Felix Bressart
Also Known As: Феликс Брессарт
Biography: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Felix Bressart (March 2, 1892 – March 17, 1949) was a German-American actor of stage and screen. Felix Bressart (pronounced "BRESS-ert") was born in East Prussia, Germany (now part of Russia) and was already a very experienced stage actor when he had his film debut in 1928. He started off as a supporting actor, e.g. as the Bailiff in the box-office hit Die Drei von der Tankstelle (1930), but had soon established himself in leading roles of minor movies. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Jewish-born Bressart had to leave Germany and continued his career in German-speaking movies in Austria, where Jewish artists were still relatively safe. After no fewer than 30 films in eight years, he emigrated to the United States. One of Bressart's former European colleagues was Joe Pasternak, now a successful Hollywood producer. Bressart's first American film was Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939), a vehicle for Universal Pictures' top attraction, Deanna Durbin. Pasternak also selected the reliable Bressart to perform in a screen test opposite Pasternak's newest discovery, Gloria Jean. The influential German community in Hollywood helped to establish Bressart in America, as his earliest American movies were directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Henry Koster, and Wilhelm Thiele (director of Die Drei von der Tankstelle). Bressart scored a great success in Lubitsch's Ninotchka, produced at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM signed Bressart to a studio contract in 1939. Most of his MGM work consisted of featured roles in major films like Edison, the Man. He combined his mildly inflected East European accent with a soft-spoken delivery to create kindly, friendly characters, as in Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be, in which he sensitively recites Shylock's famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech from The Merchant of Venice. Lubitsch also directed Bressart to similar effect in The Shop Around the Corner. Bressart soon became a popular character actor in films like Blossoms in the Dust (1941), The Seventh Cross (1944), and Without Love (1945). Perhaps his largest role was in RKO Radio Pictures' "B" musical comedy Ding Dong Williams, filmed in 1945. Bressart, billed third, played the bemused supervisor of a movie studio's music department, and appeared in formal wear to conduct Chopin's "Fantasie Impromptu." After almost 40 Hollywood pictures, Felix Bressart suddenly died of leukemia at the age of 57. His last film was My Friend Irma (1949), the movie version of a popular radio show. Bressart died during production, forcing the producers to finish the film with Hans Conried. In the final film, Conried speaks throughout, but Bressart is still seen in the long shots. Description above from the Wikipedia article Felix Bressart, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Eydtkuhnen, East Prussia, Germany [now Chernyshevskoe, Russia]
Adult: No
Birthday: March 02, 1892
Age: 133 years old
Gender: Male
Deathday: March 17, 1949
Popularity:
Known For:
To Be or Not to Be
Overview: During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Genres: Comedy War Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-03-06
Popularity:
The Three from the Filling Station
Overview: Die Drei von der Tankstelle, meaning The Three from the Gas Station, was advertised as a German operetta when release and with it’s star studded cast would become the forerunner of Musical films. Even today the soundtrack of the comic harmonists is popular in Germany.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1930-09-15
Popularity:
The fight with the dragon or: The tragedy of the lodger
Overview: A meek clerk can no longer abide the nastiness of his boarding house proprietress and takes drastic action.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1930-08-13
Popularity:
Ninotchka
Overview: A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-11-23
Popularity:
The Shop Around the Corner
Overview: Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-01-12
Popularity:
Take One False Step
Overview: Catherine Sykes disappears after a midnight drive with Professor Andrew Gentling . When she's presumed murdered, his friend Martha convinces him that he's a prime suspect and should investigate before he's arrested.
Genres: Crime Drama Mystery Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-08-14
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Comrade X
Overview: An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-12-13
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Above Suspicion
Overview: Two newlyweds spy on the Nazis for the British Secret Service during their honeymoon in Europe.
Genres: Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-05-31
Popularity:
Crossroads
Overview: A French diplomat who's recovered from amnesia is blackmailed over crimes he can't remember.
Genres: Drama Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-07-23
Popularity:
Edison, the Man
Overview: In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.
Genres: History Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-05-10
Popularity:
It All Came True
Overview: After crooked nightclub owner murders a police informant, he blackmails his piano player to allow him to stay at his eccentric mother's boarding house.
Genres: Comedy Crime Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-04-06
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Third Finger, Left Hand
Overview: Magazine editor Margot Merrick pretends to be married in order to avoid advances from male colleagues. Unfortunately, things don't go to plan when Jeff Thompson, a potential suitor, uncovers the deception and decides to show up at Margot's family home posing as her husband!
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-10-11
Popularity:
Blossoms in the Dust
Overview: Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-08-15
Popularity:
The Seventh Cross
Overview: In Nazi Germany in 1936 seven men escape from a concentration camp. The camp commander puts up seven crosses and, as the Gestapo returns each escapee he is put to death on a cross. The seventh cross is still empty as George Heisler attempts an escape to freedom in Holland.
Genres: Drama Thriller War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-07-24
Popularity:
Escape
Overview: An American goes to pre-war Germany to find his mother and discovers her in a concentration camp. With the help of an American-born widowed countess he seeks to engineer her escape.
