Michael Curtiz

Directing

Michael Curtiz

Born — Died

1886-12-24 — 1962-04-10

Place of birth

Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]

Known for

Directing

Credits

52 titles

Michael Curtiz (December 24, 1886 — April 10, 1962), born Manó Kaminer, was a Hungarian-American film director. He had early credits as Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész. He directed more than fifty films in Europe and more than one hundred in the United States. The best-known were The Adventures of Robin Hood, Angels with Dirty Faces, Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and White Christmas. He thrived in the heyday of the Warner Bros. studio in the 1930s and '40s. Curtiz was less successful from the late 1940s onwards, when he attempted to move from studio direction into production and freelance work, but he continued working until shortly before his death.

Known for

The Ed Sullivan Show poster
6.8

The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the CBS Sunday Night Movie, which ran only one season and was eventually replaced by other shows. In 2002, The Ed Sullivan Show was ranked #15 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.

The Ed Sullivan Show

1948

This Is Your Life poster
6.5

This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience, including special guest appearances by colleagues, friends and family. Edwards revived the show in 1971-72, while Joseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the late 1980s, before his death in 2005. The show originated as a radio show on NBC Radio airing from 1948 to 1952.

This Is Your Life

1952

The Adventures of Robin Hood poster
7.5

Robin Hood fights nobly for justice against the evil Sir Guy of Gisbourne while striving to win the hand of the beautiful Maid Marian.

The Adventures of Robin Hood

1938

Casablanca poster
8.1

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

Casablanca

1943

The Comancheros poster
6.7

Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.

The Comancheros

1961

The Sea Hawk poster
7.2

Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.

The Sea Hawk

1940

Film credits

Series credits

Behind the camera

The Adventures of Robin Hood poster
7.5

Robin Hood fights nobly for justice against the evil Sir Guy of Gisbourne while striving to win the hand of the beautiful Maid Marian.

The Adventures of Robin Hood

1938

Casablanca poster
8.1

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

Casablanca

1943

The Comancheros poster
6.7

Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.

The Comancheros

1961

The Sea Hawk poster
7.2

Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.

The Sea Hawk

1940

Mildred Pierce poster
7.6

A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.

Mildred Pierce

1945

Captain Blood poster
7.3

Dr. Peter Blood, unjustly convicted of treason and exiled from England, becomes a notorious pirate.

Captain Blood

1935

The Egyptian poster
6.5

In eighteenth-dynasty Egypt, Sinuhe, a poor orphan, becomes a brilliant physician and with his friend Horemheb is appointed to the service of the new Pharoah. Sinuhe's personal triumphs and tragedies are played against the larger canvas of the turbulent events of the 18th dynasty. As Sinuhe is drawn into court intrigues he learns the answers to the questions he has sought since his birth.

The Egyptian

1954

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex poster
6.3

This period drama frames the tumultuous affair between Queen Elizabeth I and the man who would be King of England.

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

1939

The Charge of the Light Brigade poster
6.5

In 1853, as the British and Russian empires compete to gain and maintain their place in the dreadful Great Game of political intrigues and alliances whose greatest prize is the domination of India and the border territories, Major Geoffrey Vickers must endure several betrayals and misfortunes before he can achieve his revenge at the Balaclava Heights, on October 25, 1854, the most glorious day of the Crimean War.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

1936

White Christmas poster
7.2

Two talented song-and-dance men team up after the war to become one of the hottest acts in show business. In time they befriend and become romantically involved with the beautiful Haynes sisters who comprise a sister act.

White Christmas

1954

King Creole poster
6.4

Delinquent Danny Fisher flunks out of high school, quits his job as a nightclub busboy, and one night gets the chance to perform. Success is imminent and local crime boss Maxie Fields wants to hire him to perform at The Blue Shade. Danny declines, but Fields won't take no for an answer.

King Creole

1958

Dodge City poster
6.9

In this epic Western, Wade Hatton, a wagon master turned sheriff, tames a cow town at the end of a railroad line.

Dodge City

1939

The Walking Dead poster
6.3

Down-on-his-luck John Ellman is framed for a judge's murder. After he's convicted and sentenced to death, witnesses come forth and prove his innocence. But it was too late for a stay to be granted and Ellman is executed. A doctor uses an experimental procedure to restore him to life, though the full outcome is other than expected.

The Walking Dead

1936

Life with Father poster
6.7

A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost.

Life with Father

1947

Angels with Dirty Faces poster
7.5

Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.

Angels with Dirty Faces

1938

The Boy from Oklahoma poster
5.7

A town despot makes a guileless patsy the sheriff, lives to regret it.

The Boy from Oklahoma

1954

Night and Day poster
6.0

When his first stage show fails, songwriter Cole Porter goes off to fight in WWI until, injured, he lands in a hospital. He impresses nurse Linda Lee with his creativity, but their budding romance must wait as Cole heads home. Back in New York, he mounts a series of popular shows, and when his work brings him back to Europe, he eventually marries Linda. But success doesn't spare him from marital complications or bad news about a beloved relative.

Night and Day

1946

Santa Fe Trail poster
5.8

As a penalty for fighting fellow classmates days before graduating from West Point, J.E.B. Stuart, George Armstrong Custer and four friends are assigned to the 2nd Cavalry, stationed at Fort Leavenworth. While there they aid in the capture and execution of the abolitionist, John Brown following the Battle of Harper's Ferry.

