Biography

Joe May

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A businessman and operetta director, Joe May, one of the founders of the German cinema, started directing films in 1911 and started his own production company a few years later. He gave famous German director Fritz Lang his start in films, employing him as a screenwriter in his early films. After the Nazi takeover, May fled to the United States where he directed several excellent action films for Universal, but never could quite break into the ranks of the "A" picture directors. May never bothered to completely learn the English language and was never popular with his casts and crews due to his dictatorial nature. He ended his career by directing his last film for Monogram in 1944 at the age of 64. He later briefly owned a restaurant in Hollywood that failed because, in keeping with his Teutonic roots, told customers what they should order.
- IMDb mini biography by: Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net>

His teenage daughter Eva May (born 1902 in Vienna) tried to build her own career as an actress but committed suicide in 1924 after the end of her third marriage.
His movie Confession (1937) is considered especially interesting in that it is an exact copy of German director Willi Forst's Mazurka (1935), right down to the last fade and dissolve, with every shot timed to run exactly the same length, and using the same music as Forst's film.
During his long career in the film business May was not only active as a director but also as a producer and screen writer. For several screenplays he used the pen name Fred Majo.
His most notable works in the US were the Kay Francis vehicle Confession (1937)---a remake of the German film Mazurka (1935)--The House of the Seven Gables (1940) and The Invisible Man Returns (1940). He also worked with the Dead End Kids during this period, helming two films, You're Not So Tough (1940) and Hit the Road (1941), despite constant friction with his juvenile delinquent cast members.
After directing a handful of unsuccessful "B" pictures, he found himself bankrupt by the mid-1940s. He and his wife Mia May, a former actress who starred in many of his early films, struggled to run a restaurant for much of the remainder of their lives; in a bittersweet tone of irony, they called their establishment "The Blue Danube." One of Germany's most celebrated early directors, May never regained the fame he had enjoyed in Weimar Germany.

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