The extraordinarily prolific and eclectic art director Hans Dreier
studied at Munich University where he majored in engineering and architecture.
Following military service during the First World War, he spent time
working as a supervising architect in the Cameroons and South Africa.
Between 1919 and 1923, he was employed by Germany's pre-eminent film company Ufa
as an assistant designer. Along with
Ernst Lubitsch and other talented
compatriots seeking more lucrative opportunities within the emerging
film industry, Dreier left Europe in the early 1920s and was recruited by
Hollywood. Most of his lengthy tenure at Paramount (1923-50) was spent
as supervising art director. In that capacity, he became as influential
at determining the overall style of the studio's output as his
counterpart Cedric Gibbons at MGM. The
Paramount 'look' during the
20's and early 30's epitomised continental elegance and sophistication. Unlike Gibbons, Dreier was far less autocratic and gave the production designers he recruited (among them Albert S. D'Agostino
and Roland Anderson) carte
blanche to stamp their own distinctive authority on their work. In
turn, this laissez-faire approach attracted more and more talented
designers to Paramount.
Dreier himself took personal charge of all films made by Lubitsch and
Josef von Sternberg between 1927 and
1932. His innate perception of space, combined with his expressionist
leanings, proved eminently well-suited to the sombre, moody and heavily
stylised films of von Sternberg.
Die Docks von New-York (1928),
Schanghai Express (1932) and
Die große Zarin (1934)
are among the most visually evocative examples of Dreier's use of light
and dark effects, of chiaroscuro and fog. In later years, his most
rewarding collaborations were with
Billy Wilder and
Preston Sturges. Among Dreier's impressive
list of credits -- either working on his own or in collaboration -- are
many of Paramount's most enduring films, encompassing nearly every genre: from
horror to romance, from epic spectacle to period drama, from musical to
films noir:
Dr. Jekyll und Mr. Hyde (1931),
Insel der verlorenen Seelen (1932),
Ärger im Paradies (1932),
Die Marx Brothers im Krieg (1933),
Cleopatra (1934),
Bengali (1935),Der Freibeuter von Louisiana (1938),
Sullivans Reisen (1941),
Piraten im Karibischen Meer (1942),
The Fleet's In (1942),
Die Narbenhand (1942) and
Frau ohne Gewissen (1944).
Dreier retired in 1950 and was replaced as supervising art director by
Hal Pereira. During his career he was
nominated for twenty Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, winning on
three occasions. He received his first Oscar for the costume drama
Der Pirat und die Dame (1944). In
1950 he scored a double: one for the biblical technicolor epic
Samson und Delilah (1949) and
a second for his work on Billy Wilder's black & white masterpiece
Boulevard der Dämmerung (1950). He was inducted
into the Art Director's Hall of Fame in 2005.
