Michael Curtiz

Filmmakers

Michael Curtiz (born Manó Kaminer (December 24, 1886 – April 11, 1962) was a Hungarian-born American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history. He directed classic films from the silent era and numerous others during Hollywood’s Golden Age, when the studio system was prevalent. He was already a well-known director in Europe when Warner Bros. invited him to Hollywood in 1926, when he was 39 years of age. He had already directed 64 films in Europe, and soon helped Warner Bros. become the fastest-growing movie studio. He directed 102 films during his Hollywood career, mostly at Warners, where he directed ten actors to Oscar nominations. James Cagney and Joan Crawford won their only Academy Awards under Curtiz’s direction. He put Doris Day and John Garfield on screen for the first time, and he made stars of Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Bette Davis. He himself was nominated five times and won twice, once for Best Short Subject for Sons of Liberty and once as Best Director for Casablanca.

Curtiz was among those who introduced to Hollywood a visual style using artistic lighting, extensive and fluid camera movement, high crane shots, and unusual camera angles. He was versatile and could handle any kind of picture: melodrama, comedy, love story, film noir, musical, war story, Western, or historical epic. He always paid attention to the human-interest aspect of every story, stating that the “human and fundamental problems of real people” were the basis of all good drama.

Curtiz helped popularize the classic swashbuckler with films such as Captain Blood (1935), with Flynn, de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Ross Alexander; and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), the latter he shared directing credit with William Keighley. He directed many dramas which today are also considered classics, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), with James Cagney; The Sea Wolf (1941), with with Edward G. Robinson, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, and Alexander Knox; Casablanca (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman; and Mildred Pierce (1945), with Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, and Zachary Scott. He directed leading musicals, including Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), with Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, and Richard Whorf; This Is the Army (1943), with George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Leslie, Alan Hale Sr., and Rosemary DeCamp; and White Christmas (1954), with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen; and he made comedies with Life With Father (1947), with William Powell and Irene Dunne; and We’re No Angels (1955), with Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Aldo Ray, Joan Bennett, Rathbone, and Leo G. Carroll.

Other notable performers he collaborated with included Bela Lugosi, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, John Wayne, Boris Karloff, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Lee Marvin, Sophia Loren, Angela Lansbury, Walter Matthau, Ernest Borgnine, Jean Simmons, Gene Tierney, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., Will Rogers Jr., Nancy Olson, Donna Reed, Jane Wyman, William Holden, Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, Kirk Douglas, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Doris Day, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, Randolph Scott, Vincent Price, Shirley Temple, Jack Lemmon, Leslie Nielsen, Paul Newman.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

