Curt Bois
Birthday: Born in 1901-04-05 in Berlin, Germany
Deathday: 1991-12-25
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Curt Bois (April 5, 1901 – December 25, 1991) was a German actor. He is best remembered for his performance as the Pickpocket in Casablanca (1942). Bois was born in Berlin and began acting in 1907, becoming one of the film world's first child actors, with a role in the silent movie Bauernhaus und Grafenschloß. In 1909, he played the title role in Der Kleine Detektiv ('The Little Detective'). Bois' acting career spanned eighty years, a span reached by few other actors. His final performance was in 1987's Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire). Bois performed in theatre, cabaret, musicals, silent film and "talkies" over his career as an actor. In 1934, Bois was forced to leave his home for the United States, where he found work on stage on Broadway. By 1937, he had found his way to Hollywood, and began acting in American pictures, the best-known of which was Casablanca (1942), with a single speech warning about pickpockets as "vultures everywhere". After World War II Bois decided it was safe to return to Germany, which he did in 1950. He finished his life and career in Germany, first in the East, and finally in the West. Bois died in Berlin, the city of his birth, at the age of ninety. Description above from the Wikipedia article Curt Bois, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
TV Credits
Der Kommissar
Character: Ohlers
Der Kommissar is a German television series about a group of detectives of the Munich homicide squad. All 97 episodes, which were shot in black-and-white and first broadcast between 1969 and 1976, were written by Herbert Reinecker and starred Erik Ode as Kommissar Herbert Keller. Keller's assistants were Walter Grabert, Robert Heines, and Harry Klein who, in 1974, was replaced by his younger brother Erwin Klein....
Der Kommissar
Character: Vater Klinger
Der Kommissar is a German television series about a group of detectives of the Munich homicide squad. All 97 episodes, which were shot in black-and-white and first broadcast between 1969 and 1976, were written by Herbert Reinecker and starred Erik Ode as Kommissar Herbert Keller. Keller's assistants were Walter Grabert, Robert Heines, and Harry Klein who, in 1974, was replaced by his younger brother Erwin Klein....
Kir Royal
Character: Friedrich Danziger
A six-part television series, a parody of the Munich newspaper, its gossip reporter Michael Graeter, and its publisher Anneliese Friedmann. The series centres around the tabloid reporter Baby Schimmerlos, who plays in the Munich "Schicki-Micki" scene of the 1980s....
Der Alte
Character: Herr Nathan
A police department, lead by an older, experienced detective solve crimes together....
Der Alte
Character: Karl Brunner
A police department, lead by an older, experienced detective solve crimes together....
NDR Talk Show
Character: Self
...
Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland
Character: Self (archive footage)
Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publ...
Movie Credits
Wings of Desire
Character: Homer
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form....
Casablanca
Character: Pickpocket
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications....
Cover Girl
Character: Chef at Danny McGuire's
A nightclub dancer makes it big in modeling, leaving her dancer boyfriend behind....
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Character: Student
Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protege and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he is involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the devil's work....
Fortunes of Captain Blood
Character: King Charles II
When he unwittingly sends some of his men into a trap, pirate Captain Peter Blood decides to rescue them. They've been taken prisoner by the Spanish Marquis de Riconete who is now using them as slave labor harvesting pearls from the sea....
Arch of Triumph
Character: Tattooed Waiter
In the winter of 1938, Paris is crowded with refugees from the Nazis, who live in the black shadows of night, trying to evade deportation. One such is Dr. Ravic, who practices medicine illegally and stalks his old Nazi enemy Haake with murder in mind. One rainy night, Ravic meets Joan Madou, a kept woman cast adrift by her lover's sudden death. Against Ravic's better judgment, they become involved in a doomed affair....
The Boat Is Full
Character: Lazar Ostrowskij
During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judit...
