KAUTNER, HELMUT

born March 25, 1908, Dsseldorf, Ger. died April 20, 1980, Castellina, Italy German actor, theatre and film director, and playwright who was acclaimed as one of the most intelligent and humanistic motion-picture directors in postwar West Germany. Although the quality of his work was uneven, attributed partially to poor working conditions, he remains a leading figure in German cinema. Kutner was educated at the University of Munich and the Academy of Arts in Cologne. He was a cabaret singer before becoming an actor and film scriptwriter. He directed his first film in 1939 and managed to evade pressure from the Ministry of Propaganda during the war years. His success was partly due to his noncollaboration with the Nazi regime and Joseph Goebbels' criticism of Kutner's first major feature film, Romanze in Moll (1943; Romance in a Minor Key), as decadent and defeatist. It and other early works were praised elsewhere, however, as unusual and highly innovative, even when not entirely successful. Allowed to resume work by the British authorities after the war, Kutner made In jenen Tagen (1947; In Former Days) and other films on the Nazi era, including Die letzte Brcke (1953; The Last Bridge ) and Des Teufels General (1955; The Devil's General), which established his international reputation. During a brief period in Hollywood (1957) he produced two mediocre films, The Wonderful Years and A Stranger in My Arms. His later work in Germany failed to revive his reputation, though Der Reste ist Schweigen (1959; The Rest Is Silence), a version of Hamlet set in contemporary Germany, was perhaps unjustly neglected. During the last decade of his life Kutner directed for the stage instead of the screen.