Otto Rippert | |
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 Otto Rippert, byJan Vilimek (1896) | |
| Born | (1869-10-22)22 October 1869 Offenbach am Main, Germany |
| Died | 15 January 1940(1940-01-15) (aged 70) Berlin, Germany |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, film director, film editor |
| Years active | 1912–1924 |
Otto Rippert (22 October 1869 – 15 January 1940) was a German film director during thesilent film era.
Rippert was born inOffenbach am Main, Germany, and began his career as a stage actor, working in theatres inBaden-Baden,Forst (Lausitz),Bamberg and inBerlin. In 1906, he acted his first film in Baden-Baden for the FrenchGaumont Film Company. In 1912 he appeared (complete with stick-on beard) as the millionaireIsidor Straus inIn Nacht und Eis, one of the first films about the sinking of theTitanic.[1] The film was made byContinental-Kunstfilm of Berlin, where Rippert continued to work as a director, making some ten motion pictures between 1912 and 1914. However, his reputation as one of the pioneers of German silent film rests on some of his later achievements, for exampleHomunculus andThe Plague of Florence.[2]
Homunculus, produced by Deutsche Bioskop in 1916, is a six-part serialscience fiction film involving mad scientists, superhuman androids and sinister technology. The script was written byRobert Reinert, and the film foreshadows various elements ofFritz Lang's 1927Metropolis, as well as serving as a model for later adaptations ofMary Shelley'sFrankenstein rather than the original1910 version.[3] The subject-matter ofHomunculus is similar to an earlier film about a monstrous man-made being,Der Golem (Paul Wegener, 1915).[4]
Fritz Lang wrote the script for Rippert's historical epicThe Plague of Florence (1919), the first film (of sixteen, as of 2007) to feature theblack plague.[5] The cameraman was Emil Schünemann, who was behind the lens forIn Nacht und Eis.
After 1924, Rippert stopped directing films and worked as afilm editor. He had astroke in 1937 and died in Berlin in 1940.
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