Biography
Seymour Nebenzal was one of the more notable film producers in Germany during the 1920s and early '30s, and went on to a significant career in France and then in America. What made him unusual, apart from the quality of the movies that he produced in Germany, was that he was born in America and immigrated back to Europe to start his career. Born in New York City to a Jewish family at the end of the 19th century (some sources list his year of birth as 1897, others as 1899), Nebenzal moved to Germany in the 1920s and began his film career in Berlin during 1924, when he and director
Richard Oswald formed Nero Films. Nebenzal went on to produce such movies as G.W. Pabst's
Pandora's Box,
The Threepenny Opera, and
Kameradschaft,
Fritz Lang's
M and Testimony of Dr. Mabuse, and
Paul Czinner's
Ariane. He also bought the film rights to Pierre Benoit's
L'Atlantide, which he filmed in 1932 as
Die Herrin Von Atlantis, directed by Pabst, which was also released in an English version called
Lost Atlantis. During his period in Germany, he was usually credited as Seymour Nebenzahl or simply as S. Nebenzahl. The rise of the Nazi Party made it impossible for Nebenzal to remain in Germany, and he moved to France in 1933. His productions during the mid-'30s included
Mayerling by
Anatole Litvak and
Werther by Max Ophuls. Nebenzal returned to America at the end of the '30s and resumed movie production at the outset of the new decade with
We Who Are Young and
Prisoner of Japan. In 1942, Nebenzal became an investor and producer at PRC, where he worked with director
Douglas Sirk on
Hitler's Madman (and later, separate from PRC, on
Summer Storm), and he was also responsible for getting Edgar G. Ulmer involved in the company. Together, the two made the crime/thriller
Tomorrow We Live (1942) at the studio. Nebenzal produced a trio of eclectic mainstream movies immediately after WWII, the film noir
The Chase, adapted from a story by Cornell Woolrich, the drama
Whistle Stop, co-starring
George Raft and
Ava Gardner (both films which were done in association with screenwriter
Philip Yordan), and the Western/fantasy film
Heaven Only Knows. His most visible activity, however, was as the producer of remakes of two valuable properties that he owned:
Die Herrin Von Atlantis as
Siren of Atlantis, starring
Maria Montez and
Jean-Pierre Aumont, and
Joseph Losey's American version of
M, starring
David Wayne. Nebenzal made his final film, The Girl From Hong Kong, in 1961, the year of his death. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide