Explores what we don't know about Michael Curtiz, who made over 160 films in his brilliant, decade-spanning career. From humble beginnings in 1888, Curtiz worked his way up in show business, starting out as an actor and eventually making films in his native Austria-Hungary and Berlin. Curtiz's work in America is unparalleled. He received an Academy Award for "Casablanca," but in the words of Steven Spielberg, no other director has such an eclectic body of work. His range was uncanny, beginning in the Silent Era, then making westerns such as "Dodge City," swashbucklers like "The Sea Hawk," period pieces like "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" and the quintessential musical in "Yankee Doodle Dandy."
—Ulf Kjell Gür