Sir Alexander Korda (/ˈkɔːrdə/; born Sándor László Kellner; Hungarian: Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)[1][2] was a Hungarian–born British film director, producer, and screenwriter, who founded his own film production studios and film distribution company.[3]
Born in Hungary, where he began his career, he worked briefly in the Austrian and German film industries during the era of silent films, before being based in Hollywood from 1926 to 1930 for the first of his two brief periods there (the other was during World War II). The change led to a divorce from his first wife, the Hungarian film actress María Corda, who was unable to make the transition from silent films to "talkies" because of her Hungarian accent.
Korda was born Sándor László Kellner into a Jewish family in Pusztatúrpásztó, Austria-Hungary.[5] His parents were Henrik Kellner and Ernesztina Weisz.[6][7][8] He had two younger brothers, Zoltan and Vincent, who also had careers in the film industry, often working with Alexander.
Early career in European silent film
Films in Hungary
After the death of his father, Korda began writing film reviews to support his family. He also changed the family name, deriving the new name Korda from the Latin phrase "sursum corda" ("lift up your hearts").[9]
Having been excused from military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army in the First World War, because he was short-sighted, Korda became an important figure in the Hungarian film industry, initially through his magazines Pesti Mozi, Mozihét and Világ. This led to invitations to write screenplays. His first script was for Watchhouse in the Carpathians (1914), which he also helped to direct.[10] He also made a film with Gyula Zilahy, The Duped Journalist (1914), and directed Tutyu and Totyo (1915), The Officer's Swordknot (1915) and Lyon Lea (1915).[11]
In October 1919 Korda was arrested during the White Terror that followed the overthrow of the Communist government, but was soon released. He then left Hungary for Austria. He never returned to his country of birth.[12]
Films in Vienna
Korda's first wife was the actress María Corda, who starred in many of his silent films in Europe and America.
After leaving Hungary, Korda accepted an invitation from Count Alexander Kolowrat to work for his company Sascha-Film in the Austrian capital Vienna.[13] Korda worked alongside Kolowrat, who had attracted several leading Hungarian and German directors into his employment, on the historical epicThe Prince and the Pauper (1920). The film was a major international success and inspired Korda with the idea of making "international films" with global box office appeal.[14]
By that stage, Korda had grown irritated with Kolowrat's interference with his work and left Sascha to make an independent film, Samson and Delilah (1922), set in the world of opera. The film was made on a lavish scale, with large crowd scenes. The lengthy shooting schedule lasted 160 working days. The film was unsuccessful.[15]
Films in Berlin
Korda left Vienna and travelled to Germany. He had frequent problems with money, and often had to receive support from friends and business associates, but in Berlin he raised funding for the melodramaThe Unknown Tomorrow (1923). With backing from Germany's biggest film company, UFA, Korda returned to Vienna to make Everybody's Woman (1924). While he was there he began work on his next film, the historical Tragedy in the House of Habsburg (1924), which portrayed the Mayerling Incident. It earned back around half of its production costs.[16] He followed this with Dancing Mad (1925), another melodrama.
Korda cast his wife Maria Corda [sic] as the female lead in all his German-language films. To a large degree the success of his productions depended on her star power. Korda cast her again in A Modern Dubarry (1927), an update of the life of Madame Du Barry based on an original screenplay by Lajos Bíró. The film may have been intended to showcase Maria Corda's star potential to producers in Hollywood.[17]
Korda made his final German film, Madame Wants No Children (1926), for the Berlin-based subsidiary of the American studio Fox. Although made later, it was released before A Modern Dubarry.
In Hollywood and France
In December 1926 Korda and his wife sailed for the United States on board the steamerOlympic, with a view to Korda taking up a contract with the American studio First National.[18] In Hollywood both struggled to adapt to the studio system. Korda had to wait some time before gaining his first directorial assignment, The Stolen Bride (1927), a Hungarian-themed romance about a peasant's love for a countess.[19] The film starred the American actress Billie Dove rather than Korda's wife.
Following the moderate success of The Stolen Bride Korda worked on the comedy The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927), replacing the previous director, George Fitzmaurice. The film retells the story of Helen of Troy, parodying the historical epics of the era by transforming the classical characters into everyday people with modern problems. The film was a significant success for Korda, with his wife playing the role of Helen. The film was his most satisfying work in the United States and provided the template for his later success in Britain.
After this film, however, Korda became pigeonholed as a director of female stars and exotic foreign locations. He was generally given similar assignments for the remainder of his first period in Hollywood.[20] His next few films were disappointments as his career lost its momentum: Yellow Lily (1928), Night Watch (1928) both with Dove, and Love and the Devil (1929) with Maria Korda (who now spelled her name with a K). The latter two, though still Silent films, had sound effects and music added to their soundtracks during Hollywood's transition to fully synchronized Sound films.
Korda's next film The Squall (1929), with a young Myrna Loy, was his first talkie and featured a Hungarian setting. Although, like many other directors, Korda had misgivings about the new technology, he quickly adapted to making sound films.
