Acting

Conrad Veidt

Born 1893-01-22 · Berlin, Germany

Hans Walter Conrad Veidt (22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German actor best remembered for his roles in films such as Different from the Others (1919), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and The Man Who Laughs (1928). After a successful career in German silent film, where he was one of the best-paid stars of Ufa, he was forced to leave Germany in 1933 with his new Jewish wife after the Nazis came to power. They settled in Britain, where he participated in a number of films, including The Thief of Bagdad (1940), before emigrating to the United States around 1941, which lead to him having a supporting role in Casablanca (1942). From 1916 until his death, Veidt appeared in more than 100 films. One of his earliest performances was as the murderous somnambulist Cesare in director Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), a classic of German Expressionist cinema, with Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover. His starring role in The Man Who Laughs (1928), as a disfigured circus performer whose face is cut into a permanent grin, provided the (visual) inspiration for the Batman villain the Joker, created in 1940 by Bill Finger. Veidt also starred in other silent horror films such as The Hands of Orlac (1924), another film directed by Robert Wiene, The Student of Prague (1926) and Waxworks (1924) where he played Ivan the Terrible. Veidt also appeared in Magnus Hirschfeld's film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1919), one of the first films to sympathetically portray homosexuality, although the characters in it do not end up happily. He had a leading role in Germany's first talking picture, Das Land ohne Frauen (Land Without Women, 1929). He moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s and made a few films, but the advent of talking pictures and his difficulty with speaking English led him to return to Germany. During this period he lent his expertise to tutoring aspiring performers, one of whom was the later American character actress Lisa Golm.

Acting credits

8.1

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

Casablanca

1943

7.9

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

1920

7.1

When Prince Ahmad is blinded and cast out of Bagdad by the nefarious Jaffar, he joins forces with the scrappy thief Abu to win back his royal place, as well as the heart of a beautiful princess.

The Thief of Bagdad

1940

No artwork available

10.0

A banker, after a prophetic meeting with a Gypsy fortune teller, becomes delusional as he searches for a trunk which the seer has told him holds the key to either his happiness or his death. This film is considered lost.

Wahnsinn

1919

No artwork available

9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Manolescu's Memoirs

1920

7.7

A young woman leaves behind her job, home and family to try to make it in the movie business. Features cameos from about three dozen German film stars of the era.

The Great Desire

1930

No artwork available

7.5

An Italian spy infiltrates a weapons factory in Germany.

Der Spion

1917

7.8

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

Napoleon

1927

6.8

A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.

A Woman's Face

1941

7.3

When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured.

The Man Who Laughs

1928

No synopsis available yet.

Das Dreimäderlhaus

1918

5.5

A demon, a reaper, and the ghost of a prostitute read gothic short stories and act them out.

Eerie Tales

1919

6.5

A middle-aged magician is in love with his beautiful young assistant. She, on the other hand, is in love with the magician's young protege, who turns out to be a bum and a thief.

The Last Performance

1929

7.0

The First World War. The young, English Lieutenant Raleigh is sent to the company of a disillusioned Captain Stanhope. Stanhope is secretly engaged to Raleigh's sister and is intent on protecting his image of an exemplary officer. An attack on the German lines, in which Raleigh also takes part, has turned into a bloody fiasco. Now Raleigh, too, knows the horrors of war, which have already taken their toll on Stanhope.

The Other Side

1931

No artwork available

9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Die Nacht auf Goldenhall

1920

6.5

At the height of Reign of Terror Maximilien Robespierre orchestrates the trial and execution of several of his fellow leading French revolutionaries including Georges Danton.

Danton

1921

6.7

Broadway gamblers stumble across a plan by Nazi saboteurs to blow up an American battleship.

All Through the Night

1942

6.2

Two newlyweds spy on the Nazis for the British Secret Service during their honeymoon in Europe.

Above Suspicion

1943

6.5

British double agent Madeleine Goddard meets and falls in love with German spy Baron Karl Von Marwitz during World War I.

Dark Journey

1937

3.8

That old theatrical war-horse Bella Donna (previously filmed in America by Alla Nazimova) was resurrected by Britain's Twickenham Studios in 1934. Conrad Veidt stars as sinister Egyptian Mahmoud Baroundi, who even before the film gets under way has left a long trail of ruined women behind him. His latest victim is American girl Mona Chepstow (Mary Ellis), whom Baroundi treats like dirt and makes her like it. The plot centers around a murder by poison, as evidenced by the film's deliberately exotic title. Critics in 1934 praised newcomer Mary Ellis for underplaying her role, but many film fans preferred Nazimova's arm-waving histrionics in the earlier version.