Harry Piel

Vocation

Prolific German actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer who was involved in over 150 films. Piel became a director in 1912, turning out such box-office successes as Mann Gegen Mann (1928), Achtung! - Auto-Diebe!(1930) and Artisten (1935). His last directorial effort was 1953'sGesprengte Gitter (Elephant Fury, aka Panic), which he also produced, wrote, and starred. Piel received the nickname "the dynamite director" because of his penchant for including explosion sequences in his films. These were authentic: Piel had befriended a demolition engineer who was often commissioned to dynamite bridges and other condemned structures slated for demolition. The engineer notified Piel of these assignments in advance: Piel filmed the explosions, then inserted the footage into his films. In 1933 Harry Piel became a patron member of the SS and also joined the NSDAP. Then however difficulties began with the Nazis, and his film "Panic" (1940–43) was banned for showing too-realistic air attacks. Seventy-two negatives of his films, nearly all his silent movies, were destroyed in an air attack. After the collapse of the Third Reich, Harry Piel, who had been a sustaining member of the SS, and had at first concealed this, was sentenced to six months detention and five years professional disqualification. After his denazification, he founded "Ariel Film" in 1950 in Hamburg with which he had only moderate success. After one of his last films, Gesprengte Gitter (Elephant Fury, 1953), Piel withdrew from movie-making business and died ten years later on 27 March 1963. Link to Wikipedia biography