Lanai, Hawaii —
The 1948 film Berlin Express occurred at that brief, hopeful moment between the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War.
An American (Robert Ryan) joins forces in a still-smoldering, rubble-strewn Germany with a French woman (Merle Oberon) and man, Soviet Army officer, and British official in an attempt to out a latent Nazi cell. One of them is a traitor, however, which leads us directly to the fascinating Hungarian-American actor, Charles Korvin.
Korvin was much more than an actor, however. He studied and taught photography at the Sorbonne before emigrating to the U.S. in 1940. He shot the Spanish Civil War, which was a proving ground for many photojournalists including the legendary Robert Capa, another Hungarian-born American.
It turns out that 250 of Korvin’s prints are part of Brandeis University’s Spanish Civil War Archives. These images were mostly shot on the war’s Jarama Front outside Madrid.
Korvin’s photographs convey all that the scourge of war delivers: despair, devastation, inhumanity, isolation, fear, hope, camaraderie, and occasional, counterintuitive joy.
The simple, assumed lethality connected to a bullet hole on an automobile window makes for one particularly haunting image (below). That is, until one reads the inscription on the back of the 1937 photograph (also below) informing the reader that the bullet missed its intended target.
Korvin’s professional life reminds us that talented people often express their gifts in many ways and across many media. It’s even better, of course, when their labors document important history and underscore eternal lessons we seem never learn, such as the utter futility of war.
The 1948 film Berlin Express occurred at that brief, hopeful moment between the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War.
An American (Robert Ryan) joins forces in a still-smoldering, rubble-strewn Germany with a French woman (Merle Oberon) and man, Soviet Army officer, and British official in an attempt to out a latent Nazi cell. One of them is a traitor, however, which leads us directly to the fascinating Hungarian-American actor, Charles Korvin.
Korvin was much more than an actor, however. He studied and taught photography at the Sorbonne before emigrating to the U.S. in 1940. He shot the Spanish Civil War, which was a proving ground for many photojournalists including the legendary Robert Capa, another Hungarian-born American.
It turns out that 250 of Korvin’s prints are part of Brandeis University’s Spanish Civil War Archives. These images were mostly shot on the war’s Jarama Front outside Madrid.
Korvin’s photographs convey all that the scourge of war delivers: despair, devastation, inhumanity, isolation, fear, hope, camaraderie, and occasional, counterintuitive joy.
The simple, assumed lethality connected to a bullet hole on an automobile window makes for one particularly haunting image (below). That is, until one reads the inscription on the back of the 1937 photograph (also below) informing the reader that the bullet missed its intended target.
Korvin’s professional life reminds us that talented people often express their gifts in many ways and across many media. It’s even better, of course, when their labors document important history and underscore eternal lessons we seem never learn, such as the utter futility of war.
Images courtesy of Brandeis University.