Douglas Sirk

Douglas Sirk

Date of Birth: 26 Apr 1897

Country: USA

Biography: Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left for Hollywood in 1937 after his Jewish wife was persecuted by the Nazis.

Total Credits at Criticker: 1 (Actor), 40 (Director), 3 (Writer)

Biography last updated by Rivette, and picture by CCLZA

Find more information about Douglas Sirk at The Internet Movie Database

Titles you haven't rated - Actor (1) | Director (40) | Writer (3)

    All That Heaven Allows
    Cary, a wealthy widow, falls in love with the much younger nurseryman, Ron Kirby. This provides gossip for the country club set... (imdb)
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    Imitation of Life
    A struggling young actress with a six-year-old daughter sets up housekeeping with a homeless black widow and her light-skinned eight-year-old daughter who rejects her mother by trying to pass for white.
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    Written on the Wind
    Mitch Wayne and Kyle Hadley, the playboy son of an oil tycoon, have been best friends since childhood... (imdb)
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    There\
    Clifford Groves, toy manufacturer, is in full charge at the factory but feels left out and taken for granted by his wife and children at home. Alone and depressed, he meets old flame Norma, and one thing leads to another. While their relationship is still fairly innocent, his son Vinnie sees them together and suspects the worst. It's time for tortured souls behind rain-streaming windows... (imdb)
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    Magnificent Obsession
    When churlish, spoiled rich man Bob Merrick foolishly wrecks his speed boat, the rescue team resuscitates him with equipment that's therefore unavailable to aid a local hero, Dr. Wayne Phillips, who dies as a result. Phillips had helped many people, and when Merrick learns Phillips' secret, to give selflessly and in secret, he tries it in a ham-handed way... (imdb)
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    The Tarnished Angels
    In the 1930's, a First World War flying ace named Roger Schumann is reduced to making appearances on the crash-and-burn circuit of stunt aerobatics. His family are forced to live like dogs while Shumann pursues his only true love, the airplane. When Burke Devlin, a reporter, shows up on the scene to do a "whatever happened to" story on Shumann, he is repulsed by the war hero's diminished circumstances and, conversely, drawn to his stunning wife, LaVerne. (imdb)
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    Lured
    A serial killer in London is murdering young women whom he meets through the personal columns of newspapers; he announces each of his murders to the police by sending them a cryptic poem. After a dancer disappears, the police enlist an American friend of hers, Sandra Carpenter, to answer advertisements in the personal columns and so lure the killer. (imdb)
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    Battle Hymn
    Dean Hess, who entered the ministry to atone for bombing a German orphanage, decides he's a failure at preaching. Rejoined to train pilots early in the Korean War, he finds Korean orphans raiding the airbase garbage. With a pretty Korean teacher, he sets up an orphanage for them and others. But he finds that to protect his charges, he has to kill. (imdb)
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    All I Desire
    In 1900, Naomi Murdoch deserted her small-town family to go on the stage. Some ten years later, daughter Lily invites Naomi back to see her in the Riverdale high school play. Her arrival sets the whole town abuzz, wakes up old conflicts, and sets off new emotional storms. (imdb)
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    Sleep, My Love
    Claudette Colbert wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue. (imdb)
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    A Scandal in Paris
    The autobiography of elegant criminal, François Eugène Vidocq, from his birth in a French jail in 1775 to his appointment as chief of police of Paris where he intends to rob the city bank... (imdb)
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    Zu neuen Ufern
    Mistreated by her lover, she nonetheless takes the blame for his criminal activity, accepting a prison sentence, in dim hopes of reuniting with the scoundrel years later. A twist of fate allows her to leave prison, but of course at a price... (IMDB Comments)
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    Interlude
    The story of a young woman, Helen Banning (June Allyson), who travels to Munich in search of life experience and romance... (imdb)
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    Final Accord
    A young, impoverished German woman named Hanna (Maria von Tasnady) gives her infant up for adoption and emigrates to American to live with her husband. When her husband commits suicide, Hanna returns to Germany and works her way into becoming the live-in maid and nurse to her child being raised by an orchestra conductor and his wife. (imdb)
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    A Time to Love and a Time to Die
    In 1944, a company of German soldiers on the Russian front are numbed by the horrors and hardships of war when Private Ernst Graeber's long awaited furlough comes through. Back home in Germany, he finds his home bombed. While hopelessly searching for his parents, he meets lovely Elizabeth Kruse, daughter of a political prisoner; together they try to wrest sanity and survival from a world full of hatred. (imdb)
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    La Habanera
    Don Pedro, the elegant landowner of Puerto Rico, is conquered by Astree, the rebellious travelling Swedish woman. They get married and have a child. Their relationship begins to change and Don holds Astree a prisoner. Homesicked, all Astree's pent-up hatred of her husband and his island breaks out when her childhood friend Dr. Sven appears to investigate the cause of a vicious fever to which the island has fallen prey. (imdb)
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    Take Me to Town
    Saloon entertainer Vermilion O'Toole and her former partner in crime Newt Cole escape from a train ride to prison and hide out in logging town Timberline. Meanwhile, the three 'cute' sons of widower Will Hall come to town in search of a wife for their dad, and pick our heroine. (imdb)
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    Boefje
    Twelve year old Jan Grovers spends more time in the alleys of Rotterdam than with his family (imdb)
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    Shockproof
