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Erich Pommer (July 20, 1889 – May 8, 1966) was a German-born film producer and executive. Pommer was the most important person in the German and European Film Industries in the 1920s and 1930s.〔Nowell-Smith p.145〕 He was involved in the German Expressionist film movement during the silent era as the head of production at Decla, Decla-Bioscop and from 1924 to 1926 at Ufa 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), ''Michael'' (1924), ''Der Letzte Mann / The Last Laugh'' (1924), ''Variety'' (1925), ''Tartuffe'' (1926), ''Manon Lescaut'' (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. == Early life and career == Pommer was born in Hildesheim, Province of Hanover, to Gustav Pommer and his wife Anna. After a brief apprenticeship with the Herrenkonfektion Machol & Lewin,〔Hardt p.16〕 Pommer began his film career in 1907, with the Berlin branch of the Gaumont company, eventually taking over as director of its Viennese branch in 1910.〔Hardt p.19〕 In 1912, Pommer concluded his military service and became a representative of the French Éclair camera company in Vienna, where he 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 in Berlin. In the same year, he married Gertrud Levy and became, together with Marcel Vandal, the director-general of the Viennese office of Éclair. Under Pommer's direction, the company began the production of feature films including ''Das Geheimnis der Lüfte'' / ''Le mystère de l'air'' (in English, the ''Mystery of the Air''), the first films he produced.〔Hardt p.20〕 Another five films followed in 1915. With French capital from Éclair, and together with Fritz Holz, Pommer - while serving as a soldier in 1915 at the Western front - established the Deutsche "Eclair" Film- und Kinematographen-GmbH ("Deutsche Eclair" or Decla) in Berlin.〔Jacobsen p.21〕 Decla produced adventure and detective films, drama, and society pieces, as well as short film series. Its own Decla film distribution business, led by Hermann Saklikower, also presented foreign films. Pommer served 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 teaching recruits and later worked for the Office for Film and Picture (Bufa) at the German War Ministry. After the 1919 merger of Decla with the Meinert-Film-Gesellschaft, Rudolf Meinert became head of production while Erich Pommer took charge of foreign distribution. Decla's production became 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" (including ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1919), under the direction of Robert Wiene) were created. Decla merged with Deutsche Bioskop AG to create Decla Bioskop AG, thus becoming in 1920 the second largest German film company after Ufa. Decla owned a studio in Neubabelsberg and a cinema chain. Two subsidiaries were formed: Uco-Film GmbH and Russo Films. The Uco Film GmbH, in whose establishment the Ullstein publishing house was involved, dedicated itself to filming serials from novels. ''Schloß Vogelöd / The Haunted Castle'' and ''Phantom'', under the direction of F. W. Murnau, as well as Fritz Lang's ''Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler'', were released. The adaptation of works of world literature was the focus of 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 talented 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, Decla-Bioskop was taken over by Universum Film AG (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 became the first chairman of the Central Organization of the German Film Industry (SPIO), which would shape German cinema during the Weimar Republic. The country's hyper inflation made expensive productions possible: in that time the work of several classical authors were 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). Pommer led Ufa to unprecedented worldwide prestige.〔Hardt p.87〕 However, Pommer came to disagree with the policies of Ufa's new CEO Ferdinand Bausback, including the Parufamet agreement〔Jacobsen p.75〕 (which later proved disastrous for Ufa as Pommer had predicted〔Hardt p.88-89〕). To save face, Bausback and the Ufa board blamed the company's troubles on increasing production costs, especially cost overruns of Fritz Lang's ''Metropolis'' (UFA's most expensive film to date), and even on Pommer himself.〔Hardt p.89-91〕 In January 1926, Pommer resigned from Ufa,〔Hardt p.92〕 and a few months later, he left with his family for Hollywood. He was followed by a number of his production and acting team, including film directors Ludwig Berger, Paul Leni, E.A. Dupont, Lothar Mendes, and William Dieterle and actors Conrad Veidt, Emil Jannings, and Lya de Putti.〔Hardt p.92〕 Working for Paramount Pictures, Pommer produced two films starring Pola Negri, ''Hotel Imperial'' and ''Barbed Wire'' (both 1927). He then was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to supervise all units involving foreign directors.〔Hardt p.98〕 His films at MGM included ''The Demi-Bride'' with Norma Shearer, ''California'' with Tim McCoy, and ''Mockery'' with Lon Chaney.〔Hardt p.102-104〕 Meanwhile, Ufa had been acquired by the right-wing press magnate Alfred Hugenberg, and in July 1927, he sent Ufa's new CEO Ludwig Klitzsch to America to bring Pommer back to Germany.〔Jacobsen p.83〕 From the USA, Pommer brought organizational and technical innovations, such as the use of shooting schedules and camera crane cars. As head of the "Erich-Pommer-Produktion der Ufa" (Erich Pommer production of the Ufa), he produced ''Heimkehr'' (''Homecoming'') and ''Ungarische Rhapsodie'' (''Hungarian Rhapsody'', both 1928). His last silent productions were ''Asphalt'' directed by Joe May and ''Die wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna'' starring Brigitte Helm and Franz Lederer Pommer was a pioneer of sound film in Germany and of multiple language versions (MLV) as a means to cope with selling big productions to different countries: ''Melodie des Herzens / Melody of the Heart'', made at the end of 1929 in Berlin, was produced in a German, English, French, Hungarian as well as a silent version. The film also created the Operetta film genre. The "Erich-Pommer-Produktion der Ufa" turned out several international box office hits in the following years, most notably Josef von Sternberg's ''The Blue Angel'' (1930), starring Marlene Dietrich. Among his productions was a series of popular musical comedies such as ''Die Drei von der Tankstelle'' and ''Der Kongreß tanzt'' / ''Congress Dances'' and the science fiction spectacle ''F.P.1'', which was shot in three language versions. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Erich Pommer」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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