Radványi Géza

Radványi Géza (Born Géza Grosschmid) took the name Radványi from his paternal grandmother. His brother was the writer Sándor Márai. Géza von Radványi made a debut in journalism before moving to cinema in 1941. In the 1950s and 1960s, he aimed in creating a popular cinema that would rival Hollywood studios through European coproductions.

He began at the end of the 1940s, with the neorealist dramas Valahol Európában and Women Without Names, both making no concessions to the ravages of war and the postwar period. During the 1950s, Radványi’s change  in style was made evident in L’Étrange Désir de monsieur Bard, with Michel Simon and Geneviève Page (1953), and, above all, in the successfull remake of Mädchen in Uniform with Lilli Palmer, Marthe Mercadier and the young rising star, Romy Schneider (1958).

Within the same decade, he, also, made  Douze heures d’horloge (fr), a horror film based on a script by Boileau, Narcejac, with Lino Ventura and Laurent Terzieff, as well as, Mademoiselle Ange (fr), a slapstick comedy with Romy Schneider and Henri Vidal (1959). In the 1960s, he became more ambitious. His 70 mm coproductions Onkel Toms Hütte, with Mylène Demongeot and Herbert Lom (1965), and Der Kongreß amüsiert sich, with Lilli Palmer, Curd Jürgens, Paul Meurisse and Françoise Arnoul (1966), were both rather unsuccessful. Not long after, he wrote the script for the very successful film L’homme orchestre, produced by Louis de Funès and directed by Serge Korber (1970). His 1961 film Das Riesenrad  made it to the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival and Uncle Tom’s Cabin(1965) the 4th Moscow International Film Festival. Géza von Radványi’s career came to an end with Circus Maximus (1980), a modest production made in his home country.