  • The Last Bohemian (1912)
  • Today and Tomorrow (1912)
  • Captive Souls (1913)
  • My Husband’s Getting Married (1913)
  • The Exile (1914)
  • The Borrowed Babies (1914)
  • The Princess in a Nightrobe (1914)
  • Prisoner of the Night (1914)
  • Bánk Bán (1914)
  • Golddigger (1914)
  • One Who Is Loved By Two (1915)
  • Seven of Spades (1916)
  • The Strength of the Fatherland (1916)
  • The Karthauzer (1916)
  • The Black Rainbow (1916)
  • The Wolf (1916)
  • The Medic (1916)
  • Mr. Doctor (1916)
  • Master Zoard (1917)
  • The Red Samson (1917)
  • The Last Dawn (1917)
  • Spring in Winter (1917)
  • Tartar Invasion (1917)
  • Secret of St. Job Forest (1917)
  • Nobody’s Son (1917)
  • The Charlatan (1917)
  • A Penny’s History (1917)
  • The Fishing Bell (1917)
  • Earth’s Man (1917)
  • The Colonel (1917)
  • Peace’s Road (1917)
  • Jean the Tenant (1917)
  • The Merry Widow (1918)
  • Magic Waltz (1918)
  • A Skorpió I. (1918)
  • The Devil (1918)
  • Lulu (1918)
  • Lu, the Coquette (1918)
  • Júdás (1918)
  • The Ugly Boy (1918)
  • Alraune (1918)
  • 99 (1918)
  • The Sunflower Woman (1918)
  • Liliom (1919)
  • Jön az öcsém (1919)
  • The Lady with the Black Gloves (1919)
  • Boccaccio (1920)
  • The Star of Damascus (1920)
  • The Scourge of God (1920)
  • Mrs. Tutti Frutti (1921)
  • Good and Evil (1921)
  • Mrs. Dane’s Confession (1921)
  • Labyrinth of Horror (1921)
  • Sodom and Gomorrah (1922)
  • Young Medardus (1923)
  • Avalanche (1923)
  • Nameless (1923)
  • A Deadly Game (1924)
  • General Babka (1924)
  • Harun al Raschid (1924)
  • The Moon of Israel (1924)
  • Red Heels (1925)
  • Cab No. 13 (1926)
  • The Golden Butterfly (1926)
  • The Third Degree (1926) – American debut
  • A Million Bid (1927)
  • The Desired Woman (1927)
  • Good Time Charley (1927)
  • Tenderloin (1928)
  • Noah’s Ark (1928)
  • Glad Rag Doll (1929)
  • Madonna of Avenue A (1929)
  • The Gamblers (1929)
  • Hearts in Exile (1929)
  • Mammy (1930)
  • Under a Texas Moon (1930)
  • The Matrimonial Bed (1930)
  • Bright Lights (1930)
  • A Soldier’s Plaything (1930)
  • River’s End (1930)
  • Demon of the Sea (1931)
  • God’s Gift to Women (1931)
  • The Mad Genius (1931)
  • The Woman from Monte Carlo (1932)
  • Alias the Doctor (1932)
  • The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932)
  • Doctor X (1932)
  • The Cabin in the Cotton (1932)
  • 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
  • Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
  • The Keyhole (1933)
  • Private Detective 62 (1933)
  • Goodbye Again (1933)
  • The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
  • Female (1933)
  • Mandalay (1934)
  • Jimmy the Gent (1934)
  • The Key (1934)
  • British Agent (1934)
  • The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)
  • Black Fury (1935)
  • Front Page Woman (1935)
  • Little Big Shot (1935)
  • Captain Blood (1935)
  • The Walking Dead (1936)
  • The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)
  • Stolen Holiday (1937)
  • Mountain Justice (1937)
  • Kid Galahad (1937)
  • The Perfect Specimen (1937)
  • Gold Is Where You Find It (1938)
  • The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – co-directed
  • Four’s a Crowd (1938)
  • Four Daughters (1938)
  • Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
  • Dodge City (1939)
  • Sons of Liberty (1939)
  • Daughters Courageous (1939)
  • The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
  • Four Wives (1939)
  • Virginia City (1940)
  • The Sea Hawk (1940)
  • Santa Fe Trail (1940)
  • The Sea Wolf (1941)
  • Dive Bomber (1941)
  • Captains of the Clouds (1942)
  • Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
  • Casablanca (1942)**
  • Mission to Moscow (1943)
  • This Is the Army (1943)
  • Passage to Marseille (1944)
  • Janie (1944)
  • Roughly Speaking (1945)
  • Mildred Pierce (1945)
  • Night and Day (1946)
  • Life with Father (1947)
  • The Unsuspected (1947)
  • Romance on the High Seas (1948)
  • My Dream Is Yours (1949)
  • Flamingo Road (1949)
  • The Lady Takes a Sailor (1949)
  • Young Man with a Horn (1950)
  • Bright Leaf (1950)
  • The Breaking Point (1950)
  • Force of Arms (1951)
  • Jim Thorpe – All-American (1951)
  • I’ll See You in My Dreams (1951)
  • The Story of Will Rogers (1952)
  • The Jazz Singer (1952)
  • Trouble Along the Way (1953)
  • The Boy from Oklahoma (1954)
  • The Egyptian (1954)
  • White Christmas (1954)**
  • We’re No Angels (1955)
  • The Scarlet Hour (1956)
  • The Vagabond King (1956)
  • The Best Things in Life Are Free (1956)
  • The Helen Morgan Story (1957)
  • The Proud Rebel (1958)
  • King Creole (1958)
  • The Hangman (1959)
  • The Man in the Net (1959)
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960)
  • A Breath of Scandal (1960)
  • Francis of Assisi (1961)
  • The Comancheros (1961)