Biography

German director, a former actor with Max Reinhardt's theatrical company. In Hollywood from 1926-33 under contract to Paramount. Married silent star Dorothy Mackaill. Moved to Britain in 1934 and worked for Gaumont and at Alexander Korda's Denham Studios, where he turned out his best-known film, The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936). Subsequently returned to Hollywood as a freelance director in the early 1940s. Retired in 1946.

After Adolf Hitler came to power, Mendes, who was Jewish, traveled to Britain to work at Gaumont-British Pictures, directing films with Michael Balcon producing. Under that banner, he directed Jew Süss (1934) starring Conrad Veidt, who had also emigrated from Germany. (Mendes' Jew Suss should not be confused with the later Nazi film of the same title released in 1940 which is a virulently antisemitic film.) Mendes' 1934 film version of Feuchtwanger's novel received strong notices at the time, and was considered an important and early film in exposing the origins of the antisemitism of the new Nazi government; in particular, it was praised by Albert Einstein and the Jewish American leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, though the film itself did not attract an audience in Depression-era America.

After returning from the UK to Hollywood in the late 1930s, he directed five more studio films. Mendes co-directed the pro-British International Squadron (1941), starring Ronald Reagan; this was one of several films on the Eagle Squadron of American pilots who volunteered to fly in the Battle of Britain before the US entered the war.

Mendes best-known film, The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936), is based on the H.G. Wells short story was made for Alexander Korda's London Films, for which Wells co-wrote the adaptation. It features Roland Young and Ralph Richardson.

His films included the last silent film made in the USA, The Four Feathers (1929), and the murder mystery Payment Deferred (1933) starring British actor Charles Laughton.