The Great Waltz

Victor Lonzo Fleming was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were The Wizard of Oz , and Gone with the Wind , for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director. Fleming was born in La Canada, California, the son of Elizabeth Evaleen and William... Alonzo "Lon" Fleming, who worked in the water industry in Pasadena. His mother was of part German descent. Fleming served in the photographic section during World War I, and acted as chief photographer for President Woodrow Wilson in Versailles, France. He showed a mechanical aptitude early in life; while working as a car mechanic he met the director Allan Dwan, who took him on as a camera assistant. Fleming soon rose to the rank of cinematographer, working with both Dwan and D. W. Griffith, and directed his first film in 1919. Many of Fleming's silent films were action movies, often starring Douglas Fairbanks, or Westerns, and with his robust attitude and love of outdoor sports he became known as a "man's director". But he also proved an effective director of women.
more

Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich. Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a... Jewish family in Vienna. When he was two years old the family moved to America, and he spent most of his childhood in New York City and Lynbrook, New York. His father, Moses Sternberg, a former soldier in the army of Austria-Hungary, twice tried to make a home for the family in the US before finding employment as a lace worker. . Von Sternberg dropped out of Jamaica High School and worked as an errand boy in a lace warehouse. He later obtained a job cleaning and repairing movie prints, and by about 1915 found himself working for William A.
more

Julien Duvivier was a French film director. He was prominent in French cinema in the years 1930-1960. Amongst his most original films, chiefly notable are La Bandera, Pépé le Moko, Panique, Voici le temps des assassins and Marianne de ma jeunesse. It was as an actor, in 1916 at the... Théâtre de l'Odéon under the direction of Andre Antoine, that Duvivier's career began. In 1918 he moved on to Gaumont, as a writer and assistant of, amongst others, André Antoine, Louis Feuillade and Marcel L'Herbier. In 1919 he directed his first film. In the 1920s several of his films had a religious concern; - Credo ou la tragédie de Lourdes, L'abbé Constantin and La Vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin - a film about the Carmelite saint Thérèse of Lisieux. In the 1930s Duvivier was part of the production company, 'Film d'Art', founded by Marcel Vandal and Charles Delac and he worked as part of a team. He stayed with them for nine years. David Golder, made in 1930, was his first success. It was also his first 'talkie' , as it was of the actor Harry Baur. They worked together many more times in the 1930s.
more