Directing
Józef Lejtes
Born — Died
1901-11-22 — 1983-05-27
Place of birth
Warsaw, Russian Empire [now Poland]
Known for
Directing
Credits
28 titles
Józef Lejtes was a Hungarian-born film director and screenwriter who made significant contributions to European and American cinema. He began his career in the Hungarian film industry in the 1920s, directing several notable films. Lejtes emigrated to the United States in the 1940s, where he continued his directing career. He directed episodes for television series such as Bonanza and Perry Mason. Lejtes's work was characterized by a strong visual style and a focus on character-driven narratives.
Known for
5.4In old Spanish California, dashing cattleman Juan Obregon returns to the rancho of his friend Gaspar Melo, to find he's fathered a son on Rosa, one of Gaspar's identical twin daughters. Overjoyed, he plans to formalize his "unofficial" marriage. But trouble brews; Melo's land is of unclear title and the new Don Domingo hopes to grab it for his own profit. Violence results. Without even knowing who survived, Juan (accompanied by Rosa's tomboy sister Tonya) rides for revenge, through spectacular pastoral and wilderness scenery.
Passion
1954
NRThe peak of the sun is in the High Tatras. The mountain guide Carlo tried to climb it several times without success. When he finally gets it, he thinks that nobody else has to raise it and develops a special feeling with the mountain. When the Americans MacAllan, his daughter, and the engineer Harry West arrive at Zakopane with the project to build a cable car on the mountain, Carlo rejects it, because he considers the mountain of his property, a kind of sanctuary. Finally, he lives an experience that can make him change his mind. There is another version of the film titled Der Bergführer von Zakopane, shot the same year in German.
Burza nad Zakopanem
1930
5.8In the beginning of the 20th century, Polish students are fully aware that the education system is not one in which the truth is taught, but rather one their government wants them to learn. A student contradicts his professor's stance that Suworow was one of Poland's greatest leaders. The argument between the two eventually leads to a wide strike.
Young Forest
1934
7.5A Meridian Airlines flight from Miami to Caracas crashes in the Venezuelan jungle, stranding 130 passengers and crew in hostile surroundings.
Valley of Mystery
1967
7.0Zenon Ziembiewicz comes back to his hometown after graduating from the university in Paris. He gets entangled in a love triangle with educated young lady Elzbieta and a common country girl Justyna who gets pregnant.
Granica
1938
No synopsis available yet.
Huragan
1928
Behind the camera
5.4In old Spanish California, dashing cattleman Juan Obregon returns to the rancho of his friend Gaspar Melo, to find he's fathered a son on Rosa, one of Gaspar's identical twin daughters. Overjoyed, he plans to formalize his "unofficial" marriage. But trouble brews; Melo's land is of unclear title and the new Don Domingo hopes to grab it for his own profit. Violence results. Without even knowing who survived, Juan (accompanied by Rosa's tomboy sister Tonya) rides for revenge, through spectacular pastoral and wilderness scenery.
Passion
1954
NRThe peak of the sun is in the High Tatras. The mountain guide Carlo tried to climb it several times without success. When he finally gets it, he thinks that nobody else has to raise it and develops a special feeling with the mountain. When the Americans MacAllan, his daughter, and the engineer Harry West arrive at Zakopane with the project to build a cable car on the mountain, Carlo rejects it, because he considers the mountain of his property, a kind of sanctuary. Finally, he lives an experience that can make him change his mind. There is another version of the film titled Der Bergführer von Zakopane, shot the same year in German.
Burza nad Zakopanem
1930
5.8In the beginning of the 20th century, Polish students are fully aware that the education system is not one in which the truth is taught, but rather one their government wants them to learn. A student contradicts his professor's stance that Suworow was one of Poland's greatest leaders. The argument between the two eventually leads to a wide strike.
Young Forest
1934
5.8In the beginning of the 20th century, Polish students are fully aware that the education system is not one in which the truth is taught, but rather one their government wants them to learn. A student contradicts his professor's stance that Suworow was one of Poland's greatest leaders. The argument between the two eventually leads to a wide strike.
Young Forest
1934
7.5A Meridian Airlines flight from Miami to Caracas crashes in the Venezuelan jungle, stranding 130 passengers and crew in hostile surroundings.
Valley of Mystery
1967
7.0Zenon Ziembiewicz comes back to his hometown after graduating from the university in Paris. He gets entangled in a love triangle with educated young lady Elzbieta and a common country girl Justyna who gets pregnant.
Granica
1938
7.0Zenon Ziembiewicz comes back to his hometown after graduating from the university in Paris. He gets entangled in a love triangle with educated young lady Elzbieta and a common country girl Justyna who gets pregnant.
