Arthur Maria Rabenalt
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.
Career
In his early teens, Rabenalt began his stage career directing operas at theatres in Darmstadt, Berlin and Gera. From then on to the mid-1920s he worked as a production assistant on several films such including G. W. Pabst's Joyless Street. After Nazi's rise to power, Rabenalt made his feature film debut directing the musical comedy, What Am I Without You, which was then shortly followed with the release of the comedy Pappi. He continued to work in different genres, including The Love of the Maharaja, and Men Are That Way and Midsummer Night's Fire which were released in 1939.Throughout the 1940s, Rabaenalt worked with melodramatic dramas and comedy. Some of his early films in the 1940s, such as Riding for Germany, supported Nazi ideology. In 1989, he said "I had only made circus films and chamber-type entertainment films since 1941. The only Nazi film I knew was... rides for Germany, and it was admired. The first films of mine that were distributed again after the war were Circus Renz and Regimental Music. The controversy about... rides for Germany came much later.
After the war he resumed his stage career as a director, beginning with the East German production, Chemistry and Love, satire on anti-capitalism based on a play by Bela Balasz. He continued to work on productions for East German state studio DEFA until 1948. In the 1950s, he moved into more mainstream entertainment, including the Weimar horror remake of Alraune, which starred Hildegard Knef and Erich von Stroheim.
From 1960, Rabanalt worked only in television, adapting classic comedies and operettas for a mainstream audience. He also wrote several erotic pulp fiction books as well as memoirs and factual books about Nazi Germany.