Franz Hofer(1882-1945)
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Director and writer Franz Hofer was born in Malstatt, as son of a
state-railway-official. He went to school there and in Trier, where his
father worked for a while. He left school in 1899, and went to
Altenburg (Saxonia)for studying engineering, but it is not known if he
realy studied there. In 1910 he was working as writer and actor at the
Zentral Theater in Berlin, in the same year he wrote hios first film
script for a Henny Porten movie. Due to his scripts, the Luna
Filmindustrie Berlin hiered him as an director. Till 1915 he directed
25 films for that company. Late 1915 he was hiered by the
Messter-Filmgesellschaft, where he made 8 movies before he went to the
Apollo-Filmgesellschaft, where made another 8 movies. Since December
1917 he was working for the Bayerische Filmvertriebs-Gesellschaft,
making there 19 movies. 1920 he worked for the Olaf-Filmgesellschaft
and Apollo, before opening his own company, the Hofer-Film G.m.b.H.,
turning his output from comedies and melodramas to the so-called
"Sitten-Film" (films about fallen women), but his fame was fading and
he returned working for other companies, but his movies at the end 20s
were critical and box-office flops. He became member of the NSDAP in
1932, and made one last movie "Drei Kaiserjaeger" (1933), before
returning to the stage. 1944 he attended the opening night of one of
his comedies at the Stadttheater Goerlitz, and he - living in Berlin -
probably died in the last days of the War or the ongoing economical
chaos in post-war Germany.