Granica
1938
No synopsis available yet.
Huragan
1928
8.0A Secret Service agent poses as a waterfront hit man to infiltrate a global ring of counterfeiters.
The Counterfeit Killer
1968
A group of scouts is on vacation in the mountains, and the surrounding area is also a base for poachers and smugglers. One of the scouts encounters a poacher in the forest who is finishing off a deer he has wounded. The boy tries to save the animal, leading to a confrontation with the illegal hunter, who uses a weapon. Alerted, the group begins to pursue the bandit.
The Day of the Great Adventure
1935
NRJan Polaski, after graduating from an aviation school, returns to his hometown as an aviation officer.
Pod Twoją obronę
1933
6.2Bronka, Franka, Amelka and Kwiryna are four girls living in the same poor district of Warsaw and going to the same school. They all fight for a better future but what the future brings is usually disappointment, sometimes even tragedy.
Girls of Nowolipki
1937
6.2Bronka, Franka, Amelka and Kwiryna are four girls living in the same poor district of Warsaw and going to the same school. They all fight for a better future but what the future brings is usually disappointment, sometimes even tragedy.
Girls of Nowolipki
1937
Directed by Joseph Lejtes.
The Great Promise
1947
Directed by Joseph Lejtes.
The Great Promise
1947
Directed by Joseph Lejtes.
The Great Promise
1947
7.0An exiled leader returns to Poland to lead an uprising against the Russian occupiers.
Kosciuszko at the Battle of Raclawice
1938
10.0The Israeli-made Faithful City stars Jamie Smith as an American in Tel Aviv just after World War II. Smith makes the acquaintance of a group of orphans, Jewish refugees of the concentration camps. It takes some doing, but Smith wins the love and trust of these displaced youngsters. Like most government-funded Israeli productions of the early 1950s, Faithful City is designed more to instruct and inform than entertain. That it happens to be entertaining in the bargain is all the more reason to seek out this extremely rare film.
The Faithful City
1952
10.0The Israeli-made Faithful City stars Jamie Smith as an American in Tel Aviv just after World War II. Smith makes the acquaintance of a group of orphans, Jewish refugees of the concentration camps. It takes some doing, but Smith wins the love and trust of these displaced youngsters. Like most government-funded Israeli productions of the early 1950s, Faithful City is designed more to instruct and inform than entertain. That it happens to be entertaining in the bargain is all the more reason to seek out this extremely rare film.
The Faithful City
1952
David, a child refugee from Nazi-occupied Poland, arrives in British Palestine and begins a search for his father who promised to meet him there after the war.
My Father's House
1947
5.1King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland secretly falls in love with Barbara Radziwiłłówna, a noblewoman of Lithuanian magnate lineage, defying his mother Queen Bona’s plans to wed him to a French princess.
Love or a Kingdom
1936
Sygnaly is a 1938 Polish drama directed by Joseph Lejtes about a pair of jewel thieves. A older man and a young woman, with the elder manipulating the frail one into the world of crime.
Sygnały
1938
8.0The revolution of 1905 is underway. Jan Czarowic, a revolutionist, loves beautiful Krystyna without reciprocity. Soon he takes part in an attack on a Russian general. One of the comrades is arrested and blackmailed, he betrays the others. Soon, all the fighters end up in a Russian prison, where they are tortured. However, Krystyna comes to help.
Róża
1936
The passengers of an airplane wrecked in the Negev desert are rescued and brought to a budding Zionist community (The film was shot at kibbutz Revivim, and its plot corresponds with the history of the kibbutz). Some are in search of rest, the others eager to give a hand and work. Eventually all join the shoveling and building. That night, a group of new immigrants, among them Holocaust survivors, arrive to join the mixed group. Within a while, the war arrives. Yoshke, the community's most dedicated member, encourages his brethren to stay and fight, citing the community’s slogan: “Ein Breira” – “There is no choice”. When supplies are dropped almost within enemy lines, Yoshke ventures out to retrieve them. He is wounded, and dies upon completing his mission. The film concludes with words from Yoshke’s diary, bearing encouragement for new immigrants to Israel.
Song of the Negev
1949
7.0The dramatic story of the love between the daughter of a tsarist general and a Polish revolutionary who plans to assassinate her father.
Córka generała Pankratowa
1934
No synopsis available yet.
Z dnia na dzień
1929
Venice Film Festival 1949
No Alternative
1949
At the close of the Russian campaign, Polish soldier Zbig and Hungarian Bodenei, fleeing toward the Polish border, reach the village of Miłojec where Zbig forms a bond with Basia. Their brief refuge shatters when a Russian patrol arrives and massacres a group of retreating soldiers.
Dzikie pola
1932
