“In the early years of this century, newspapers often reported about a young and reckless motorcycle and car driver, who is also a daring pilot of airplanes and airships. Everybody calls him Sascha but his real name is Alexander Joseph Kolowrat-Krakowsky, as stated in the Gotha’s ‘Who’s who’, where we can also learn that he was born in the States, in Glenridge on Jan. 29, 1886 from Count Leopold – who owned half Bohemia – and his american bride, heiress of the largest tobacco company in the States. At the age of 21, Sascha inherited one of the largest fortunes in the world, became president of several important industries to which he must dedicate the time he spares from his other pursuit: cinema. In facts, when he met Charles Pathé in Paris in 1909, Sascha understood the possible development of the new medium and decided to invest in film industry in Austria, where production was still stammering. […] His first real fiction film was dated 1913, Der Millionenonkel, with Alexander Girardi, an actor beloved by viennese audience, who played 32 roles from different operettas in the film. […] After the fall of Béla Kuhn’s Republic of Councils, Sascha Film can employ hungarian refugees such as Alexander Korda and Mihály Kertész. The first makes four films for Sascha […] while the latter has a more active role, alternating kolossals and lively comedies with Lucy Doraine, Kertész’s wife. Among the interesting ones, we can mention Der Stern von Damaskus, from a novel by Georges Ohnet, Wege des Schreckens, Die Lawine, a drama shot on location on the Alps, Der junge Medardus, from Arthur Schnitzler’s drama, and obviously Sodom und Gomorrha”.

Vittorio Martinelli