German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 6565. Photo: Atelier Willinger, Berlin.
At 16 to the front
Fred Solm was born Friedrich Richard Salomon in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1899.
Standing 1.89 metres tall, Solm enlisted for the front in 1915 at the age of 16 and was assigned to a cavalry unit. Solm was conscripted until 1920, after which he began studying art history and also took dramaturgy lessons. These courses took him to Florence and Munich.
He also tried his hand at writing on the side. According to his account, he talked to a friend of Conrad Veidt about film subjects in the Berlin artists' pub Schwannecke and thus made his first contact with the celluloid industry.
Conrad Veidt persuaded Solm to concentrate on working in front of the camera rather than writing scripts. Fred Solm made his debut as a film actor in Der Herr des Todes/The Master of Death (Hans Steinhoff, 1926).
During the silent film era, he appeared in such German films as Der Meister der Welt/The Champion of the World (Gennaro Righelli, 1927), the war film U-9 Weddigen (Heinz Paul, 1927) starring Carl de Vogt, Mathilde Sussin and Fritz Alberti, and the drama Die berühmte Frau/The Famous Woman (Robert Wiene, 1927) starring Lily Damita.
Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5071. Photo: Greenbaum- Film. Fred Solm in the German silent film Der Meister der Welt/The Champion of the World (Gennaro Righelli, 1927).
Number 17
Fred Solm appeared opposite Francesca Bertini in the silent drama Mein Leben für das Deine/Odette (Luitz-Morat, 1928) based upon the play by Victorien Sardou. He also co-starred in the comedy Die große Abenteuerin/The Great Adventuress (Robert Wiene, 1928) opposite Lily Damita and Georg Alexander. Much of the film's funding came from Britain.
Solm had a supporting part in Haus Nummer 17/Number 17 (Géza von Bolváry, 1928), a German-British silent crime film starring Guy Newall, Lien Deyers, and Carl de Vogt. The English version was produced with sound. While the sound version has no audible dialogue, it features a synchronised musical score with sound effects.
Haus Nummer 17/Number 17 was based on the 1925 play 'Number 17' by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, later adapted by Alfred Hitchcock for his film Number Seventeen (1932). The 1928 film was one of several co-productions made in the 1920s between Britain's Gainsborough Pictures and Germany's Felsom Film. It was shot at the Tempelhof Studios in Berlin. Solm was the leading man in the comedy Das Spreewaldmädel/When the Guard Marches (Hans Steinhoff, 1928) starring Claire Rommer.
He appeared uncredited as a chauffeur in the American silent film The Single Standard (John S. Robertson, 1929) starring Greta Garbo. Then followed a bigger role in Marianne (Robert Z. Leonard, 1929), a romantic drama about a French farm girl who, despite already having a French fiancé (Solm, credited as Robert Castle), falls in love with an American soldier (Oscar Shaw) during World War I. It was made first as a silent film, then as a musical with a different cast, but Marion Davies starred in both versions.
The rising sound film ended Fred Solm's brief Hollywood career. There is nothing known about his later life. According to IMDb, he was born in Iglau, Austria-Hungary, but the database combines his life and filmography with that of Austrian actor Alfred Solm, whose film career only started after the Second World War.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3088/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ernst Schneider.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3181/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Willinger, Berlin.
Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.
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