Curt Siodmak

film
credits

by Hans J. Wollstein film biography

The younger brother of director Robert Siodmak, Dresden-born author, screenwriter, and director Curt Siodmak broke into the film business as an extra in Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis (1926). Siodmak was a newspaper reporter at the time and was mainly interested in writing a story about Lang and his film. But screen work appealed to Siodmak's sense of adventure and in 1929, he and Billy Wilder co-wrote Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) directed by brother Robert and the young Edgar C. Ulmer. Curt Siodmak enjoyed some success with the German science fiction thriller F.P. 1 Antwortet Nicht (Platform 1 Does Not Answer), but like so many of his contemporaries, he was forced to flee Nazi Germany in favor of first Great Britain and then Hollywood, where he finally arrived in 1937. Through a friend, German expatriate director Joe May, Siodmak landed with Universal where he wrote or co-wrote screenplays for a series of genre films that included The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1942), the intelligent Son of Dracula (1942), and I Walked With a Zombie (1944). The last, written for producer Val Lewton, contains perhaps Siodmak's most haunting work and remains a classic of the horror genre. In 1942, Siodmak published the influential science fiction novel Donovan's Brain in which a scientist manages to keep alive the brain of a tyrannical industrialist with unexpected and horrifying results. Based in part on Siodmak's screenplay for Black Friday (1940) in which benign college professor Boris Karloff turns into a vicious gangster after a brain transplant, Donovan's Brain itself was filmed in 1944 as The Monster and the Lady, in 1953 under its original title, and in England in 1965 as simply The Brain. In the 1950s, Siodmak began a brief directorial career that included the dreadful but still eminently watchable voodoo "epic" The Bride of the Gorilla (1951); The Magnetic Monster (1953), which had special effects "borrowed" from the 1934 German Gold; and The Devil's Messenger (1961) starring Lon Chaney Jr. The last was made on nearly no budget at all and was mostly recycled footage from a 1950s Swedish television series No. 13 Demon Street. Siodmak returned to Europe in the 1960s, but his work there was mediocre at best. His last assignment as a director was the German Liebesspiel im Schnee (1967) released in America in 1969 as Ski Fever and mainly of interest for the appearances of Dean Martin's daughter Claudia and European television stars Vivi Bach and Dietmar Schoenherr.

filmography snapshot

1930

1935

1940

1945

1950

1955

1960

1965

Year	Title	Rating
1929	Mascottchen Screenwriter
1930	The Shot in The Talker Studio Screen Story
1931	Der Mann, Der Seinen Moerder Sucht Screenwriter
1931	Le Bal Screenwriter
1933	F.P. 1 Antwortet Nicht Screen Story
1933	F.P.1 Screenwriter
1933	Marion, das Gehoert Sich Nicht Screen Story
1934	Girls Will Be Boys Screen Story, Screenwriter
1935	It's a Bet Screenwriter
1935	Transatlantic Tunnel Screenwriter
1937	Non-Stop New York Screenwriter
1938	Her Jungle Love Screen Story
1938	The Loves of Madame Dubarry Screenwriter
1940	Black Friday Screenwriter
1940	The Ape Screenwriter
1940	The Invisible Man Returns Screenwriter
1940	The Invisible Woman Screen Story
1941	Aloma of the South Seas Screenwriter
1941	Pacific Blackout Screen Story
1941	The Wolf Man Screenwriter
1942	Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman Screenwriter
1942	Invisible Agent Screenwriter
1942	London Blackout Murders Screenwriter
1943	False Faces Screenwriter
1943	I Walked with a Zombie Screenwriter
1943	Son of Dracula Screen Story
1943	The Mantrap Screenwriter
1943	The Purple V Screenwriter
1944	House of Frankenstein Screenwriter
1944	The Climax Screenwriter
1944	The Lady and the Monster Screen Story
1945	Frisco Sal Screenwriter
1945	Shady Lady Screenwriter
1946	The Beast with Five Fingers Screenwriter
1946	The Return of Monte Cristo Screen Story
1948	Berlin Express Screen Story
1949	Tarzan's Magic Fountain Screenwriter
1950	Four Days Leave Screenwriter
1951	Bride of the Gorilla Screenwriter, Director
1953	Donovan's Brain Screen Story
1953	The Magnetic Monster Director, Screenwriter
1954	Riders to the Stars Screenwriter
1954	Tales of Frankenstein Director
1955	Creature with the Atom Brain Screenwriter
1956	Curucu, Beast of the Amazon Screenwriter, Director
1956	Earth vs. the Flying Saucers Screen Story
1957	Love Slaves of the Amazons Director, Screenwriter, Producer
1962	Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace Screenwriter
1962	The Brain Screen Story
1962	The Devil's Messenger Director
1964	Vengeance Screen Story
1965	Ski Fever Screenwriter, Director
1998	Universal Horror Participant
2001	Ritual From Screenplay by
2010	The Wolfman From Screenplay by

rovi review
rovi pick

SHOW ALL

Music Genres

Stage & Screen

Movie Genres

Active

1929 - 2000

Born

August 10, 1902 in Dresden, Germany

Died

September 2, 2000 in Three Rivers, CA

Submit corrections