Genres: Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-11-01
Popularity:
Dangerous Partners
Overview: A young couple's accident could make them rich, if they can evade a Nazi spy ring.
Genres: Adventure Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-06-07
Popularity:
Blonde Fever
Overview: Peter and Delilah are a married couple running a roadside café in Nevada. Their stable partnership turns rocky, though, with the arrival of the sultry Sally, a waitress who catches Peter's wandering eye. Delilah strikes back by hiring Sally's boyfriend as a waiter. Sally is initially dismissive of Peter's advances, but when he wins $40,000 in a lottery, she quickly pounces, turning on the charm and eyeing the easy life.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-12-05
Popularity:
Swanee River
Overview: Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of the time, the film is more fictional than factual biography.
Genres: Drama Music Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-12-29
Popularity:
I've Always Loved You
Overview: A beautiful young concert pianist is torn between her attraction to her arrogant but brilliant maestro and her love for a farm boy she left back home.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-12-02
Popularity:
Peter
Overview: Starring Francisca Gaál in a breeches role. Dressed as a boy, a street musician gets a job pumping gas. When s/he starts to have feelings for her patron, watch out for complications in this comedy shot in German in Budapest.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1934-12-19
Popularity:
Wie d'Warret würkt
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1933-12-01
Popularity:
Bitter Sweet
Overview: A woman runs away with her music teacher in order to escape an arranged marriage, but they struggle to make ends meet.
Genres: Drama Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-11-08
Popularity:
Married Bachelor
Overview: A man's marriage suffers when he pretends to be a bachelor while promoting "his" best-selling book about married life (actually written by an eccentric professor) in order to pay off a debt to a gangster.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-10-16
Popularity:
Bridal Suite
Overview: A carefree playboy with an aversion to marriage falls for a lass he meets in the French Alps.
Genres: Romance Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-05-26
Popularity:
No More Love
Overview: An American millionaire, who had always bad luck with women, bets that he can live without them for five years. But after four and a half years traveling around on his yacht, he rescues a lady from drowning in the English Channel.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-07-26
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Terror of the Garrison
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-04-23
Popularity:
The Lucky Top Hat
Overview: Gottfried Jonathan, a small civil servant, lives as a lodger and is roommates with the blonde Käthe. Although she tries very hard, she can’t find a job and can no longer afford her rent of 40 marks. Jonathan secretly loves Käthe and decides to raise the necessary money for her.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1932-08-18
Popularity:
The Office Manager
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-11-19
Popularity:
Ding Dong Williams
Overview: Ding Dong Williams, a clarinet player who can neither read nor write music is employed at a motion picture studio. The studio plans to use him and his six-piece band but his musical deficiencies are discovered and the plan scrapped. But the secretary of the head of the music department intercedes on his behalf and he is given a chance in the film.
Genres: Comedy Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-04-15
Popularity:
Eine Freundin so goldig wie Du
Overview: The lively Anny meets the nice Dr. Jack Braun and throws everything in his life into disarray. As Jack is in the middle of divorce proceedings against his wife Renate, his lawyer and best friend Richard doesn't like the idea of a female being in his vicinity. Then Jack's heiress Frieda comes to visit, and when she finds Anny in Jack's house, she mistakes her for his wife - and finds her extremely charming. When the aunt's parrot dies, the relatives believe that the aunt has died and rush to claim the inheritance. Anny emerges victorious from all this.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1930-12-15
Popularity:
The Tender Relatives
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1930-08-28
Popularity:
Three Hearts for Julia
Overview: When his wife threatens him with divorce, a reporter courts her again.
Genres: Romance Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-05-21
Popularity:
Excursion into Life
Overview: Felix Bressart, later one of the most delightful members of the Ernst Lubitsch "stock company," plays the title character in the Austrian comedy Hirsekorn Greift Ein (Hirsekorn Does Something About It). It's a typical worm-turns affair, as a mild-mannered provincial actor ends up working as a chauffeur for a scatterbrained female novelist. Slapstick is the order of the day, except in the scenes involving heroine Charlotte Susa. Guiding the actors through their paces was Rudolf Bernauer, a stage actor-manager of vast experience. Critics in 1931 felt that Hirsekorn Greift Ein was too thin to be stretched to 90 minutes.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-09-30
Popularity:
Ziegfeld Girl
Overview: Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on Broadway: Susan, the singer who must leave behind her ageing vaudevillian father; vulnerable Sheila, the working girl pursued both by a millionaire and by her loyal boyfriend from Flatbush; and the mysterious European beauty Sandra, whose concert violinist husband cannot endure the thought of their escaping from poverty by promenading her glamor in skimpy costumes.
