Stuart Webbs was a fictional detective who appeared in a series of German films and serials during the silent era. Webbs was one of a number of detectives with English-sounding names to appear in German cinema of the era. Like his contemporaries such as Joe Deebs he was modeled on Sherlock Holmes. [1] Webbs was the most popular of the group. His original film series ran from 1914 to 1926 [2] and he continued to appear in other later films such as The Green Monocle (1929).
Webbs was played by Ernst Reicher until 1926. A number of figures directed entries in the series including Joe May, Johannes Guter and Robert Wiene. The series was originally made by Continental-Kunstfilm, but following a dispute May and Reicher left to form their own production company.
Dragnet is an American radio, television and film series, following the exploits of dedicated Los Angeles Police Department Detective Joe Friday and his partners, created by actor and producer Jack Webb. The show took its name from the police term "dragnet", a term for a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Joe May was an Austrian film director and film producer and one of the pioneers of German cinema.
Ida Jenbach was an Austrian playwright and screenwriter for German and Austrian cinema during the 1920s. She was one of the authors of the spirited farce Opera Ball that appeared at the Little Carnegie Playhouse in New York City in 1931. New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall praised this comedy as “cleverly acted by the principals.” The Opera Ball (Opernredoute) was a German film that had “captions in English lettered on the scenes to keep those unfamiliar with German au courant of what is happening.”
Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset was an early film pioneer in France, active between the years 1905 and 1913. He worked on many genres of film and was particularly associated with the development of detective or crime serials, such as the Nick Carter and Zigomar series.
Die geheimnisvolle Villa is a 1914 silent German detective film directed by Joe May and starring Ernst Reicher. It is the first in the series starring the fictional gentleman detective Stuart Webbs, modelled on Sherlock Holmes. It also features Werner Krauss.
Ernst Reicher was a German-Jewish actor, screenwriter, film producer and film director of the silent era.
Heinrich August Franz Schroth was a German stage and film actor.
The Green Monocle is a 1929 German silent crime film directed by Rudolf Meinert and starring Ralph Clancy, Betty Bird and Suzy Vernon. The film was based on a novel by Guido Kreutzer. It features the fictional detective Stuart Webbs, one of several German fictional characters inspired by Sherlock Holmes, who had appeared in a series of silent films during the 1910s and 1920s.
Continental-Kunstfilm GmbH was a short-lived German film production company based in Berlin, formed in February 1912 by Walter Schmidthässler and Max Rittberger. A large number of Continental-Kunstfilm's productions are now probably lost, although some significant films have survived into the 21st century.
The Projektions-AG Union was a German film production company which operated between 1911 and 1924 during the silent era. From 1917 onwards, the company functioned as an independent unit of Universum Film AG, and was eventually merged into it entirely.
Leo Mittler was an Austrian playwright, screenwriter and film director. Mittler was born in Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a Jewish family. He attended the University of Music and Performing Arts and worked as a playwright and director in the German theatre. Mittler then switched to work in the booming German film industry during the silent era.
Cagliostro is a 1929 silent drama film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Hans Stüwe, Renée Héribel and Alfred Abel. It depicts the life of the eighteenth century Italian occultist Alessandro Cagliostro, portraying him more sympathetically than in most other works. It was based on a novel by Johannes von Guenther.
Carl Goetz was an Austrian stage and film actor. He appeared in around seventy films during the silent and early sound eras. Goetz was of a Jewish background. He is particularly noted for his role in Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929).
Max Landa was a Russian Empire-born Austrian silent film and stage actor.
Joe Deebs was a fictional detective who appeared in a series of German films and serials during the silent era. Along with Stuart Webbs and a number of other fictional cinema detective characters with Anglo-Saxon names, he was modeled on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. In 2009, Ken Wlaschin wrote that "Joe Deebs was one of the most famous screen detectives of the German silent cinema, the suave crime-solving star of at least thirty films."
Karl Falkenberg was a German-Jewish film actor.
The Armoured Vault is a 1926 German silent thriller film directed by Lupu Pick and starring Ernst Reicher, Johannes Riemann, and Mary Nolan. It was part of a popular series featuring the detective character Stuart Webbs, and a remake of an earlier film The Armoured Vault directed by Joe May in 1914.
The Weissensee Studios was a collection of separate film production studios located in the Berlin suburb of Weißensee during the silent era.
The Armoured Vault is a 1914 German silent thriller film directed by Joe May and starring Ernst Reicher, Hermann Picha and Fritz Richard. It was part of the series of Stuart Webbs series, popular during the silent era. It was remade in 1926 with Reicher reprising his role.
The Man in the Cellar is a 1914 German silent thriller film directed by Joe May and starring Ernst Reicher, Max Landa and Olga Engl. It was part of a series of films featuring the fictional detective Stuart Webbs.