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Edgar G. UlmerFilm director Edgar G. Ulmer (1904-1972) is mostly remembered for the movies The Black Cat (1934) and Detour (1945). These stylish and eccentric works have achieved cult status, but Ulmer's other films remain relatively unknown. Ulmer was born September 17, 1914 in in Vienna, Austria he worked as a stage actor and set designer while studying architecture and philosophy before becoming a direcor. He set designed for Max Reinhardt's theater, served his apprenticeship with F. W. Murnau, and worked with collaborators including Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, and Eugen Schftan. He emigrated to Hollywood in the early '30s, working as a writer and as an art director. In 1933, Ulmer signed to Universal Pictures as a director, making his debut with The Black Cat (1933), starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Ulmer career was spent mostly in Poverty Row cinema: after an early success at Universal with The Black Cat, Ulmer, for both personal reasons and a desire for creative independence, left the major studios behind. He specialized first in ethnic films, notably four in Yiddish, and then found a niche making melodramas on miniscule budgets and with often unpromising scripts and actors for PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation). Through the rest of his career, Ulmer worked for low-budget enterprises in America and Europe. Detour (1945) has achieved considerable acclaim as a seminal example of film noir, and was picked by the Library of Congress as one of the first group of 100 films worthy of special preservation efforts. Wife Shirley Ulmer acted as script supervisor on nearly all of her director-husband films from 1934 on. He directed his last film, The Cavern, in Italy in 1964; several years later, he suffered a crippling stroke, and died September 30, 1972. Selected film works - Ruthless (1947)
- The Strange Woman (1947)
- Strange Illusion (1945)
- The Black Cat (1933)
- Detour (1945)
- Moon over Harlem
- Bluebeard (1944)
*The Man From Planet X (1951)
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