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
Character: Rabbit
A wealthy society doctor decides to research the medical aspects of criminal behaviour by becoming one himself. He joins a gang of thieves and proceeds to wrest leadership of the gang away from its extremely resentful leader....
The Woman in White
Character: Louis
A young painter stumbles upon an assortment of odd characters at an English estate where he has been hired to give art lessons to beautiful Laura Fairlie. Among them are Anne Catherick, a strange young woman dressed in white whom he meets in the forest and who bears a striking resemblance to Laura; cunning Count Fosco, who hopes to obtain an inheritance for nobleman Sir Percival Glyde, whom he plans to have Laura marry; Mr. Fairlie, a hypochondriac who can't stand to have anyone make the slighte...
Caught
Character: Franzi Kartos
Wide-eyed and poor young Leonora weds an obsessive millionaire named Ohlrig, but the marriage is loveless. Even worse, Ohlrig seems to have manic, violent tendencies. Eventually, young Leonora escapes her unhappy life and begins working with New York City doctor Larry Quinada, who she soon falls for. Unfortunately, Ohlrig refuses to grant his wife a divorce, and things get even darker for Leonora when she realizes she's pregnant with his child....
Hollywood Hotel
Character: Butch, Dress Designer
After losing a coveted role in an upcoming film to another actress, screen queen Mona Marshall (Lola Lane) protests by refusing to appear at her current movie's premiere. Her agent discovers struggling actress Virginia Stanton (Rosemary Lane) -- an exact match for Mona -- and sends her to the premiere instead, with young musician Ronnie Bowers (Dick Powell). After various mishaps, including a case of mistaken identity, Ronnie and Virginia struggle to find success in Hollywood....
The Oyster Princess
Character: Conductor (as Kurt Bois)
A pampered American oyster tycoon decides to buy a husband for his daughter, but things don’t go quite as planned. Along the way there are mishaps, misunderstandings and a foxtrot sequence that must be seen to be believed....
The Haunted Castle
Character: Hugo
The ghosts of thieves help a beautiful young countess save her inherited castle from modern developers in this comic horror/musical....
Hold Back the Dawn
Character: Bonbois
Romanian-French gigolo Georges Iscovescu wishes to enter the USA. Stopped in Mexico by the quota system, he decides to marry an American, then desert her and join his old partner Anita, who's done likewise. But after sweeping teacher Emmy Brown off her feet, he finds her so sweet that love and jealousy endanger his plans....
The Lady in Question
Character: Henri Lurette
When a jury member takes in the defendant he couldn't convict, she has a bad influence on his son....
The Spanish Main
Character: Paree
Laurent van Horn is the leader of a band of Dutch refugees on a ship seeking freedom in the Carolinas, when the ship is wrecked on the coast of Cartagene, governed by Don Juan Alvardo, a Spanish ruler. Alvarado has Laurent thrown in prison, but the latter escapes, and five-years later is a pirate leader. He poses as the navigator on a ship in which Contessa Francesca, daughter of a Mexican noble, is traveling on her way to marry Alvarado, whom she has never seen. Laurent's pirates capture the sh...
Gold Diggers in Paris
Character: Padrinsky
When the representative of the Paris International Dance Exposition arrives in New York to invite the Academy Ballet of America to compete for monetary prizes, the taxi driver mistakenly brings him to the Club Ballé, a nightclub on the brink of declaring bankruptcy. The owners, Terry Moore and Duke Dennis, jump at the chance to go, despite being aware of the mistake. They hire ballet teacher, Luis Leoni, and his only pupil, Kay Morrow, to join the group, hoping to teach their two dozen show girl...
The Tuttles of Tahiti
Character: Jensen
After a long absense from the island, Chester Tuttle returns to Tahiti to find that little has changed. His large family, particularly his scheming Uncle Jonas, would rather dance and romance than earn a living. When Jonas loses the family plantation in a cockfight, Chester saves the day by towing in a large ship abandoned at sea and claiming the salvage. But opening a joint bank account in the name of the Tuttle clan may not have been a wise decision....
