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Michael Curtiz was one of the greatest and least heralded directors of all time! He was born Mihaly Kertesz in Budapest, Hungary in 1886. He began acting and directing in Hungary in 1912. After WWI he started directing movies in Austria and Germany. In 1924, Curtiz directed his most ambitious film to date, Die Sklavenkonigin, which was set in ancient Egypt and tells of the oppression of the Jews under the rule of the Pharaoh. If this sounds remarkably similar to The Ten Commandments, which was being made in the U.S. by Cecil B. DeMille at the same time, it is because it was, and there are reports that Curtiz' film was superior! Cecil B. DeMille rightly worried that a U.S. release of Die Sklavenkonigin would hurt the box office of his movie, and he was able to use his influence to keep it from being release in the U.S. at all that year (it would finally be released by FBO under the title of Moon of Israel in 1927). But executives at Warner Bros saw Die Sklavenkonigin, and they convinced Curtiz to sign with them and move to the U.S. in 1926. This was their second best decision ever (other than making the first partial sound movie, The Jazz Singer, the following year!). It took Curtiz a couple of years to get used to making English language films, but once he did, he became Warners' top director, and he remained there for many years, with an output that puts EVERY other director to shame! He made many of the most memorable Warner Bros. movies of the 1930s and 1940s, including: Captain Blood (nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for this film), Four Daughters (nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for this film), Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy (Casablanca & Yankee both came out in 1942). He directed SIX movies in 1939 alone, and he directed over 100 movies for Warner Bros, on top of the 64 movies he had directed earlier. Yet because he did not have a distinctive directorial style ("auteur"), he fell out of favor with the leading film critics of the 1960s (another wonderful director who has a similar problem is William Wyler). My two personal favorite Michael Curtiz movies (along with Casablanca and Yankee Doodle Dandy) are The Adventures of Robin Hood and Angels With Dirty Faces (nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for this film).

Important Added Info: Note that the letter has been personally autographed (signed) by Michael Curtiz! Note that Curtiz sent this letter together with an 18-page outline of a movie he wanted Chevalier to make called "Papa", and we have pictured the first page of the outline, but all 18 pages are present. Also note that this item comes from the estate of Paul Kohner, who had a remarkable life! Kohner was born in Czechoslovakia in 1902, and he was a journalist working at his father's newspaper. He came to Hollywood after interviewing Carl Laemmle, who gave him a job as a publicity man. He became the head of Universal's European department in Berlin, and returned to the U.S. in the early 1930s, and left Universal in 1938, becoming a publicity agent. Among his clients were some of the greatest film stars ever, including Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, and also great directors such as John Huston and Billy Wilder. He had close personal friendships with many of his clients, and he saved every bit of correspondence and paper work from his agency! He was married to actress Lupita Tovar from 1932 until his death in 1988. Amazingly, after his death, few institutions showed interest in his immense files, and only a small amount ended up being saved, with a lot literally thrown away! Our consignor purchased the item offered here from Mr. Kohner's estate in 1989, and he has held it until now, when he has consigned several items from Mr. Kohner's estate to eMoviePoster.com, and each item is being auctioned separately.

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