Richard Oswald
Biography
Richard Oswald (real name: Richard W. Ornstein; born November 5, 1880 in Vienna; died September 11, 1963 in Düsseldorf) was an Austrian film director and screenwriter. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Oswald [Nov 2005]
Different From the Others (1919) - Richard Oswald
Different From the Others (1919) - Richard Oswald [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Different From the Others is an historic milestone, having been the first film to present a positive viewpoint on gay liberation. It provides the first screen depiction of a gay bar, with Conrad Veidt playing a gay role - all 50 years before the 1969 Stonewall riots which marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement in America. Seventy-seven years after this groundbreaking film, there are still widespread homophobic laws and attitudes the world over. Some ground has been gained for the cause of tolerance especially since the early 1980s, but there is a long road ahead. In a recent article on Conrad Veidt that appeared in The Silent Film Monthly in 1997, there was not a single word mentioned about his gay role in Different From the Others --http://members.aol.com/Henning7/Anders.html [Apr 2005]
Conrad Veidt
Conrad Veidt (January 22, 1893 – April 3, 1943) was a German actor, well known for his roles in such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Casablanca (1942).
He was born Hans Walter Conrad Weidt in Potsdam, Germany. In the 27 years between 1916 and his death, he managed to act in well over 100 movies, some of them classics. His starring role in The Man Who Laughs (1928) was the inspiration for Batman's greatest enemy, The Joker. Veidt appeared in Das Land ohne Frauen (1929), Germany's first talking picture.
Veidt was known to have anti-Nazi beliefs, and he fled Germany in 1933 with his life in danger. Settling in Britain he continued making films, notably three with director Michael Powell: The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). He later moved to Hollywood, and starred as the Nazi Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He died of a heart attack a year later, while playing golf in Los Angeles. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Veidt [Apr 2005]
see also: gay cinema - 1919 - Magnus Hirschfeld
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