The Desert Song
Character: François
Paul Hudson, leads a group of desert bandits against some Nazis, who want to use them as cheap labor for their railroad....
Swing Fever
Character: Nick Sirocco
Comedy about a bandleader with hypnotic powers....
A Kiss in the Dark
Character: Hugo Schloss
Eric Phillips's manager buys him a building with tenants, one of whom catches his eye....
Jungle Flight
Character: Pepe
Kelly Jordan and Andy Melton are former AAF fliers operating a cargo service over the South American mountain ranges in order to get enough money to return to Texas and buy a commercial line....
Paris After Dark
Character: Max
Andre Marbel is the upper-class doctor who is able to continue his practice above suspicion even though he is a leader in the French Resistance. His nurse supports his activities, but her Nazi-brainwashed husband provides the tension....
Hotel Imperial
Character: Anton
It is the fate of a small frontier town, adjoining the no-man's-land where the Russians and Austrians are fighting out one of the final campaigns of World War I, to be occupied one day by the Russians, the next by the Austrians, and the inhabitants soon acquire a complacent view of the changing allegiances. To the town comes Ann Warschaska, intent on avenging the suicide of her sister, who has killed herself after being betrayed by an Austrian officer. She knows no more about his identity than t...
That Night in Rio
Character: Felicio Salles
An entertainer in Rio impersonates a wealthy aristocrat. When the aristocrat's wife asks him to carry the impersonation further, complications ensue....
Der Dieb
Character:
...
Bitter Sweet
Character: Ernst
A woman runs away with her music teacher in order to escape an arranged marriage, but they struggle to make ends meet....
Ganovenehre
Character: Seiden-Emil
In the crazy twenties, safecracker Orje is released from prison and, through the mediation of his friend Nelly, finds a job at the "Sparverein Biene". The honorable gentlemen train him as a pimp, but because he is bored, he starts an affair with Olga. Soon his colleagues are planning his murder....
Boom Town
Character: Ferdie the Tailor
Two buddies who rise from fly-by-night wildcatters to oil tycoons over a twenty year period both love the same woman. McMasters and Sand come to oil towns to get rich. Betsy comes West intending to marry Sand but marries McMasters instead. Getting rich and losing it all teaches McMasters and Sand the value of personal ties....
Tovarich
Character: Alfonso
When upper-class Parisian Charles Dupont and his family hire Tina and Michel as their servants, they have no idea that the domestics are in fact Tatiana, the Grand Duchess Petrovna, and her husband, Mikail, Prince Ouratieff. Recent exiles from the Russian Revolution, Tatiana and Mikail befriend the Dupont family, keeping their true identities a secret -- until one night when Soviet official Gorotchenko arrives for dinner....
The Great Waltz
Character: Kienzl
Composer Johann Strauss risks his marriage over his infatuation with a beautiful singer....
Herr Puntila and His Servant Matti
Character: Johannes Puntila
This first film adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play about class distinctions was made in 1955 in the Vienna Rosenhügel studios, but it was only premiered five years later. Curt Bois plays the rich capitalist Puntila who only becomes somewhat agreeable when he is drunk (which he is most of the time in this film). In his inebriated state, Puntila not only gets amorously involved with three different ladies but also suggests that his daughter Eva marries his chauffeur Matti. The chauffeur, however,...
A Tremendously Rich Man
Character: Curt Nickel
A man swallows a diamond - and suddenly all people around him change their attitude towards him....
Boy Meets Girl
Character: Dance Director
Two lazy screenwriters need a story for the studio's cowboy star. A studio waitress turns out to be pregnant. This gives them the idea for a movie about a cowboy and a baby. The waitress's baby becomes the star. The cowboy and his agent run off with the waitress and her valuable asset. The writers retaliate by hiring an unemployed extra to impersonate the baby's father. But the extra already knows the waitress......
