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

Passion poster
5.4

In 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

Burza nad Zakopanem poster
NR

The 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

Young Forest poster
5.8

In 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

Valley of Mystery poster
7.5

A Meridian Airlines flight from Miami to Caracas crashes in the Venezuelan jungle, stranding 130 passengers and crew in hostile surroundings.

Valley of Mystery

1967

Granica poster
7.0

Zenon 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 artwork available
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Huragan

1928

Behind the camera

Passion poster
5.4

In 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

Burza nad Zakopanem poster
NR

The 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

Young Forest poster
5.8

In 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

Young Forest poster
5.8

In 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

Valley of Mystery poster
7.5

A Meridian Airlines flight from Miami to Caracas crashes in the Venezuelan jungle, stranding 130 passengers and crew in hostile surroundings.

Valley of Mystery

1967

Granica poster
7.0

Zenon 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

Granica poster
7.0

Zenon 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 artwork available
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Huragan

1928

The Counterfeit Killer poster
8.0

A Secret Service agent poses as a waterfront hit man to infiltrate a global ring of counterfeiters.

The Counterfeit Killer

1968

No artwork available
9.0

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

Pod Twoją obronę poster
NR

Jan Polaski, after graduating from an aviation school, returns to his hometown as an aviation officer.

Pod Twoją obronę

1933

Girls of Nowolipki poster
6.2

Bronka, 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

Girls of Nowolipki poster
6.2

Bronka, 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

No artwork available
10.0

Directed by Joseph Lejtes.

The Great Promise

1947

No artwork available
10.0

Directed by Joseph Lejtes.

The Great Promise

1947

No artwork available
10.0

Directed by Joseph Lejtes.

The Great Promise

1947

Kosciuszko at the Battle of Raclawice poster
7.0

An exiled leader returns to Poland to lead an uprising against the Russian occupiers.

Kosciuszko at the Battle of Raclawice

1938

The Faithful City poster
10.0

The 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

The Faithful City poster
10.0

The 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

No artwork available
3.5

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

Love or a Kingdom poster
5.1

King 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

No artwork available
7.5

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

Róża poster
8.0

The 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

No artwork available
NR

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

Córka generała Pankratowa poster
7.0

The 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 artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Z dnia na dzień

1929

No artwork available
8.0

Venice Film Festival 1949

No Alternative

1949

No artwork available
NR

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