Alexander Esway

Alexander Esway (20 January 1895 – 23 August 1947^[1]) was a Hungarian-born film director, screenwriter, and producer.

Alexander Esway
Esway in 1936
Born	Sándor Ezry (1895-01-20)20 January 1895 Budapest, Hungary
Died	23 August 1947(1947-08-23) (aged 52) St. Tropez, France
Other names	Alexandre Esway
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter, producer

Life and career

Esway was born Sándor Ezry in Budapest. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he worked as a director and screenwriter, first in Germany and then in the UK. He began working primarily in France from 1933, although he also continued to work in the UK where he set up a short-lived production company, Atlantic Film Productions, in 1935. The company's only production was Thunder in the City, starring Edward G. Robinson. During World War II, he worked in Hollywood on Allied propaganda films, most notably, The Cross of Lorraine. After the war, he returned to France where he made his last two films: the two-part war film Le Bataillon du ciel, based on the book of the same name by Joseph Kessel, and L'Idole, starring Yves Montand. Esway died in St. Tropez at the age of 52.^[2][3][4]

Filmography

Director

• Herkules Maier (1927)^[2]
• The Lady with the Mask (1928)
• Taxi for Two, co-directed with Denison Clift (1929)
• Children of Chance (1930)
• Shadows (1931)
• Children of Fortune (1931)
• Le Jugement de minuit, co-directed with André Charlot (1932)^[2]
• Une vie perdue, co-directed with Raymond Rouleau (1933)^[2]
• Mauvaise Graine, co-directed with Billy Wilder (1934)
• It's a Bet (1934)
• Music Hath Charms (1935), co-directed with Thomas Bentley, Walter Summers, and Arthur B. Woods
• Hercule, co-directed with Carlo Rim (1937)^[2]
• Barnabé (1938)^[2]
• Education of a Prince (1938, remake of the 1927 silent film Éducation de Prince)^[2]
• Latin Quarter, co-directed with Pierre Colombier and Christian Chamborant (1939)^[2]
• L'Homme qui cherche la vérité (1939)^[2]
• Monsieur Brotonneau (1939)^[2]
• Conquest of the Air, semi-dramatised documentary co-directed with Zoltan Korda, John Monk Saunders, William Cameron Menzies, Donald Taylor, and Alexander Shaw (1940)
• Steppin' in Society (1945)^[2]
• Le Bataillon du ciel (1946)^[2]
• The Idol (1948)^[2]

Screenwriter

• Die Dame mit der Maske, directed by Wilhelm Thiele (1928)^[2]
• Taxi for Two, directed by Esway and Denison Clift (1929)
• The Cross of Lorraine, directed by Tay Garnett (1943)

Producer

• Thunder in the City, directed by Marion Gering (1937)
• Shadows, directed by Esway (1931)

References

1. Note that his birth year is given as 1898 in the IMDb and sources based on it. His first name is sometimes given as Alexandre.
2. Cinémathèque Française. "Alexandre Esway: Carrière/Filmographie". Retrieved 30 April 2013 (in French)
3. Molnár, Péter Gál (June 2002). "Főúr, kérek egy táncost! Billy Wilder". Filmvilág. Online version retrieved 30 April 2013 (in Hungarian)
4. Low, Rachael (2005). The History of the British Film 1929-1939: Film Making in 1930s Britain, p. 205. Routledge.

External links

• Alexander Esway at IMDb
• Filmography: Esway, Alexandre at the British Film Institute