Michał Waszyński

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Michał Waszyński on the cover his French biography by Samuel Blumenfeld

Michał Waszyński (29 September 1904 – 20 February 1965) (born Michał Waks) was first a film director in his native Poland, then in Italy, and later (as Michael Waszynski) a producer of the major American movies, mainly in Spain. Known for his elegance and impeccable manners he was called by people who knew him "the prince".

Waszyński was born into a Polish-Jewish family as Michał Waks in 1904 in Kowle, a small Jewish town in Volhynia (now in Ukraine), which at the time was part of Imperial Russia. As Germany occupied this part of Europe during World War I, he moved first to Warsaw and later to Berlin. As a young man he worked as an assistant director of the legendary German director F.W. Murnau. Upon his return to Poland he changed his name to Michał Waszyński and converted to Catholicism.

In the 1930s Waszyński became the most prolific film director in Poland, directing 37 of the 147 films made in Poland in that decade, nearly one out of four. Along with the popular movies in Polish directed to a wide local audience, he directed an important movie in Yiddish The Dybbuk, today a monument of the rich cultural life of East European Jewry before the Holocaust.

At the beginning of World War II, when Poland was invaded from the West by Nazi Germany and from the East by the Soviet Union, Waszyński escaped from Warsaw, which was being bombed by German planes, to Białystok. That city was taken in mid-September 1939 by the Germans, but within weeks, as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the city was given to Soviet Union and occupied by its army. Waszyński began a new career as a theater director, first in Białystok and later in Moscow.

In summer of the 1941, after Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Waszyński joined newly formed Polish Army of general Władysław Anders (loyal to the Polish government in Exile in London) and subsequently was relocated to Persia (Iran), and later as a soldier of the 2nd Corps of the Polish Army to Egypt and Italy. As a member of the army film unit, he filmed the Battle of Monte Cassino, where the Polish Army suffered great losses, but helped to win the day.

After WWII, he stayed in Italy, where he directed a Polish language feature film about the Battle of Monte Cassino, and then three Italian films.

Later in his career, Waszyński worked as a producer for the major American studios in Italy and (primarily) Spain, credited as Michael Waszynski. His credits include The Quiet American (1958) (associate producer), El Cid (1961), and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) ((executive producer and associate producer).

He died of heart attack on 20 February 1965 in Madrid, and was buried in Rome.

[edit] Filmography

Waszyński's most important films as a director are:

Kult Ciala (The Cult of the Body) (1930)
ABC Milosci (ABC of Love) (1935)
Papa sie Zeni (The Father Marries) (1936)
Dybbuk (The Dybbuk) (1937)
Znachor (The Witch Doctor) (1937)
Profesor Wilczur (Professor Wilczur) (1938)
Druga Mlodosc (Second Youth) (1938)
Wielka droga (La Grande Strada or The Great Road aka L'Odissea di Montecassino'), Polish film produced in Italy, (1946, Italian version completed in 1948, with the collaboration of Vittorio Cottafavi); with Jadwiga Andrzejewska
Lo Sconosciuto di San Marino ( Unknown Men of San Marino ) (1946), co-directed with Vittorio Cottafavi; with Anna Magnani and Vittorio De Sica
Fiamme sul mare (1947)