Hans May

Birth : 1886-07-11, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]

Death : 1958-12-31

History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Hans May (11 July 1886 – 31 December 1958) was an Austrian-born film composer who went into exile in Britain after the Nazis came to power in his homeland, being of Jewish descent. May composed over a hundred film scores. He wrote a musical Wedding in Paris in 1954.

Movies

Ein Lied geht um die Welt
Music
Biopic of singer and film actor Joseph Schmidt (1904-1942).
The Gypsy and the Gentleman
Original Music Composer
About to enter a marriage he wants no part of, rich nobleman Mitchell takes up with gypsy Mecouri. They marry, but she soon discovers he's deeply in debt. (TCM)
Der Kaiser und das Wäschermädel
Original Music Composer
The Tell-Tale Heart
Original Music Composer
Stanley Baker enacts the classic Edgar Allan Poe story in this chilling short film, only recently rediscovered after being lost for 50 years.
Never Let Me Go
Music
An American reporter falls in love with a Russian ballet dancer.
Full House
Music
Anthology film with three shorts each featuring a famous detective: Monsieur Wens, Lemmy Caution and Maigret.
Tall Headlines
Music Director
A family is torn apart when their eldest son is hanged for the murder of a young girl.
Tall Headlines
Original Music Composer
A family is torn apart when their eldest son is hanged for the murder of a young girl.
A Tale of Five Cities
Music
An Englishman has been working in the US so long he now speaks with an American accent. He is drafted into the British Army during WWII but is injured and loses his memory. Because he talks like an American, the doctors repatriate him to the States where he is housed with a New York family. After the war they all travel throughout Europe, searching for the women he still remembers in the hope of restoring his lost memory
Shadow of the Eagle
Original Music Composer
During the eighteenth century the Empress of Russia sends her lover to kidnap her rival for the throne.
The Twenty Questions Murder Mystery
Original Music Composer
The story evolves around a radio panel game show "Twenty Questions." The panel is challenged with an anonymous question. The answer leads to a series of murders in which the killer uses the program to name his victims in advance. Two reporters spot a link between them and enlist the aid of the panel in trapping the guilty party.
Warning to Wantons
Music
Featuring an early role for accomplished French actress Anne Vernon alongside Mary Poppins star David Tomlinson, this effervescent comedy charts the romantic adventures of a young woman who swaps her strict convent school for the heady pleasures of high society. Seventeen-year-old Renee slips away from her convent school, joins her fashionable mother and launches herself into Society with one aim: to conquer the hearts of all the men she encounters. Setting her sights on Max, a bridegroom-to-be, her expert scheming and manipulative behaviour soon ensures that he falls under her spell... but his fiancee isn't giving up without a fight
No Room at the Inn
Original Music Composer
A group of children are evacuated during world war two into the care of an alcoholic woman.
Uneasy Terms
Music Director
Private eye Slim Callaghan is summoned to the country home of a Colonel Stenhurst, but the latter is murdered before he can talk to the detective. Was one of the Colonel's three daughters responsible?
Uneasy Terms
Original Music Composer
Private eye Slim Callaghan is summoned to the country home of a Colonel Stenhurst, but the latter is murdered before he can talk to the detective. Was one of the Colonel's three daughters responsible?
The Three Weird Sisters
Original Music Composer
Three older sisters live on their family estate in Wales. This household once proudly reigned over a mining town, but the mines dried up and the estate and the town have fallen on hard times. When the land crumbles and a number of homes in the town are destroyed the sisters promise to rebuild the homes.
My Brother Jonathan
Original Music Composer
Jonathan Dakers' early ambition was to become a great surgeon and to marry Edie Martyn. But, on the death of his father, he is obliged to start work as a partner in a poor general practice in the Black Country. Edie falls in love with Jonathan's brother, Harold, who is killed in the Great War, and Jonathan marries her as planned. It is only afterwards that he realises he now loves another.
Brighton Rock
Conductor
Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.
Brighton Rock
Original Music Composer
Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.
Counterblast
Original Music Composer
An escaped World War 2 Nazi doctor impersonates a murdered English doctor so he can work on a vaccination to protect the Germans in their planned germ warfare.
Mrs. Fitzherbert
Music Director
The tangled affairs of George, Prince of Wales, leading to his illegal marriage to commoner Mrs. Fitzherbert. Also portrayed is the conflict between the future George IV and his father George III.
The Ghosts of Berkeley Square
Original Music Composer
The ghosts of two stupid 18th-century officers are doomed to haunt a Berkeley Square mansion until the unlikely event of a reigning monarch paying the house a visit. It will take more than 200 years... Based on the novel "No Nightingales" by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon.
Green Fingers
Original Music Composer
