Rialto Film is a Danish/German film company originally founded by Constantin Philpsen (1 Dec 1859-23 Aug 1925) in 1897 [1]. His son Constantin Preben Philipsen (18 Jan 1910-21 Sept 2005) took over the company in 1950. Little is known about Rialto's productions prior to 1950.[1].
Rialto became internationally famous with the release of 32 films based on the works of Edgar Wallace and 9 films based on the works of Karl May under director Harald Reinl and, from 1960, co-owner Horst Wendlandt [2][3]. As was the practice of mainstream and successful European cinema, most of the films were international co-productions.[4] Wendtandt was succeeded in 1992 by his son Matthias as general director.[2]