Santa Fe Trail

1940

We're No Angels poster
7.2

Three convicts escape from prison on Devil's Island just before Christmas and arrive at a nearby French colonial town. They go to the store of the Ducotels, the only store that gives supplies on credit. They initially intend to take advantage of them but have a change of heart after they find the family is in financial troubles.

We're No Angels

1955

The Sea Wolf poster
7.2

Shipwrecked fugitives try to escape a brutal sea captain who's losing his mind.

The Sea Wolf

1941

20,000 Years in Sing Sing poster
6.4

Brash hoodlum Tom Connors enters Sing Sing cocksure of himself and disrespectful toward authority, but his tough but compassionate warden changes him.

20,000 Years in Sing Sing

1932

Trouble Along the Way poster
6.1

Struggling to retain custody of his daughter following his divorce, football coach Steve Williams finds himself embroiled in a recruiting scandal at the tiny Catholic college he is trying to bring back to football respectability.

Trouble Along the Way

1953

A Breath of Scandal poster
5.5

A European princess jeopardizes her crown when she falls for an American millionaire.

A Breath of Scandal

1960

Young Man with a Horn poster
6.4

Taken in by the musical world as a young orphan, Rick Martin grows up with a desire to play pure jazz instead of the commercial gigs he lands, whilst also coping with the problems caused by his tempestuous marriage to an aloof heiress.

Young Man with a Horn

1950

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn poster
5.9

From chicken thief to cabin boy, riverboat pilot to circus performer, Huck Finn outsmarts everyone on his way down the muddy Mississippi.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1960

The Devil poster
NR

The Devil, in the guise of a human, meets a young couple who remark upon looking at a Renaissance painting of a martyr that Evil could never triumph over Good.

The Devil

1918

Doctor X poster
6.0

A wisecracking New York reporter intrudes on a research scientist's quest to unmask The Moon Killer.

Doctor X

1932

Noah's Ark poster
6.4

The Biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood, with a parallel story of soldiers in the First World War.

Noah's Ark

1928

Kid Galahad poster
7.1

Fight promoter Nick Donati grooms a bellhop as a future champ, but has second thoughts when the 'kid' falls for his sister.

Kid Galahad

1937

Dracula's Death poster
8.5

The film is about a woman who experiences frightening visions after visiting an insane asylum where one of the inmates claims to be Count Dracula (here following the Hungarian spelling Drakula). She has trouble determining whether the inmate's visions are real or merely nightmares.

Dracula's Death

1921

This Is the Army poster
5.7

In WW I dancer Jerry Jones stages an all-soldier show on Broadway, called Yip Yip Yaphank. Wounded in the War, he becomes a producer. In WW II his son Johnny Jones, who was before his fathers assistant, gets the order to stage a knew all-soldier show, called THIS IS THE ARMY. But in his pesonal life he has problems, because he refuses to marry his fiancée until the war is over.

This Is the Army

1943

The Hangman poster
6.5

A marshal nicknamed "The Hangman" because of his track record in hunting down and capturing wanted criminals traces a robbery suspect to a small town. However, the man is known and liked in the town, and the citizens band together to try to help him avoid capture.

The Hangman

1959

Black Fury poster
6.3

A simple Pennsylvania coal miner is drawn into the violent conflict between union workers and management.

Black Fury

1935

Four's a Crowd poster
5.6

A public relations man falls for his most difficult client's granddaughter.

Four's a Crowd

1938

Passage to Marseille poster
6.7

A freedom-loving French journalist sacrifices his happiness and security to battle Nazi tyranny.

Passage to Marseille

1944

Jimmy the Gent poster
6.4

An unpolished racketeer, whose racket is finding heirs for unclaimed fortunes, affects ethics and tea-drinking manners to win back the sweetheart who now works for his seemingly upright competitor.

Jimmy the Gent

1934

The Helen Morgan Story poster
5.3

Torch singer Helen Morgan rises from sordid beginnings to fame and fortune only to lose it all to alcohol and poor personal choices.

The Helen Morgan Story

1957

Good and Evil poster
9.0

The focus of the story is on the relation between the femme fatale and an escaped prisoner, who manages to save himself from the clutches of the vamp in the very last minute (no spoiler, the end of the film is missing!). A dream reveals to him the real nature of duchess Leda Orlonia/geisha/marchesa Rochefou, and he decides to leave the ‘woman with the many names’ for a kind-hearted and decent American girl.

Good and Evil

1921

Jim Thorpe – All-American poster
6.5

The triumph and tragedy of Native American Jim Thorpe, who, after winning both the pentathlon and decathlon in the same Olympics, is stripped of his medals on a technicality.

Jim Thorpe – All-American

1951

Romance on the High Seas poster
6.7

Georgia Garrett is sent by jealous wife Elvira Kent on an ocean cruise to masquerade as herself while she secretly stays home to catch her husband cheating. Meanwhile equally suspicious husband Michael Kent has sent a private eye on the same cruise to catch his wife cheating. Love and confusion ensues along with plenty of musical numbers.

Romance on the High Seas

1948