John Brahm

John Brahm was born on Aug 17, 1893 in Germany. John Brahm's big-screen debut came with Großstadtnacht directed by Fyodor Otsep in 1932. John Brahm is known for The Locket directed by John Brahm, Laraine Day stars as Nancy and Brian Aherne as Dr. Harry Blair. The upcoming new movie John Brahm plays is Hot Rods to Hell which will be released on Jan 27, 1967.

The son of comedian and theatre director Ludwig Brahm, Hans followed in his father's footsteps and began his career on the stages of Vienna, Berlin and Paris. Again, like his father, he graduated to directing and had his first fling with the film business as a dialogue director for a Franco/German co-production, starring his future wife Dolly Haas. Hans went to England in 1934 to escape Nazi persecution (and to avoid being caught up in another war, having spent much of the previous conflagration as a conscript on the Russian Front). After a brief spell as a production supervisor, Brahm made his directing debut with an undistinguished remake of D.W. Griffith's Le lys brisé (1936). A year later, he moved on to the U.S..Having anglicised his first name to John, he arrived in Hollywood in 1937 and was signed to a three-year contract at Columbia (1937-40), followed by another three years with 20th Century Fox (1941-44). Brahm specialised in suspense thrillers, often with psychological undertones, at times involving madness. His affinity with filming the sinister and the grotesque had much to do with the influence of his uncle Otto, once an influential theatrical producer. Otto introduced his nephew to the dark and fantastic elements of classic German expressionist cinema, including films like Faust (1926). At Fox, Brahm directed two masterpieces back-to-back: the stylish and moody 'Jack the Ripper' look-alike Jack l'éventreur (1944); and, in a similar vein, Hangover Square (1945), a gothic melodrama about insanity and murder, set in Victorian London. Both films starred the excellent, sadly short-lived, actor Laird Cregar, whose professionalism and finely-etched performances Brahm greatly appreciated. Much of the credit for the pace and detail of these films belongs to Brahm himself, who meticulously mapped out every scene and camera angle before shooting commenced.Another of Brahm's films, not in the same league as the aforementioned, but nonetheless quite enjoyable, is Le tueur porte un masque (1954). Something of a precursor to the cycle of low-budget horror films Vincent Price was later to make at American-International, it was shot in the experimental 3-D process. What the picture lacked in a visceral sense, it made up for in period detail and in an enjoyable star performance reminiscent of the earlier L'Homme au masque de cire (1953).By the mid-1950's, Brahm had segued from films to television, but never strayed far from the macabre. He directed some of the best-loved episodes of Alfred Hitchcock présente (1955), Au-delà du réel (1963), Suspicion (1962) and, especially, La quatrième dimension (1959) ("Time Enough at Last" comes to mind, in particular). Brahm retired in 1968. He spent the last years of his life confined to a wheelchair and died in October 1982 at the respectable age of 89.