German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5491/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Super-Film.
Walter Janssen (1887-1976), originally Walter Philipp Janßen, was a German stage and screen actor and film director. Between the late 1910s and the late 1950s, Walter Janssen had a very prolific acting career in German cinema.
Born in Krefeld, Germany, Janssen began his theater career in 1906 in Frankfurt am Main, then worked from 1908 to 1910 in Kassel and from 1910 to 1915 again in Frankfurt. In 1915, his daughter Signe von Scanzoni was born in Frankfurt, who grew out of Janssen's liaison with Amélie zu Fürstenberg. From 1915 to 1918 he worked in Munich and from 1919 at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Guest performances took him to London, among others.
In 1917 he made his first film appearance in Die entschleierte Maja. In 1919 he acted as a reckless Casanova in Der Tänzer by Arthur Wollin. In 1921 he played the young husband in Fritz Lang's classic Der müde Tod, but stood here in the shadow of Lil Dagover, who desperately struggles for his life as his wife, opposite Death, played by Bernhard Goetzke. Janssen also plays Dagover's lover in the three episodes set in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and a fairy-tale like China. In Peter der Große (Dimitri Buchowetzki, 1923) Janssen played the Zarevitch Alexis opposite Emil Jannings in the title role. In Zopf und Schwert/ Braid and Sword (Victor Janson, Rudolf Dworsky, 1926) opposite Mady Christians as Princess Wilhelmine and Albert Steinrück. Janssen embodied Crown Prince Friedrich (Future Frederick II). In Maria Stuart (Friedrich Fehér, 1927) he was Lord Darnley, opposite Magda Sonja in the title role. Other memorable parts Janssen had opposite Henny Porten in Struensee/ Die Liebe einer Königin (Ludwig Wolff, 1923) and Tragödie (Carl Froehlich, 1925), opposite Aud Egede Nissen in Karusellen (Buchowetzki, 1923), and opposite Ellen Richter in Die tolle Herzogin (Willi Wolff, 1926) and Die Frau ohne Nerven (Wolff, 1929).
Janssen easily made the passage to sound cinema, and with success. Initially, he was really on top, with the lead of operetta composer Toni opposite Gretl Theimer, Willi Forst and Oskar Karlweiss in the musical film Zwei Herzen im Dreiviertel-Takt (Géza von Bolváry, 1930), probably Janssen's first sound film. Janssen had more male leads in musical comedies in these early sound years, e.g. in Die singende Stadt (1930), Kaiserliebchen (1931), Die Faschingsfee (1931), etc. In addition he had supporting parts in period pieces such as Das Flötenkonzert van Sanssouci (Gustav Ucicky, 1930) with Otto Gebuhr, or romantic comedies such as Jeder fragt nach Erika (Fredric Zelnik, 1931), Lachende Erben (Max Ophüls, 1933), Maskerade (Willi Forst, 1934), etc. In 1934 he starred in Harry Piel's S-F film Der Herr der Welt (1934) as a German scientist who designs and builds a machine that will do dangerous work instead of placing humans in jeopardy. But the machine itself turns out to have disastrous effects on the people involved...
However, by the mid-1930s, Janssen's roles became smaller, even he continued to act in many more films. Substantial parts he still had in Geld fällt vom Himmel (Heinz Helbig, 1938), and in Wen die Götter lieben (Karl Hartl, 1942) as Mozart's father Leopold, Die schwache Stunde (Vladimír Slavínsk, 1943), Warum lügst Du, Elisabeth? (Fritz Kirchhoff, 1944), and Das Hochzeitshotel (Carl Boese, 1944). Janssen's first film after the war was an American release of Wen die Götter lieben, titled The Mozart Story (1948). NB IMDB mentioned this was a prewar, shelved Austrian film, but it has exact the same cast as the 1942 movie. According to IMDB, the film was dubbed in English, and new shots were added for the American release. Janssen's real first postwar performance was in Morgen ist alles besser (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1948). Janssen's postwar roles were mostly small, but more substantial ones he had e.g. in Tödliche Liebe (Fred Barius, Paul Pfeiffer, 1953) starring Rolf Möbius.
In the 1930s and also the early 1950s Janssen also directed a few times, mostly light entertainment such as the Heinz Rühmann comedy Wer wagt – gewinnt (1935), and two fairy tale films in the 1950s. In the 1960s Janssen participated in television plays and series. He again concentrated more on the world of theater, was director of the Vienna Kammerspiele in the 1940s and directed the Marburg Festival. His last theatrical appearance was in 1971 in The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. In 1968 he received the Filmband in Gold for many years of excellent work in German film, having acted in over 180 film and TV productions. Walter Janssen died in Munich in 1976.
Sources: German Wikipedia, IMDB.