The son of comedian and theatre director Ludwig Brahm, Hans followed in
his father's footsteps and began his career on the stages of Vienna,
Berlin and Paris. Again, like his father, he graduated to directing and
had his first fling with the film business as a dialogue director for a
Franco/German co-production, starring his future wife
Dolly Haas. Hans went to England in 1934 to
escape Nazi persecution (and to avoid being caught up in another war,
having spent much of the previous conflagration as a conscript on the
Russian Front). After a brief spell as a production supervisor, Brahm
made his directing debut with an undistinguished remake of
D.W. Griffith's
Broken Blossoms (1936). A year
later, he moved on to the U.S..
Having anglicised his first name to John, he arrived in Hollywood in
1937 and was signed to a three-year contract at Columbia (1937-40),
followed by another three years with 20th Century Fox (1941-44). Brahm
specialised in suspense thrillers, often with psychological undertones,
at times involving madness. His affinity with filming the sinister and
the grotesque had much to do with the influence of his uncle Otto, once
an influential theatrical producer. Otto introduced his nephew to the
dark and fantastic elements of classic German expressionist cinema,
including films like
Faust (1926).
At Fox, Brahm directed two masterpieces back-to-back: the stylish and
moody 'Jack the Ripper' look-alike
Scotland Yard greift ein (1944); and, in a similar
vein, Hangover Square (1945), a
gothic melodrama about insanity and murder, set in Victorian London.
Both films starred the excellent, sadly short-lived, actor
Laird Cregar, whose professionalism and
finely-etched performances Brahm greatly appreciated. Much of the
credit for the pace and detail of these films belongs to Brahm himself,
who meticulously mapped out every scene and camera angle before
shooting commenced.
Another of Brahm's films, not in the same league as the aforementioned,
but nonetheless quite enjoyable, is
Der wahnsinnige Zauberkünstler (1954).
Something of a precursor to the cycle of low-budget horror films
Vincent Price was later to make at
American-International, it was shot in the experimental 3-D process.
What the picture lacked in a visceral sense, it made up for in period
detail and in an enjoyable star performance reminiscent of the earlier
Das Kabinett des Professor Bondi (1953).
By the mid-1950's, Brahm had segued from films to television, but never
strayed far from the macabre. He directed some of the best-loved
episodes of
Alfred Hitchcock präsentiert (1955),
The Outer Limits (1963),
Alfred Hitchcock zeigt (1962)
and, especially,
Unwahrscheinliche Geschichten (1959)
("Time Enough at Last" comes
to mind, in particular). Brahm retired in 1968. He spent the last years
of his life confined to a wheelchair and died in October 1982 at the
respectable age of 89.
