Géza von Radványi

Géza von Radványi
Born 26 September 1907
Kassa, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Košice in eastern Slovakia)
Died 27 November 1986 (aged 79)
Budapest, Hungary
Occupation Film director
Years active 1947–1980

Géza von Radványi (26 September 1907 – 27 November 1986) was a Hungarian film director, cinematographer, producer and writer.

Biography

Brother of the writer Sándor Márai, Géza von Radványi made his debut in journalism before moving to cinema in 1941. He aimed to create a popular cinema in the 1950s and 1960s that would rival Hollywood studios, due to European coproductions.

He began at the end of the 1940s, with Valahol Európában and Donne senza nome, neorealist dramas with no concession to the ravages of war and the postwar period. During the 1950s, von Radványi changed his style: L'Étrange Désir de monsieur Bard, with Michel Simon and Geneviève Page (1953), and, above all, the success of his remake of Mädchen in Uniform with Lilli Palmer, Marthe Mercadier and the young rising star, Romy Schneider (1958). He also made in the same decade Douze heures d'horloge , a thriller based on a script by Boileau and Narcejac, with Lino Ventura and Laurent Terzieff, as well as a slapstick comedy, Mademoiselle Ange with Romy Schneider and Henri Vidal (1959).

During the 1960s, he became both more ambitious and more bankable, making 70 mm coproductions like, Onkel Toms Hütte with Mylène Demongeot and Herbert Lom (1965), and Der Kongreß amüsiert sich with Lilli Palmer, Curd Jürgens, Paul Meurisse and Françoise Arnoul (1966), both of which were rather unsuccessful.

The tomb of Géza von Radványi in Budapest.

In contrast, he surprisingly wrote the script for the successful film produced by[1] Louis de Funès, L'homme orchestre, directed by Serge Korber (1970). His 1961 film Das Riesenrad was entered into the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival.[2] His 1965 film Uncle Tom's Cabin was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.[3]

Géza von Radványi ended his career with a modest production made in his home country, Circus Maximus (1980).

Selected filmography

Bibliography

He published many crime novels under the pseudonym Géza Radvany :

REFERENCES

Article on Somewhere in Europe https://www.academia.edu/3379171/The_Continent_in_Ruins_and_its_Redeeming_Orphans_Geza_Radvanyi_and_Bela_Balazss_Somewhere_in_Europe_and_the_Rebuilding_of_the_Post-war_Polis

Notes

.

References

  1. Papillons de Paris, pas de deux.
  2. "2nd Moscow International Film Festival (1961)". MIFF. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
  3. "4th Moscow International Film Festival (1965)". MIFF. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
  4. Extract of the fourth cover page of the novel Les Otages de la nuit.

External links