Erich Pommer (July 20, 1889 – May 8, 1966) was a German-born film producer and executive. He was involved in the German Expressionist film movement during the silent era as the head of production at Ufa from 1924 to 1926 responsible for many of the best known movies of the Weimar Republic such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), Mikaël (1924), Der Letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924), Variety (1925), Tartuffe (1926), Faust (1926), Metropolis (1927) and The Blue Angel (1930). He later worked in American exile before returning to Germany for a time after the war.
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Pommer was born in Hildesheim, Province of Hanover, to Gustav Pommer and his wife Anna. After a commercial practice with the Herrenkonfektion Machol & Lewin, Pommer begins his film career in 1907, with the Berlin branch of the Gaumont company, eventually taking over the Viennese branch in 1910. In 1912, Pommer concluded his military service and became a representative of the French Éclair camera company in Vienna, where was responsible for their business in Central and Eastern Europe. From 1913, he was Éclair general representative for Central Europe, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Poland, based out of Berlin. In the same year, he married Gertrud Levy and became, together with Marcel Vandal, the director-general of Éclair, the Viennese film company. Under Pommer's direction, the company begins the production of feature films including Das Geheimnis der Lüfte / Le mystère de l'air (in English, the Mystery of the Air). Another 5 films followed in 1915.
With French capital from Éclair, and together with Fritz Holz, Pommer establishes in 1915 the Decla-Film-Gesellschaft-Holz & Co.(Decla Film Society Holz & Co.) in Berlin. The Decla ("German Eclair") produces adventure and detective films, drama, and society pieces, as well as short film series. Its own Decla rental business, led by Hermann Saklikower, also presents foreign films. Pommer serves in the First World War at the West and Eastern fronts, but injuries suffered in action led him to return to Berlin in 1916, where he was responsible for recruiting teachers and later for the Office for Film and Picture (Bufa). After the 1919 merger of Decla with the Meinert-Film-Gesellschaft, Rudolf Meinert leads production and Erich Pommer takes charge of representation abroad. Decla production becomes more ambitious. The brands "Decla Abenteuerklasse" (producing, among others, Fritz Lang's Die Spinnen. 2. Teil: Die Brillantenschiff (The Spiders, Part 2: The Diamond Ship, 1920) and "Decla Weltklasse" (producing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), under the direction of Robert Wiene) are created.
Decla merged with German Bioskop AG to create the Decla Bioskop AG, thus becoming in 1920 the second largest German film company after Ufa. Decla owns a studio in Neubabelsberg and a cinema chain. Two subsidiaries are formed: Uco-Film GmbH and Russo Films. The Uco film GmbH, in whose establishment the Ullstein publishing house is involved, dedicates itself to filming continuation novels. Schloß Vogeloed-Die Enthüllung eines Geheimnisses (The Haunted Castle) and Phantom, under the direction of F. W. Murnau, as well as Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, are released. The adaptation of works of world literature is the focus on Russo Films. In an interview in 1922, Pommer stated the international success of the German films would have to be linked to the production of quality pictures.
Pommer gathered around him other directors (Carl Froelich and Fritz Wendhausen), script writers (Thea von Harbou, Carl Mayer, and Robert Liebmann), cameramen (Karl Freund, Carl Hoffmann, and Willy Hameister), architects (Walter Roehrig and Robert Herlth), as well as actors and actresses. In November 1921, the Decla Bioskop transferred to the Ufa, although it maintained a modicum of independence.
In early 1923, Erich Pommer joined the Ufa executive committee, to oversee the Decla Bioskop operations. At the same time, he becomes the first chairman of the Central Organization of the Film Industry (SPIO), which will shape German cinema during the Weimar Republic. The country's hyper inflation makes complex productions possible: in that time the work of several classical authors are adapted into movies, and internationally successful big budget films released like Der letzte Mann (The Last Laugh, 1924), Variety (1925), Faust (1926), and Manon Lescaut (1926). High production costs lead Ufa to a financial crisis. Finally, due to the enormous cost increase of Metropolis (6 million marks, the most expensive to date) Pommer's contract is not extended.
Working for Paramount Pictures in the USA, he produced two films starring Pola Negri, Hotel Imperial and Barbed Wire (both 1927). After a short period at MGM, Pommer returns to Ufa (1927). From the USA, Pommer brought organizational and technical novelties, such as the use of turning plans or of camera crane cars. As producer of the "Erich-Pommer-Produktion der Ufa" (Erich Pommer production of the Ufa), he produces Heimkehr (Homecoming) and Ungarische Rhapsodie (Hungarian Rhapsody, both 1928). Pommer is a pioneer of versions in multiple languages: Melodie des Herzens/Melody of the Heart, produced at the end of 1929 in Berlin, is produced in an English, French, Hungarian as well as a silent version. The "Erich-Pommer-Produktion der Ufa" turns several box office hits in the following years, most notably Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930), starring Marlene Dietrich.
In the course of "Arisierung" ("Aryanization") in Germany during the early months of the Nazi regime in 1933, Ufa rescinded Pommer's contract and he is forced to work abroad joining the Fox Film Corporation, first in Paris, where he produces Max Ophüls' On a volé un homme (1933) and Fritz Lang's Liliom (1934), then in Hollywood. In 1936, he works in Britain for Alexander Korda (Fire Over England, 1937). In 1937 he formed a production company, the Mayflower Picture Corp., with Charles Laughton. Their first film, Vessel of Wrath (1938 film) (also known as The Beachcomber) was Pommer's only attempt at directing a film. In 1938, he produced Sidewalks of London directed by Tim Whelan starring Laughton and Vivien Leigh) and in 1939 Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn with Laughton again.
In 1939 he signed with the RKO Radio Pictures, in Hollywood, for whom he produced two pictures. Becoming seriously ill in 1941 (he suffered a heart attack), his contract with RKO was not renewed. Pommer's financial difficulties forced him, and his wife, to work in a porcelain factory. Pommer becomes a naturalized American in 1944.
In 1946, Pommer returned to Germany, where he became the highest-ranking film officer of the American military Government responsible for the reorganisation of the German film industry overseeing the reconstruction of studios and assigning production licenses. After some controversy, in 1949 Pommer resigns his office and returns to the United States. He attempts to launch Signature Pictures to produce German-American films, an endeavor that failed.
In 1951 he started the "Intercontinental Film GmbH" in Munich, making several movies: Nachts auf den Strassen (1951) and Kinder, Mütter und ein General (1955). However, restrictions forced on Pommer lead him to resettle in California. Physically badly shaken - Pommer was confined to a wheelchaira after the amputatation of a leg - his career as a producer is ended.
Pommer died during 1966 in Los Angeles, California.
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