Max Obal

Biography

Brieg, Silesia—4 September 1881—brought forth a restless storyteller named Max Obal. Behind the camera he turned Berlin’s streets into playgrounds of suspense: in 1914 he sent audiences skyward with Sein Rekordflug, then plunged them into the city’s criminal underbelly with Das Rattenloch in 1921 and crowned his silent-era career with the mischievous epic Der größte Gauner des Jahrhunderts seven years later. On 18 May 1949, in the quiet Wilmersdorf quarter of a divided Berlin, the final curtain fell.