Garden of the Moon
Character: Maharajah of Sund
Don Vincente is determined to make a success of himself and his band. He gets his break by performing at the Garden of the Moon, which is broadcast over the radio. The problem is that John Quinn is the club's ruthless, scheming manager who will do anything to keep Vincente under his thumb. John's assistant, Toni Blake, falls for Vincente, complicating the escalating war....
Ein neuer Erwerbszweig
Character:
A love doctor successfully produces men on order for needy women, until his system for delivering them – through the mail as puppets in canisters - goes awry....
Blue, White, and Perfect
Character: Friedrich Gerber, alias Nappy Dubois
In order to win back his girlfriend, Mike Shayne promises to give up his detective practice and get a job as riveter in an aircraft plant. He quickly finds himself investigating the theft of industrial diamonds from the plant's safe and, utilizing a variety of false identities, traces them first to a dress factory and later to a Hawaii-bound ocean liner. Escaping several attempts on his life, he is able to uncover a Nazi smuggling ring, but the location of the missing diamonds continues to elude...
The Golden Butterfly
Character:
A restaurant cashier, who has a mutual attraction to the restauranteur, has a secret passion for dance. As soon as she finishes work she is off down to the dance studio for a practice. She has a chance meeting with a handsome impresario, who promises to make her into the greatest dancer the world has ever known....
The Eternal Jew
Character: Self (archive footage)
A Nazi propaganda film made to promote anti-Semitism among the German people. Newly-shot footage of Jewish neighborhoods in recently-conquered Poland is combined with preexisting film clips and stills to defame the religion and advance Hitler's slurs that its adherents were plotting to undermine European civilization....
Scherben bringen Glück
Character:
A man tries to outwit another man in pursuit of a woman....
Saratoga Trunk
Character: Augustin Haussy
An opportunistic Texas gambler and the exiled Creole daughter of an aristocratic family join forces to achieve justice from the society that has ostracized them....
Hullabaloo
Character: Armand Francois
A radio actor faces trouble when a science-fiction story causes the audience to panic....
He Stayed for Breakfast
Character: Comrade Tronavich
Set in Paris, this romantic comedy revolves around the beautiful estranged wife of a wealthy banker who hides a handsome and fiery Communist fugitive in her apartment....
Blonde Fever
Character: Brillon
Peter and Delilah are a married couple running a roadside café in Nevada. Their stable partnership turns rocky, though, with the arrival of the sultry Sally, a waitress who catches Peter's wandering eye. Delilah strikes back by hiring Sally's boyfriend as a waiter. Sally is initially dismissive of Peter's advances, but when he wins $40,000 in a lottery, she quickly pounces, turning on the charm and eyeing the easy life....
The Minister's Daughter
Character: Young Hans
Klara and her father have been alone since her mother died. Her close friend Hans leaves for the military, and on returning as a fine young man, rushes to see Klara. As their families work to keep them apart, their love grows stronger and stronger....
Das Idol von Mordassow
Character: Fürst
Mozglyakov, a young noble playboy, brings great "luck" to the small town of Mordassov: he brings them a prince in the flesh whom he has picked up in the snow. His commentary on this "high-born": the prince is actually just an artificial figure, with horsehair, a glass eye and chalky legs as well as a spring system as a locomotor system. He and other male inhabitants of the small town had no idea that such a fossil would set the local ladies into a fierce battle for prestige, power and money....
His Majesty the Barber
Character:
A handsome barber in Sweden doesn't know he's actually the Crown Prince of a Balkan kingdom in this charming Swedish-German comedy that effortlessly weaves together multiple Ruritanian tropes....
Der Stern von Afrika
Character:
Biographic Movie of the German fighter ace, who was killed in a plane crash after over 150 kills in North Africa....
Wehe wenn sie losgelassen
Character: Ali ben Mokka
...