A fisherman begins studying to be an osteopath. Although he isn't finished with medical school, he begins treating his landlady's daughter who is believed to have a chronic illness. He seems to cure her, and the case draws a lot of attention, some of it negative because he was unlicensed when he treated her. He still does not have a degree when he marries the daughter and begins practising osteopathy.
The Laughing Lady
Original Music Composer
A musical set during the French Revolution.
Bedelia
Conductor
Bedelia Carrington is living happily, it appears, in Monte Carlo with her husband Charlie Carrington. But a cultivated young artist, Ben Chaney, begins probing into her past with curious concern. Chaney, who is really a detective, learns that Bedelia's obsession for money has led her, in the past, to husband-poisoning for the insurance money.
Bedelia
Original Music Composer
Bedelia Carrington is living happily, it appears, in Monte Carlo with her husband Charlie Carrington. But a cultivated young artist, Ben Chaney, begins probing into her past with curious concern. Chaney, who is really a detective, learns that Bedelia's obsession for money has led her, in the past, to husband-poisoning for the insurance money.
Lisbon Story
Music
A musical cabaret singer meets a British agent and goes with him to Nazi occupied France to save an atomic scientist.
Appointment with Crime
Music Director
Small-time jewel thief Leo Martin is deserted by his partners-in-crime, club owner Gus Loman and driver Hatchett, when the robbery they are committing goes wrong. After serving his prison sentence, Leo emerges with an intricate plan for revenge. Leo implicates Loman, as well as his amoral boss, Gregory Lang, for murder -- but Inspector Rogers suspects Leo.
The Trojan Brothers
Music Director
Opposing ends of a pantomime horse where the 'head' dates a society lady while the 'tail' is unhappily married.
The Wicked Lady
Original Music Composer
A married woman finds new thrills as a masked robber on the highways.
Murder in Reverse?
Music Director
Tom Masterick, a dock worker, is wrongfully convicted of a murder charge. His death sentence is commuted to a long prison term. When released as an old man, he vows to find the real killer.
Murder in Reverse?
Original Music Composer
Tom Masterick, a dock worker, is wrongfully convicted of a murder charge. His death sentence is commuted to a long prison term. When released as an old man, he vows to find the real killer.
Waltz Time
Gypsy Troubadour
Waltz Time is a 1945 British musical film directed by Paul L. Stein and starring Carol Raye, Peter Graves and Patricia Medina. In Imperial Vienna a young Grand Duchess is prevented from marrying the man she loves.
The World Owes Me a Living
Original Music Composer
When a British pilot is hospitalized after a plane crash, the woman he loves sits by his bedside and remembers, in flashbacks, key episodes from their life together.
Two Thousand Women
Original Music Composer
During the Second World War, three downed English airmen hide out with women's internment camp in France.
The Hundred Pound Window
Music
An accountant who has to take a second job working at a racetrack, soon becomes mixed up with a shady crowd.
Thunder Rock
Music
David Charleston, once a world renowned journalist, now lives alone maintaining the Thunder Rock lighthouse in Lake Michigan. He doesn't cash his paychecks and has no contact other than the monthly inspector's visit. When alone, he imagines conversations with those who died when a 19th century packet ship with some 60 passengers sank. He imagines their lives, their problems, their fears and their hopes. In one of these conversations, he recalls his own efforts in the 1930s when he desperately tried to convince first his editors, and later the public, of the dangers of fascism and the inevitability of war. Few would listen. One of the passengers, a spinster, tells her story of seeking independence from a world dominated by men. There's also the case of a doctor who is banished for using unacceptable methods. David has given up on life, but the imaginary passengers give him hope for the future.
Back-Room Boy
Original Music Composer
Jilted by his fiancee, Arthur Pilbeam gets a job as far away from women as possible. Alone in a lighthouse, he soon finds that 12 other people end up living on the tiny island. Thirteen is an unlucky number; and one-by-one they disappear ...
Pastor Hall
Music
This film is based on the true story of Pastor Martin Neimuller, who was sent to Dachau concentration camp for criticising the Nazi party. The small German village of Altdorf in the 1930's has to come to terms with Chancellor Hitler and the arrival of a platoon of Stormtroopers (preceded by a flock of sheep). The Stormtrooper go about teaching and enforcing 'The New Order' but Pastor Hall is a kind and gentle man who won't be cowed. Some villagers join the Nazi party avidly, some just go along with things, hoping for a quiet life but Pastor Hall takes his convictions to the pulpit.
The Stars Look Down
Original Music Composer
The Stars Look Down is based on A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel of the same name, about injustices in a mining community in North East England. While the novel follows the development of three young men in the small mining town, the film focuses on just one of them; the smart David Fenwick who gets a scholarship to university, meets a girl who only marries him because her former boyfriend has abandoned her, and eventually returns to the mine town as a teacher and takes part in a futile rescue effort when the mine is flooded, trapping both his father and his younger brother.
