Alfred Adolf Vohrer
was born on December 29, 1914 in Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany. Alfred Vohrer
was schooled and took acting and singing lessons. In the 1930s he became a
member of the Württemberg State Theater in Stuttgart. During the Second World
War Vohrer was captured and in 1941 lost his right arm in Russia. He then
worked as a volunteer at the Ufa , where he stayed until the war ended and
worked an assistant director for Harald Braun and Alfred Brown.
In the early postwar
years, the German film industry was very weak, so Vohrer first worked in radio
worked. From 1946-1948 he was senior director at Radio Stuttgart and in 1949 he
returned to film work, though mostly unnoticed by the public. He was a dubbing
director at the MPEA and later joined with Josef Wolf as a partner in the firm
synchronous Ultra-film GmbH. In the following years Vohrer was a
synchronization director in charge of nearly 1,000 films, including many
classics such as “On the Waterfront” (1954) and “The Bridge on the River Kwai”
(1957).
In 1956 he planned
his first film project, “Zum Leben verdammt” for which he wrote the screenplay.
The project, however, was rejected.
In1958 Vohrer made
his directorial debut with the film “Schmutziger Engel” followed by “Verbrechen nach Schulschluß”.
In 1960 Vohrer worked
together for the first time with the Berlin producer Artur Brauner. Their first
film together was the Edgar Rice Burroughs story “Dead Eyes of London” (1961),
which became the largest success of the already established series. For the
first color film of Rialto, “Our House in Cameroon, Vohrer was also selected as
the director.
Vohrer then worked
with Wendlandt on the Karl-May-series as the director of “The Treasure of
Silver Lake” (1962). Constantin Film, which made the Edgar Wallace and Karl May
series in order, also contracted director Harald Reinl. But Vohrer received in
1964 the opportunity to film “Frontier Hellcat” in the Western series. The
comparatively action stressed film became the biggest success abroad among all
the Karl May movies. The second film of Vohrers, “Old Surehand” (1965), was not
continued. The more successful Spaghetti western-oriented “Winnetou and His Friend
Old Fire Hand” (1966) ended up being the last Karl May movie produced by Rialto.
As the number of
Edgar Wallace productions in the late 1960s dropped significantly and their
popular success waned, Vohrer moved to Munich’s Roxy film under Luggi
Waldleitner. There came first the mystery “School of Fear” and “Perrak” the sex
comedies “Herzblatt oder Wie sag
ich’s meiner Tochter?” and “Das gelbe Haus am Pinnasberg”.
From 1971 Vohrer directed
six film adaptations of novels by Johannes Mario Simmel building on the success
of previous years. Besides, the developed Pushkin film version “Tears of Blood”
and Erich Kästner’s adaption “Drei Männer im Schnee”. The public’s interest in
cinema during the second half of the 1970s dropping significantly, so Vohrer
from 1976 onward worked exclusively for television.
Alfred Vohrer worked
since 1975 on the series ‘Derrick’. From 1977 he also directed the TV series
‘Der Alte’. He was one of the busiest directors of the two series.
In the 1980s, he
worked on numerous episodic films of various genres. “Weißblaue Geschichten” with Gustl Bayrhammer,
‘Hessische Geschichten’ with Günter Strack and ‘Krumme Touren’ with Manfred Krug
had high ratings, so ZDF not passed on to Vohrer their Prestige series ‘Das
Traumschiff’ and ‘Die Schwarzwaldklinik’ to producer. In addition, he made
more episodes of Derrick.
Alfred Vohrer, who
lived with his partner Herbert in Berlin-Dahlem since the mid-1950s, died on 3
February 1986 in Munich, Germany.
Today we remember
Alfred Vohrer on what would have been his 100th birthday.
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