Edgar G. Ulmer (September 17, 1904 – September 30, 1972) was an Austrian-American film director. He is best remembered for the movies The Black Cat (1934) and Detour (1945). These stylish and eccentric works have achieved cult status, whereas Ulmer's other films remain relatively unknown.

Career

Ulmer was born in Olomouc, in what is now the Czech Republic. As a young man he lived in Vienna, where he worked as a stage actor and set designer while studying architecture and philosophy. He did set design for Max Reinhardt's theater, served his apprenticeship with F. W. Murnau, and worked with directors including Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, and Eugen Schüfftan, inventor of the Schüfftan process. He also claimed to have worked on Der Golem (1920), Metropolis (1927), and M (1931), but there is no evidence to support this. Ulmer came to Hollywood with Murnau in 1926 to assist with the art direction on Sunrise (1927). In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, he also recalled making two-reel westerns in Hollywood around this time.Bogdanovich, Peter (1997). Who the Devil Made It (New York: Knopf).

The first feature he directed in North America, Damaged Lives (1933), is a low-budget exploitation film, exposing the horrors of venereal disease. It was shot in Hollywood, with a medical reel provided by the American Social Hygiene Association, for the Canadian Social Health Council and premiered in Toronto.Firsching, Robert, "Damaged Lives" (review), Allmovie; Rist, Peter (2001). Guide to the Cinema(s) of Canada (Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press), p. 77. ISBN 0313299315. Kenneth Turan's claim that the film was "sponsored by the American Social Hygiene Society" (p. 364) both misnames the U.S. group and misstates its role in the film. His next film, The Black Cat (1934), starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, was made for the major Universal studio. Demonstrating the striking visual style that would be Ulmer's hallmark, the film was Universal's biggest hit of the season.Mank, Gregory William (1990). Karloff and Lugosi: The Story of a Haunting Collaboration (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland), p. 81. Ulmer, however, had begun an affair with the wife of independent producer Max Alexander, nephew of Universal studio head Carl Laemmle. Shirley Alexander's divorce and subsequent marriage to Ulmer led to his being exiled from the major Hollywood studios. Ulmer would spend most of his directorial career making B movies at Poverty Row production houses.Cantor, Paul A. (2006). "Film Noir and the Frankfurt School: America as Wasteland in Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour," in The Philosophy of Film Noir, ed. Mark T. Conard (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky), p. 143. ISBN 0813123771. His wife, now Shirley Ulmer, would act as script supervisor on nearly all of his films, and she wrote the screeenplays for several. Their daughter, Arianne, appeared as an extra in several of his films.