List of West German films of 1953. This was the fourth full year of film production since the formal partition of Germany into East and West in 1949. Major production centres were gathered in Hamburg, Munich and West Berlin. A number of co-productions were made between West Germany and Austria.
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The film industry in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema made major technical and artistic contributions to early film, broadcasting and television technology. Babelsberg became a household synonym for the early 20th century film industry in Europe, similar to Hollywood later. Early German and German-speaking filmmakers and actors heavily contributed to early Hollywood.
DEFA was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic throughout the country's existence.
Cinema of Austria refers to the film industry based in Austria. Austria has had an active cinema industry since the early 20th century when it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and that has continued to the present day. Producer Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky, producer-director-writer Luise Kolm and the Austro-Hungarian directors Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda were among the pioneers of early Austrian cinema. Several Austrian directors pursued careers in Weimar Germany and later in the United States, among them Fritz Lang, G. W. Pabst, Josef von Sternberg, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, and Otto Preminger.
Victor Tourjansky, born Vyacheslav Konstantinovich Turzhansky, was a Russian actor, screenwriter and film director who emigrated after the Russian Revolution of 1917. He worked in France, Germany, Italy, and the United States.
Operetta films are a genre of musical films associated with, but not exclusive to, German language cinema. The genre began in the late 1920s, but its roots stretch back into the tradition of nineteenth century Viennese operettas.
Arthur Maria Rabenalt was an Austrian film director, writer, and author. He directed more than 90 films between 1934 and 1978. His 1958 film That Won't Keep a Sailor Down was entered into the 1st Moscow International Film Festival. Two years later, his 1960 film Big Request Concert was entered into the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival. His career encompassed both Nazi cinema and West German productions. He also wrote several books on the 1930s and 1940s wave of German cinema.
Gloria Film was a West German film production and distribution company. It was established in 1949 by Ilse Kubaschewski. An earlier, unconnected company of the same name had existed during the silent era in Germany, and had been absorbed into UFA in the 1920s. During the 1930s an Austrian production company also called itself Gloria.
The Tempelhof Studios are a film studio located in Tempelhof in the German capital of Berlin. They were founded in 1912, during the silent era, by German film pioneer Alfred Duskes, who built a glass-roofed studio on the site with financial backing from the French company Pathé. The producer Paul Davidson's PAGU then took control and constructed a grander structure. The First World War propaganda drama The Yellow Passport, the historical comedy Madame DuBarry and the expressionist 1920 silent film The Golem were made there by PAGU.
The Rosenhügel Studios are film studios located in the Austrian capital Vienna. They were opened in 1923 and originally owned by the Vita-Film production company. After the company's bankruptcy the following year the studios were taken over by Sascha Film, the largest of the Austrian companies of the era. In the early 1930s Sascha formed a partnership with the German outfit Tobis Film to renovate the studios for production of sound films. A number of Austrian hit films were produced there during the remainder of the decade.
Deutsche London Film or Deutsche London-Film was a West German film distribution company active from 1940 to 1956. Handling both domestic productions and imports, and concentrating on popular film genres, it established itself as one of the bigger distributors. This took place during the economic recovery of the German film industry in the post-Second World War period, as audiences reached peak numbers by the mid-1950s.
