1907-2004
Czech photographer and filmmaker Alexander Hammid was born Alexander Siegfried George Hackenschmied on this day in Linz, now located in Austria on the border with the Czech Republic (some sources list his birth name as Alexander Siegfried Georg Smahel). Although an absolutely influential early avant garde film crafter, he barely makes the cut here. Only because he worked on one film in that was released in early 1929. Importantly that film was silent. Erotikon (or Seduction) was a melodrama that contained camera work and images that would be at home in a Bergman film. It's director, Prague born Gustav Machaty had been working in the Czech film industry since the late teens. Seduction was his fifth outing as director and his last silent; he hired Hammid, along with two others, for art direction on the film. Credited as "Alexandr Hackenschmied," he was the principle on the team. After this, he found work in various aspects of film making the Czechoslovakia in the early 1930's. In fact, his very next project, the avant-garde documentary short Bezucelná procházka marked his first outing as director. He directed just one more documentary in the early 1930's--The Prague Castle (1931)--not making another film until 1937. In the meantime, he worked as a cinematographer and editor. He also worked in filmed advertising in the town Zlin. In the late 1930's, he began working with American filmmakers, which occasioned his and his first wife's immigration to the United States . He became a U.S. citizen in 1942, which is when he legally changed his name to Hammid. He would make 20 important films, both big and small, in his career--most were documentaries, though one--The Medium [which he reportedly co-directed, though he went without a credit--he does get an editor & associate director credit] is a filmed opera (if you are a cat/animal lover, you will want to check out his The Private Life of a Cat). His 1945 short documentary Library of Congress was nominated for an Oscar. Though his film To Be Alive! (1964) is often cited as his last turn at directing, he actually co-directed the short drama We Are Young in 1967 with fellow documentarian Francis Thompson. Hammid has one additional cinematographer credit from 1972 on the feature length documentary Moonwalk One. His last film credit dates from 1976, and it's an important one. He and Thompson were partners in production for years and in celebration of this nation's 200 year "birthday," they were deeply involved in the production of the film To Fly!. The film was made for the brand new Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which opened in July of that year. The film was the first made for the museum's theater and was the very first film to be IMAX formatted; the nearly 30 minute long film continues to play there to this day. In regards to his and Thompson's important contributions to the IMAX foramt, many of the pair's films dating from the 1960's were in formats nearly the same as what we recognize today as IMAX. Hammid lived an extremely long life, dying in New York City at the age of 96 on the 26th of July in 2004. Details of his burial are currently unknown.
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