    Jenny Marsh, still dangerously attractive after 5 years in prison for killing a man in defense of her shady lover Harry, clashes at first with parole officer Griff Marat, who's determined to make Jenny go straight. For lack of other prospects Griff finds Jenny a job in his own home, and his objectivity about her wavers, while Jenny continues to meet Harry secretly. However, when Jenny transfers her affections from Harry to Griff, the situation becomes even more dangerous. (imdb)
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    Captain Lightfoot
    A pair of Irish rebels have swashbuckling adventures in 1815. (imdb)
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    Sign of the Pagan
    With the Roman Empire divided, Attila the Hun hopes to conquer. In his way are a brave centurion, a beautiful princess...and Christianity. (imdb)
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    Thunder on the Hill
    Convicted murderess Valerie Carns (Ann Blyth) is being transported to Norwich to be executed when a flood strands her and her guards at a convent hospital. Nurse Sister Mary (Claudette Colbert) becomes convinced of her innocence and sets out to find the real killer. (imdb)
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    No Room for the Groom
    Alvah, a young GI who happens to own a vineyard, elopes to Las Vegas with Lee, his housekeeper's daughter. But Alvah's chicken pox postpone the wedding night. The rest revolves around more delays to the consummation, caused by Lee's manipulative Mama and the flock of mostly obnoxious relatives with whom she's filled the house.
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    Hitler\
    Story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi SS commander, by Czech partisans and the reprisals inflicted by the Nazis on the Czechs.
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    Summer Storm
    Just before the Russian Revolution of 1917, a peasant girl (Linda Darnell) seduces a Count (Horton), the superintendent of his estate (Haas), and an engaged judge (Sanders), deceptively climbing the ranks of an aristocracy about to crumble.
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    Taza, Son of Cochise
    Three years after the end of the Apache wars, peacemaking chief Cochise dies. His elder son Taza shares his ideas, but brother Naiche yearns for war...and for Taza's betrothed, Oona. Naiche loses no time in starting trouble which, thanks to a bigoted cavalry officer, ends with the proud Chiricahua Apaches on a reservation, where they are soon joined by the captured renegade Geronimo, who is all it takes to light the firecracker's fuse. (imdb)
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    The First Legion
    Something of an oddity in the Sirk canon, in that it was shot on location and is unusually static and talky. It concerns various crises of religious faith suffered by a number of priests in a Jesuit seminary. (Time Out London)
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    Slightly French
    A cinema director who is in an emotional and professional crisis thinks that he has discovered a French star when he meets an ordinary dancer. (imdb)
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    Mystery Submarine
    Posing as an ex-German medical officer, a U.S. Navy Intelligence Officer sets out to rescue a kidnapped scientist, and sink a Nazi submarine, hiding off the coast of South America. (imdb)
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    Silvesternacht - Ein Dialog
    A pensive man and woman reminisce and debate love in a quiet corner of a New Year's party.
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    Das Mädchen vom Moorhof
    Based on a Selma Lagerlöf 's short story ,"Das Mädchen..." belongs to Sierck's long series of melodramas ,a genre he was one of the indisputable masters .Probably influenced by Frank Borzage's characters ,he made Helga a pure heroine who gave everything : she refuses that the father of her (not yet born) child swears on the Bible because she wants to save his soul;she wants to save Karsten so that he can marry Gertrud and find happiness. (imdb)
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    The Lady Pays Off
    The naive Evelyn Warren, elected shool-teacher of the year by Time Magazine, goes to Las Vegas, where she loses a lot of money. In order to pay her debts, casino-manager Matt Braddock asks her to take care of his sad little daughter Diana. (imdb)
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    Meet Me at the Fair
    In 1904, Doc Tilbee, medicine show huckster and champion tall-tale teller, gives a ride to a young boy escaped from an orphanage, where bad conditions (the result of political graft) are being investigated by new appointee Zerelda Wing, who doesn't know that her fiancée is one of the politicians responsible. Tad wants to stay with his new friend Doc, who is attracted to Zerelda, to the discomfiture of his old flame Clara...all amid nostalgic musical numbers. (imdb)
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    Week End with Father
    Single parents Jean Bowen and Brad Stubbs meet at the train station when they send their kids (his 2 girls, her 2 boys) off to camp. Love inevitably blooms. But there are complications... (imdb)
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    Bourbon Street Blues
    The film concerns an alcoholic, cockroach-fearing tenant who has failed to pay her rent and the argument that ensues between her, her landlady, and another resident of the building
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    Sprich zu mir wie der Regen
    A woman at the window. The nightly routine of a couple simple. There are dreams that neither rain can lead in its waters.
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    Pillars of Society
    Heinrich George plays a powerful shipping magnate who has kept secret the fact that he fathered an illegitimate daughter many years ago. His past begins to catch up to him when his brother-in-law, a circus member, returns to town from the US. (mubi.com)
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    Das Hofkonzert
    To Immendingen Principality travels Christine Holm, daughter of a singer, to find her unknown father. The Prince is awaiting a replacement singer for the annual concert. Chistine meets handsome lieutenant von Arnegg, son of the minister, and is aided by Herr Knips, a poet. When she is about to unveil the truth she is ordered by the minister to leave at once. (imdb)
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    Has Anybody Seen My Gal
    An aging heir-less millionaire wants to leave his fortune to the unsuspecting family of his first love but not before testing his prospective heirs by living with them under the guise of a poor boarder.
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    Zwei Genies
    Zwei Genies (1934) - Short Film
    Two men meet at an accountant's office and each one makes the other think he is the actual accountant. Comedy ensues.
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