This is an overview of 1924 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.
Elisabeth Bergner was an Austrian-British actress. Primarily a stage actress, her career flourished in Berlin and Paris before she moved to London to work in films. Her signature role was Gemma Jones in Escape Me Never, a play written for her by Margaret Kennedy. She played Gemma, first in London and then in the Broadway debut, and in a film version for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1943, Bergner returned to Broadway in the play The Two Mrs. Carrolls, for which she won the Distinguished Performance Medal from the Drama League.
Hans Walter Conrad Veidt was a German actor. He attracted early attention for his roles in the films Different from the Others (1919), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and The Man Who Laughs (1928). After a successful career in German silent films, where he was one of the best-paid stars of UFA, Veidt and his new Jewish wife Ilona Prager left Germany in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. The couple settled in Britain, where he took citizenship in 1939. He appeared in many British films, including The Thief of Bagdad (1940), before emigrating to the United States around 1941, which led to his being cast in what may be his best remembered role as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942). This was Veidt's last film role to be released during his lifetime.
Paul Czinner was a Hungarian-born British writer, film director, and producer.
Waxworks is a 1924 German silent anthology film directed by Paul Leni. The film encompasses several genres, including a fantasy adventure, a historical film, and a horror film through its various episodes. Its stories are linked by a plot thread about a writer who accepts a job from a waxworks proprietor to write a series of stories about the exhibits of Caliph of Baghdad, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper in order to boost business.
Erna Morena was a German film actress, film producer, and screenwriter of the silent era. She appeared in 104 films between 1913 and 1951.
Dimitri Buchowetzki (1885–1932) born Dmitry Savelyevych Bukhovecky was a Russian film director, screenwriter, and actor in Germany, Sweden, United States, United Kingdom, and France.
The Ruler is a 1937 German drama film directed by Veit Harlan. It was adapted from the play of the same name by Gerhart Hauptmann. Erwin Leiser calls it a propagandistic demonstration of the Führerprinzip of Nazi Germany. The film's sets were designed by the art director Robert Herlth. Location shooting took place around Oberhausen and Pompeii near Naples. It premiered at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin.
Hanna Ralph was a German stage and film actress whose career began on the stage and in silent film in the 1910s and continued through the early 1950s.
The Fiddler of Florence is a 1926 German silent comedy film directed by Paul Czinner and starring Elisabeth Bergner, Conrad Veidt, and Nora Gregor. The film was shot at the EFA Studios in Berlin and on location around Lake Lugano in Italy. It premiered at the Gloria-Palast in Berlin. It reunited Bergner and Veidt who had starred together in the successful Husbands or Lovers, also directed by Czinner.
Auguste Marie Christine Holl was a German actress and singer. Holl was briefly a silent film star during the early Weimar Republic, appearing in productions such as F. W. Murnau's Desire (1921). As of 2021, only one of her films survives.
The Story of Dida Ibsen is a 1918 German silent drama film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Anita Berber, Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss. It is an adaptation of Margarete Böhme's 1907 novel of the same title, a sequel to her best-known work The Diary of a Lost Girl. It was one of a series of enlightenment films made by Oswald during the period.
The Broken Jug is a 1937 German historical comedy film directed by Gustav Ucicky and starring Emil Jannings, Friedrich Kayßler and Max Gülstorff. It is an adaptation of the play The Broken Jug by Heinrich von Kleist. The film was a favorite of Adolf Hitler.
Love Is Blind is a 1925 German silent comedy film directed by Lothar Mendes and starring Lil Dagover, Conrad Veidt and Lillian Hall-Davis. It was shot at the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin. The film's sets were designed by Hans Jacoby. It was produced and distributed by UFA, Germany's largest film company of the Weimar Era.
Manolescu's Memoirs is a 1920 German silent film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Conrad Veidt, Erna Morena and Lilli Lohrer.
Diary of a Lost Woman is a 1918 German silent drama film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Erna Morena, Reinhold Schünzel, and Werner Krauss. The rising star Conrad Veidt also appeared. It is now considered a lost film. It was remade at the end of the silent era as Diary of a Lost Girl by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
Christian Wahnschaffe is a 1920 German silent drama film directed by Urban Gad and starring Conrad Veidt, Lillebil Ibsen, and Fritz Kortner. It was released in two parts World Ablaze (Weltbrand) in November 1920 and The Escape from the Golden Prison in March 1921. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same title by Jakob Wassermann. The film is extant, and was restored in 2018 by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung.
The Sea Battle is a 1917 German silent war film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt. Comparatively little is known about the production, which is now a lost film.
The Night of Decision is a 1931 American drama film directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki and starring Conrad Veidt, Olga Chekhova, and Peter Voß. Based on the 1928 play The General by Lajos Zilahy, it is also known by the alternative title of Der General. It was made at the Joinville Studios in Paris as the German-language version of the Hollywood production The Virtuous Sin. It is now considered a lost film.
Prostitution is a 1919 German silent drama film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Conrad Veidt, Reinhold Schünzel and Gussy Holl. It was released in two parts Das gelbe Haus and Die sich verkaufen. It was one of several enlightenment films made during the era by Oswald. The physician Magnus Hirschfeld was an advisor on the production. The first part premiered at the Marmorhaus in Berlin.