Genres: Drama Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-04-25
Popularity:
Her Sister's Secret
Overview: A WWII tale of romance that begins during New Orlean's "Mardi Gras" celebration when a soldier and a girl meet and fall in love. He asks her to marry him but she decides to wait until his next leave. He is sent overseas and she does not receive his letter and feels abandoned, but she does find out she is pregnant. She gives the child to her married sister and does not see her child again for three years. She returns to her sister's home to reclaim the child, and the soldier, who has been searching for her, also turns up. The sister is not interested in giving up the child. Written by Les Adams
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-09-23
Popularity:
There is a woman who will never forget you
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1930-03-27
Popularity:
Fanfare about love
Overview: Caught by Archduke Max in an embarrassing situation with Marie-Charlote, Captain Rudi is forced into marriage. Yet he approaches actress Josefine, the Archduke's girlfriend, being outright transferred as punishment. Then both girls appear.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-09-03
Popularity:
Everything for the Company
Overview: Familial disputes surrounding a traditional business. Grandfather Sonndorfer allies himself with his grandson Otto, in order to bring his arrogant son Max on the right path. Between the fronts is Emmerich Liebling, the intriguing messenger.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1935-04-04
Popularity:
Kathleen
Overview: Kathleen is a twelve-year-old who lives in a big house with a nanny, a butler, maids, no mother and a father who is working most of the time. She dreams of a family with a mother, father and her, and tells everyone that she has such a family. Because of this story, she cannot invite any friends over as they will see that it is not true.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-12-18
Popularity:
Three Smart Girls Grow Up
Overview: Three sisters who believe life is going to be easy, now that their parents are back together, until one sister falls in love with another's fiancé, and the youngest sister plays matchmaker.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-03-24
Popularity:
Three Days in the Guardhouse
Overview: When an attractive maid in a garrison town becomes pregnant, she reveals that one of three soldiers stationed there who had been chasing after her, is responsible.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1930-11-10
Popularity:
Heut' ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben
Overview: Two twin brothers working in a Vienna fair and who are both gifted for singing meet different luck both in love and their careers.
Genres: Comedy Drama Music
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1936-05-21
Popularity:
Liebe im Kuhstall
Overview: An impoverished nobleman would rather chase after the local milkmaid than seek a wealthy match, to the chagrin of his family.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1928-10-19
Popularity:
Private Secretary
Overview: During hard times, a vivacious girl looks for an office job in the hope of landing a rich man. The director of the bank she works at flirts with her while not at first revealing his identity so she rejects him.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-01-16
Popularity:
True Jacob
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1931-03-16
Popularity:
Song of Russia
Overview: American conductor John Meredith and his manager, Hank Higgins, go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Along the way, they see happy, healthy, smiling, free Soviet citizens, blissfully living the Communist dream. This bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.
Genres: Drama Music Romance War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-02-10
Popularity:
Greenwich Village
Overview: In 1922, a would-be classical composer gets involved with people putting on a musical revue.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-09-27
Popularity:
Don't Be a Sucker!
Overview: Propaganda short film depicting the rise of Nazism in Germany and how political propaganda is similarly used in the United States. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.
Genres: Documentary History War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-07-04
Popularity:
The Thrill of Brazil
Overview: Steve, revue producer in Rio de Janeiro, is still in love with his ex-wife Vicki, his star Linda is in love with Steve and Tito is in love with Linda. Because of this they all get small problems.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-09-06
Popularity:
...und wer küßt mich?
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1933-03-07
Popularity:
Without Love
Overview: In World War II Washington DC, scientist Pat Jamieson's assistant, Jamie Rowan, enters a loveless marriage with him. Struggles bring them closer together.
Genres: Romance Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-03-22
Popularity:
Iceland
Overview: Marine James Murfin, is unaware of Icelandic customs. When he flirts with Katina her Icelandic family take his actions as a proposal of marriage to Katina. Desperately wanting out, James gets his buddy to help him.
Genres: Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-09-21
Popularity:
Salto in die Seligkeit
Overview:
Genres: Romance
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1934-10-31
Popularity:
A Song Is Born
Overview: The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub singer Honey Swanson. But Honey's gangster boyfriend doesn't want to give her up.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1948-10-19
Popularity:
Old Song
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1930-10-15
Popularity:
Portrait of Jennie
Overview: A mysterious girl inspires a struggling artist.
Genres: Drama Romance Fantasy Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1948-12-25
Popularity:
C'était un musicien
Overview: When he is not conducting his orchestra, a talented young man invents a device to thwart car thieves. Associating himself with a rich Dutch baron, he falls in love with the baron's daughter.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1934-05-11
Popularity:
Holzapfel Knows Everything
Overview: An unemployed man who plays a concertina gets involved with a band of crooks and tries to frustrate a kidnapping, in this farcical caper.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1932-02-05
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Visul lui Tanase
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ro
Release Date: 1932-01-01
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Ball at the Savoy
Overview: Musical comedy set in a Grand Hotel.
Genres: Music
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1935-04-11
Popularity:
Four and a Half Musketeers
Overview: A Hungarian-Austrian comedy and one of the last emigrant films made in Austria before the industry submitted to pressure from Nazi Germany and ceased to employ Jewish filmmakers.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1935-10-01
Popularity:
Mr. and Mrs. North
Overview: Married sleuths (Gracie Allen, William Post Jr.) find a corpse in their closet and round up suspects.
Genres: Comedy Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-01-23
Popularity: