jew Süss
Interference
Roy Pomeroy, Lothar Mendes
William Powell, Evelyn Brent
Paramount's first all-talking picture, Interference was dismally directed by Roy Pomeroy, whose lofty status as the studio's "technical wizard" did not necessarily qualify him to be a director. Evelyn Brent heads the cast as scheming Deborah Kane, who sets out to blackmail Faith Marley (Doris Kenyon), the above-reproach wife of Sir John Marlay.
Interference
Moonlight Sonata
Lothar Mendes
Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Charles Farrell
In this romantic tale Paderewski, the famed pianist, and two other plane crash survivors are guests of a Swedish baroness. Interwoven throughout this gentle and charming story are exquisite piano solos performed superbly by the elderly pianist, Paderewski.
Moonlight Sonata
Flight for Freedom
Lothar Mendes
Rosalind Russell, Fred MacMurray
A fictionalized biopic about aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart. A female pilot breaks the Los Angeles to New York record and attracts the interest of the U.S. Navy, who want to send her on a spy mission.
Flight for Freedom
The Marriage Playground
Lothar Mendes
Mary Brian, Fredric March
A delightful pre-code cocktail recipe. Take three couples (add gin and tonic), their several divorces and the seven children/stepchildren of their intermarriages and blend thoroughly, and you have a mixture a too-young-to-believe Frederic March will try to straighten out.
The Marriage Playground