Film Forno

Max Reinhardt, king of German theater had to flee Nazi oppression at the height of his creative success. He came to America, staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Hollywood Bowl and was signed to a contract by Warner Bros. to direct a film version. I guess it didn’t make money because Reinhardt didn’t get to make any other films. But the film he did make with William Dieterle co-directing is incredibly beautiful. Fantastic images in luminous Black and White, they must have upped the silver content in that batch of nitrate film because the images positively glow!

A number of Reinhardt’s collaborators from Germany re-located to Hollywood and created some of the most creative films ever made there. Dieterle made the incredible Portrait Of Jennie, a magical film beloved by none other than the great Surrealist Luis Bunuel.

Although Dieterle was driven to drink and a nervous breakdown by the incessant barrage of telegrams from amphetamine fueled producer David O. Selznick. The cameraman Joseph August of that film died soon after of a heart attack, Selznick strikes again? John Brahm, director of The Lodger, The Locket, and Hangover Square was a Reinhardt alumnus.

John Brahm

So was Otto Preminger, not a filmmaker of Fantasy, but definetly a ground-breaker when it came to sex, race, drugs, Black-Listing. Plus he directed the archtypal Laura.

Mr. Freeze says “Where’s Dorothy Dandridge?”

And Edgar G. Ulmer labored in the Art Department for Reinhardt. He directed the Bauhaus influenced Horror fim The Black Cat. A curious coincidence, Reinhardt opened an Acting School in Hollywood to pay his bills, Anne Savage attended and hit it off with Max, she later starred in Ulmer’s Detour.

Edgar G. Ulmer, a Black Cat crossed his path at Universal

Here’s a promotional film about the making of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

This post is about the super talented Art Director Albert S. D’Agostino. He designed the sets for some great Universal horror films of the 30’s, like The Raven with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi and The Invisible Ray also with Karloff and Lugosi.

We’ll put the embalming machine right there.

Then he moved over to my favorite studio, the crazy house RKO. Here he worked on some more masterpieces of supernatural atmosphere, all of Val Lewton’s classics- The Cat People, The Leopard Man, I Walked With A Zombie, Curse Of The Cat People.

The Cat People

Who ordered The Zombie?

While at RKO he was made head of the Art Department and he is credited on hundreds of films including some incredible noirs like Out Of The Past, The Spiral Staircase andClash By Night.

One Of My All Time Favorites

And Howard Hawk’s The Thing From Another World! His credits are mind boggling. I’m attaching a scan of an article from the summer 1971 issue of Cinefantastique by Gary D. Dorst written at the time of D’Agostino’s death. If anyone has any more information about him or knew him please let me know, I’d love to get more information on Mr. D’Agostino.
Here’s a link to a great article about him:http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Ch-De/D-Agostino-Albert-S.html
And here is the scan of the CineFantastique article

Albert D’Agostino - CineFantastique

p.s. Our last names are very similar, I always wondered if we might be related.