Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen

A “well wrought investigation of the often mysterious life of Edgar G. Ulmer,” (Village Voice) that ambitiously blends film clips, interviews, audio tapes and vintage music cues into a fascinating documentary, Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen is “a nice homage” (New York Times) to the filmmaking genius behind The Black Cat, Detour, and The Man From Planet X. Featuring testimonials from Roger Corman, John Landis, Joe Dante, Wim Wenders, and Detour’s ultimate femme fatale Ann Savage, The Man Off-Screen paints a vividly impressionistic portrait of a no-budget auteur stylistically able to “take a rat and make Thanksgiving dinner out of it.”

On his own and in collaboration with movie legends F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder, from Berlin’s legendary UFA Studios to poverty-row purgatory in Hollywood (where he was blackballed for stealing a studio exec's daughter-in-law), Ulmer created a unique and heady blend of old world culture and 20th century pulp pizzazz.

As a bonus, Kino pairs The Man Off-Screen with Isle of Forgotten Sins (aka Monsoon), a characteristically lurid Ulmer-helmed South Seas island adventure from 1943 that pits John Carradine (The Grapes of Wrath) and Gale Sondergaard against Sidney “Charlie Chan” Toler in a deadly hunt for deep sea gold. —Kino