UCICKY, GUSTAV

born July 6, 1899, Vienna, Austria died April 26, 1961, Hamburg, W.Ger. original name Gustav Klimt Austrian film director known for historical and nationalistic German films done during Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Ucicky began his career as a cameraman with Michael Curtiz but moved to Germany in 1928, becoming involved in the state-subsidized studio Ufa. His early movies, such as Hocuspocus (1929) and Der unsterbliche Lump (1930; Immortal Vagabond), were light and well-directed entertainments that were praised for artistic photography. Ucicky's first nationalistic film, Yorck (1931), was panned in the United States as being no more than an over-glorified episode of German history. Though similarly criticized in Austria, the movie launched a string of films that were approved for the German public by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister of public enlightenment. Morgenrot (1932; Dawn), which gained some recognition both in Europe and the United States, was a realistic story of U-boat warfare and depicts the dangerous and tenuous life in a submarine. Flchtlinge (1933; Refugees) was crudely anti-Soviet, however, and was followed by several other propaganda films. After the war, Ucicky resumed directing, producing several largely entertaining films between 1949 and 1960.