Gypsy Wildcat
Character: Valdi
In an unspecified Renaissance kingdom, no sooner has Anube's gypsy tribe encamped near Baron Tovar's village when Count Orso is found murdered. The wicked baron blames the gypsies and imprisons them all in his castle. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger on a white horse has hidden the murder arrow and won the heart of gypsy belle Carla, to the discomfiture of her erstwhile fiancée Tonio. Baron Tovar is also fascinated by Carla...especially when he notices her heraldic pendant....
The Masked Mannequin
Character: Egun Fürst
Because she has fallen in love with an unknown man, young princess Antoinette has fled to Berlin before her planned marriage with a prince. Incognito, she works for the fashion house Pappenheim, where salesman Egon Fürst falls for the young girl. Antoinette′s rigid uncle is sent to bring the royal runaway home, but he mistakes another mannequin for his niece, therefore taking the wrong girl to his castle in Baden-Baden. The whole Pappenheim company, including the princess, also goes to Baden-B...
Romance in the Dark
Character: Von Hemisch
A baritone aids a young servant in making her dream of singing professionally come true....
The Great Sinner
Character: Jeweler / Money Lender
A young man succumbs to gambling fever....
The Woman from Tangier
Character: Parquit
This one has Nylon, an American dancer fleeing Morocco after her employer gets into trouble with the police, and she stops off at Tangiers on her way to Gibraltar. $50,000, in gold, is stolen from the ship's safe and the captain tells the police that the purser was the thief and that he had to kill him in self defense, but the purser must have hidden the money before he got dead. The purser isn't in any position to make a disclaimer. Everybody buys that with the exception of an insurance detecti...
Destroyer
Character: Swab with large nose
Flagwaving story of a new American destroyer, the JOHN PAUL JONES, from the day her keel is laid, to what was very nearly her last voyage. Among the crew, is Steve Boleslavski, a shipyard welder that helped build her, who reenlists, with his old rank of Chief bosuns mate. After failing her sea trials, she is assigned to the mail run, until caught up in a disparate battle with a Japanese sub. After getting torpedoed, and on the verge of sinking, the Captain, and crew hatch a plan to try and save ...
Princess O'Rourke
Character: Count Peter de Candome
A down-to-earth pilot charms a European princess on vacation in the United States....
Countess Ironing-Maid
Character:
The fun-loving laundress Mieze spends a romantic evening with the womanizer and fashion designer Max, who, however, wants nothing to do with her the next day. This only changes when Mieze appears to be the daughter of a count and "Countess Radebeul" moves into the elegant Hotel Bristol. After all sorts of complications and embarrassments, the countess turns out to be a misunderstanding, and Mieze and Max find each other after all. (Das Bundesarchiv)...
Pacific Rendezvous
Character: Kestrin
A code expert working for Naval Intelligence is assigned to decode enemy messages despite his desire for active duty....
Der große Zauberer - Max Reinhardt
Character: Self
"The Great Magician" - Max Reinhardt (1873-1943) was an Austrian theater and film director, director, theater producer and theater founder. With his Jedermann production on August 22, 1920, he founded the Salzburg Festival....
Joe Palooka Meets Humphrey
Character: Pierre
Newlyweds Joe and Anne Palooka are delayed in their honeymoon plans by the helpful Humphrey Pennyworth and by considerably-less-helpful manager, Knobby Walsh....
The Schlemihl
Character: Hartwig
Hartwig gets by a strange coincidence confused by a prince with a certain Josef Döllinger in a luxurious restaurant. Hartwig is overjoyed, as he gets to know the dancer Garda Maro....
Die Spinne
Character:
...
French Leave
Character: Marcel
Merchant seaman Skitch Kilroy (Jackie Cooper) and "Pappy" Reagan (Jackie Coogan)arrive in Marseilles, eager to resume their combative rivalry for Mimi. But they are ordered by their skipper Muldoon (Ralph Sanford) to remain on board and guard against theft of foodstuffs by a black market gang....