Directed by Reinhold Schünzel

German actor, producer, scriptwriter and director Reinhold Schünzel (1888-1953) was for a long period one of the most underrated filmmakers of Weimar Germany. He started his successful film career during the First World War and directed a string of classic comedies including Viktor und Viktoria/Victor and Victoria (1933) and Amphitryon (1935) in the sound era. Only in 1937 he left Nazi Germany and continued his career in Hollywood. In this post, EFSP focuses on the memorable films Schünzel directed.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1328/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder. Reinhold Schünzel.

German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 3346. Hilde Wörner in the German-Austrian coproduction Der Graf von Cagliostro/The Count of Cagliostro (Reinhold Schünzel, 1920). Photo: Abele, Berlin.


German postcard by Verleih Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 3069. Photo: Atelier Oertel, Berlin. Perhaps Paul Hartmann in Katharina die Grösse/Catherine the Great (Reinhold Schünzel, 1920), in which Hartmann played Alexander Manonow opposite Lucie Englisch as the famous czarina Catherine the Great.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 69/1. Photo: Reinhold Schünzel-Film / Ufa. Reinhold Schünzel and Margot Walter in In der Heimat, da gibt's ein Wiedersehn!/ We'll Meet Again in the Heimat (Reinhold Schünzel, Leo Mittler, 1926). The film was distributed by Ufa. It meant the screen debut of Margot Walter (1903-1994), later known as Margot Landa when married to actor-director Max Landa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6354/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa. Olly Gebauer and Kurt (Curt) Vespermann, probably in the musical comedy Ronny (Reinhold Schünzel, 1931).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6367/1. 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa. Käthe von Nagy in Ronny (Reinhold Schünzel, 1931).

The ironic, feather-light and slightly risqué 'Lubitsch touch'

Reinhold Schünzel was greatly influenced by established filmmakers Richard Oswald, who was a mentor and frequent collaborator from 1916 and Ernst Lubitsch, for whom he had worked as an actor in Madame DuBarry (1919). Schünzel's first film as a director was the silent drama Maria Magdalene/Mary Magdalene (Reinhold Schünzel, 1920) an adaptation of Friedrich Hebbel's play starring Eduard von Winterstein, Ilka Grüning and Lucie Höflich. He made his mark with the epic historical drama Katharina die Große/Catherine the Great (1920) with Lucie Höflich as the famous czarina.

His films were popular enough to allow him to set up his production company Schünzel-Film. He merged it several months later with the Vienna-based production company Micheluzzo & Co. (Micco-Film). The new production company then produced Der Graf von Cagliostro/The Count of Cagliostro (Reinhold Schünzel, 1920) starring Conrad Veidt and Anita Berber. In 1926, Schünzel again started his own business with his production company Reinhold Schünzel-Film GmbH. He produced, directed and starred in a series of comedies including Hallo Cesar!/Hello Cesar! (1926), Adam und Eva/Adam and Eve (1928), Don Juan in der Mädchenschule/Don Juan in the Girls School (1928), and Aus dem Tagebuch eines Junggesellen/From a bachelor's diary (1928). These films displayed his full comedic potential and they were rediscovered in the 1980s and presented at the CineGraph Congress and CineFest in Hamburg.

From 1931 on, Reinhold Schünzel worked as a director for Ufa and with the advent of the sound film, his comic talent as a director became even more apparent. Schünzel finished several very successful musical films in the following years including the original drag comedy Viktor und Viktoria/Viktor and Viktoria (1933) - a spoof of British music hall impersonators - and the social satire Die englische Heirat/The English Marriage (1934), often starring Renate Müller in the leading role. Schünzel's satirical, mythologically-themed musical farce Amphitryon (1935) with Willy Fritsch, in particular, had all the hallmarks of the ironic, feather-light and slightly risqué 'Lubitsch touch'. It also boasted above-average production values.

Amphitryon was Ufa's number one box office hit in its year. It has been alleged that Schünzel was Adolf Hitler's favourite director until Hitler discovered that he was one-half Jewish. His work was so popular in Germany that the Nazi regime bestowed upon him the title of 'Ehrenarier' (honorary Aryan) and permitted him to continue to work despite his Jewish background. However, it became more and more difficult for him to work in the Third Reich and as a Half-Jew he depended on a work permit for each further film. Eventually, he left Germany in 1937, increasingly frustrated with governmental interference in his projects.

Like many other exiles, Reinhold Schünzel turned up in Hollywood. Signed by MGM, he directed three films including the glossy operetta Balalaika (1939), a star vehicle for Nelson Eddy. His other films, particularly The Ice Follies of 1939 (1939) and the romanticised and inaccurate biopic of composer Franz Schubert, New Wine (1941) suffered from miscasting. The former was possibly the biggest flop of Joan Crawford's long career. After the war, he returned to Germany in 1949. Surprised and disappointed, he found the same officials in the film licensing authorities who had made it difficult for him to work during the Third Reich. And now he encountered the same difficulties again. Schünzel did not direct another film, but in 1951, at the request of producer Franz Tapper, he co-directed the film version of Die Dubarry/The Dubarry (Georg Wildhagen, Reinhold Schünzel, 1951). Critics and film historians neglected the 'Ehrenarier' while they assumed opportunism behind his work in Nazi Germany. Reinhold Schünzel died in 1953 of a heart attack.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 708. Photo: Ufa. Willy Fritsch in Ronny (Reinhold Schünzel, 1931). Song Text 'Wenn die Garde aufmarschiert'. Copyright: Ufaton, 1932.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 142/5. Photo: Ufa. Wolf Albach-Retty and Käthe von Nagy in Das schöne Abenteuer/Beautiful Adventure (Reinhold Schünzel, 1932).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 165/3. Photo: Ufa. Ida Wüst and Renate Müller in Wie sag' ich's meinem Mann?/How Shall I Tell My Husband? (Reinhold Schünzel, 1932).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 184/1. Photo: Ufa. Willy Fritsch in Saison in Kairo/Cairo Season (Reinhold Schünzel, 1933).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 195/1. Photo: Ufa. Renate Müller and Hermann Thimig in Viktor und Viktoria/Viktor and Viktoria (Reinhold Schünzel, 1933).


German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 94. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Willy Fritsch and Käthe von Nagy in Die Töchter ihrer Exzellenz/The Daughters of Her Excellence (Reinhold Schünzel, 1934).


German collector card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 97, group 44. Photo: Cine-Allianz/ Ross Verlag. Adolf Wohlbrück (Anton Walbrook) and Renate Müller in Die englische Heirat/The English Marriage (Reinhold Schünzel, 1934).


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8881, 1934-1935. Photo: Cine Allianz / Europa. Adele Sandrock in Die englische Heirat/The English Marriage (Reinhold Schünzel, 1934).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9172/3, 1935-1936. Photo: Ufa. Willy Fritsch in Amphitryon/Amphitryon - Happiness from the Clouds (Reinhold Schünzel, 1935).


Hungarian postcard. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ilona Massey and Nelson Eddy in Balalaika (Reinhold Schünzel, 1939).


Hungarian postcard by Athenaeum Color. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ilona Massey and Nelson Eddy in Balalaika (Reinhold Schünzel, 1939).

Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Filmportal, Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.