Korda's marriage was strained in Hollywood. The arrival of sound films wrecked his wife's career, as her heavy accent made her unemployable for most American films. Love and the Devil was the last of Korda's films she appeared in, and she made only two more films. She became increasingly resentful of the switch in their relationship, as her career was now over while Korda, who had once relied on her for the success of his films, was relatively flourishing. Their marriage collapsed, and they divorced in 1930.[21]
Korda made two more sound films at First National: Her Private Life (1929) and Lilies of the Field (1930), both of which were remakes of earlier silent films.
Korda grew more frustrated in Hollywood as he came to strongly dislike the studio system. He hoped to save up enough money to return to Europe and begin producing on a large scale there, but his lavish personal spending and the large amounts he lost in the Wall Street Crash prevented this. When his producer, Ned Marin, moved from First National to the Fox Film Corporation Korda followed him. Korda's new contract gave him $100,000 a year.[22]
Fox
His first film for Fox, Women Everywhere (1930), cost slightly more than some of the programmers he had previously directed in the United States. He collaborated with several figures who would contribute to his future success in Britain. Korda was offered a series of scripts, all of which he disliked, before he finally agreed to make The Princess and the Plumber (1930).[23] Korda's reluctance to make the film led to his conflict with studio bosses, which brought to an end his first period in Hollywood.
Korda bought property in Denham, Buckinghamshire, including Hills House, and built film studios on the property. London Film's Denham Film Studios was financed by the Prudential and opened in 1936. On 21 June 1936, Thurston Macauley, London correspondent to The New York Times, filed a story headlined "The Korda Workshop at Denham" describing the facility, located on 165 acres of woodland, field and river scenery suitable for filming, with 28 acres of buildings and a planned total of fifteen 250-foot by 130-foot sound stages (state of the art at the time). It was "not only the most up-to-date of all the world's studios" but a "complete community in itself" from foundry and blacksmith's shops to projection theatres, with "unusually good dressing and bathroom accommodations" and able to easily manage crowds of 500. Macauley pointed to the special construction designed to ensure that even dense fog would not penetrate the buildings and interfere with filming, a serious problem in Britain in the winter months. He concluded: "Hollywood, as well as the rest of the world, will be watching with interest what Korda does at Denham".[24]
Korda was naturalised as a British subject on 28 October 1936.[25] That same year Korda was an important contributor to the Moyne Commission, formed to protect British film production from competition, mainly from the United States. Korda said: "If American interests obtained control of British production companies, they may make British pictures here, but the pictures made would be just as American as those made in Hollywood. We are now on the verge of forming a British school of film-making in this country."[26]
During the Second World War Korda made more propaganda films, including Q Planes (1939), with Olivier, and The Lion Has Wings (1939). Korda had a massive hit with another adventure film directed by Zoltan, The Four Feathers (1939).
By 1939 Michael Powell had been hired as a contract director by Korda on the strength of The Edge of the World (1937). Korda set him to work on some projects such as Burmese Silver that were subsequently cancelled.[27] Nonetheless, Powell was brought in to save a film that was being made as a vehicle for two of Korda's star players, Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson. The film was The Spy in Black (1939), where Powell first met Emeric Pressburger. Korda also produced the comedy Over the Moon (1939) and the drama 21 Days (1939).
Korda soon ran into financial difficulties, and management of the Denham complex was merged with Pinewood in 1939,[28] becoming part of the Rank Organisation.
Sojourn in Hollywood
The outbreak of the Second World War in Europe meant that The Thief of Bagdad had to be completed in Hollywood, where Korda was based again for a few years. While he was in the United States he produced and directed That Hamilton Woman (UK title: Lady Hamilton) (1941) with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, and produced Lydia (1941) with Oberon. He also supervised Jungle Book (1942), a live-action version of Kipling's stories, directed by Zoltán Korda. He also had minor involvement in To Be or Not to Be (1942).
He returned to Britain in 1943 as production chief of MGM-London films, with a £35 million ten-year programme. The scheme ended after one year, one film and a £1 million loss to MGM.[30] The only film to come out of the deal was Perfect Strangers (1945), directed by Korda, and starring Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr.
In 1948 London Films received an advance payment of £375,000, the largest single payment received by a British film company, for three films, An Ideal Husband (1947) (which Korda directed), Anna Karenina (1948) and Mine Own Executioner (1948). The company released three other films, Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948), The Winslow Boy (1948) and The Fallen Idol (1948).[31]The Winslow Boy and Fallen Idol were hits. An Ideal Husband and Anna Karenina had some acclaim, but lost money at the box office. Bonnie Prince Charlie was a fiasco. Korda was also badly hurt by the trade war between the British and American film industries in the late 1940s.[32] Korda did recover, in part due to a £3 million loan British Lion received from the National Film Finance Corporation.
In 1948 Korda signed a co-production deal with David O. Selznick.[33] This resulted in The Third Man (1949) which was a success both critically and financially.
Korda was married three times, first to the Hungarian actress María Corda in 1919. They had one son, Peter Vincent Korda, and divorced in 1930. In 1939 he married the film star Merle Oberon. They divorced six years later. He married, lastly, on 8 June 1953, Alexandra Boycun (1928–1966).
Michael Korda, son of Vincent and thus nephew of Alexander, wrote a roman à clef about Merle Oberon, published after her death.[37] It was entitled Queenie. He also wrote a memoir, Charmed Lives (1979), about his father, his two uncles and the rest of their large extended family.