I Killed the Count
Music
Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Davidson is trying to determine who murdered the much-hated Count Matton. The dilemma isn't that the Detective is suffering from a lack of witnesses but that four different people have come forth to confess to the killing, each of them with plenty of motive and opportunity.
Everything in Life
Music
An opera singer pretends to be poor in order to romantically win over a composer.
Southern Roses
Music
A musical comedy of false identities.
Heut' ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben
Music
Two twin brothers working in a Vienna fair and who are both gifted for singing meet different luck both in love and their careers.
Mayerling
Original Music Composer
Rudolf, the only heir to Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary, is trapped in a loveless marriage to a Belgian princess. As he seeks to flee his stifling environment, he meets the beautiful Maria, and the two enter into a scandalous affair. Despite the interference of the Emperor, the couple refuse to give each other up.
De Big van het Regiment
Music
Diary fragments tell of the arrival of Belgian refugees across the Dutch border in winter 1915. Reserve lieutenant Berkhage returns from the Belgian border with a refugee child. Named "Big" by the company the kid soon becomes the regimental darling.
Ein Stern fällt vom Himmel
Music
Joseph Reiner, a talented music student, tries to get a contract from a film and music producer, aided by Annerl, the girl he loves, and his music school fellows. When famous screen tenor Lincoln gets suddenly indisposed he will have a chance, yet not exactly the one he expected.
My Song Goes Round the World
Original Music Composer
Set in Venice, the touching and sometimes comic story of a diminutive tenor who falls in love whilst striving for success. Also filmed in German as Ein Lied geht um die Welt.
Gado Bravo
Original Music Composer
A love triangle set in Lisbon between German singer Nina, bullfighter Garrido and local girl Branca.
La belle de nuit
Original Music Composer
Based on a play by Pierre Wolff, about a wronged husband’s revenge on his wife and her lover, La belle de nuit is a major find, a work of uninhibited stylistic imagination that ranges from Sirkian stylization (an elaborate play of mirrors and doubles) to brutal realism (a tour of the bordellos of Marseille suggests the contemporary photographs of Brassaï).
A Song Goes Round the World
Music
A Song Goes Round the World is a 1933 German drama film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Joseph Schmidt, Viktor de Kowa and Charlotte Ander.
Trenck - Der Roman einer großen Liebe
Original Music Composer
The Ladies Diplomat
Music
Diplomat Fürst Windischberg is known for spending too much time with women, receiving frequent reprimands and even a threat to be sent to Afrika. In Berlin he meets chorus girl Hella, who tells her companions she is his current flirt.
The Pride of Company Three
Compositor
The adventures of smart soldier Gustav Diestelbeck include managing his superior officer, competing for the canteneer's daughter, evading punishment for discipline faults and hosting Prinz Willibald during his visit to the regiment.
Let's Love and Laugh
Music
A comedy film directed by Richard Eichberg
Night Birds
Original Music Composer
Early British thriller about a master criminal named 'Flash Jack', who heads a gang of top-hatted thieves that rob the wealthy. A detective tracks the crimes to a posh night club.
The Gripper
Music
A boy song from Heidelberg
Original Music Composer
Vienna, City of Song
Original Music Composer
Steffi is in love with the unemployed musician Pepi. Still, her father the musical instrument retailer, Ignaz Korn, wants her to marry one of his card playing buddies, the butcher Burgstaller. When the typesetter, Cäsar Grün, purposely misprints a winning lottery number in the newspaper, Korn and Burgstaller, thinking they have won, pay the drinks for everybody in the Bock Café and then give away their businesses.
The Flame of Love
Music
In Russia, a Chinese dancer gives herself to a duke to save her brother's life.
Hai-Tang. Der Weg zur Schande
Music
Wer wird denn weinen, wenn man auseinandergeht?
Music
The Love of Jeanne Ney
Original Music Composer
In the Crimea, the Reds and the Whites aren't done fighting, and Jeanne discovers that the man she loves is a Bolshevik (when he kills her father). Penniless, she returns to Paris where she works for her uncle. Soon after, her lover Andreas is in France to organize the sailors in Toulon. So also is a thief, traitor, and libertine, Khalibiev, who wants to seduce Jeanne. His schemes, Jeanne and Andreas's naivete, and a lost diamond bring the lovers to the brink of tragedy.
Der Bettler vom Kölner Dom
Music
An international gang of thieves and swindlers decide to move their criminal operation to the Teutonic city of Cologne, but Tom Wilkens, one of the best agents of the international police, is not far behind and leads an investigation to unmask the criminals.
Children's Souls Accuse You
Music
Children's Souls Accuse You is a 1927 German silent drama film directed by Curtis Bernhardt and starring Albert Steinrück, Nathalie Lissenko and Walter Rilla. It was made with an anti-abortion theme.
Memoirs of a Nun
Music
Movie by Arthur Bergen starring Mary Nolan (Imogene Robertson).
Unsere Emden
Original Music Composer