On April 24th at 10:30 p.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – Few people have led such a film-worthy life as Fritz Mandl from Austria. The director of the Hirtenberg ammunition factory – like the European “patron king” of the 1930s – goes to great lengths for the business of his company. But as the husband of future Hollywood diva Hedy Lamarr, he reaches his limits. “People & Powers” is bringing Georg Ransmayr’s film “The Patron King – The Uncanny Life of Fritz Mandl” on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, at 10:30 p.m. on ORF 2, the first TV documentary about the unscrupulous, charming tycoon, before the Lamarr had to escape in order to become a global star.
Vienna 1935: At that time, Fritz Mandl was a man who was “known and feared in every capital in the world”. This is what it says in the autobiography of the famous Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr. She was Mandl’s second wife and greatly exaggerated her ex-husband’s dark aura after the divorce. Essentially, the film diva was right. The European “cartridge king” of the 1930s had no scruples when it came to the business of the Hirtenberger ammunition company. Fritz Mandl admires the Italian dictator Mussolini and supports the Austrian Heimwehr fascism, which led to the Dollfuß dictatorship in 1933. However, Mandl sometimes surprises friends and foes alike. By supplying the Republican opponents of the Franco fascists in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Mandl was – as historians have shown – a cunning opportunist and border crosser who was able to captivate many in the circle of political adventurers and high society.
But Hedy Kiesler-Mandl will cause her husband the greatest shame of his life. Fritz Mandl banned her from acting after her role in the erotic film “Ekstasis,” which caused a scandal at the time because of its nude scenes. That’s why Kiesler runs away to Hollywood, where she becomes the “Marilyn Monroe of the World War years” under the stage name Hedy Lamarr.
In 1938, Mandl had to flee the National Socialists because of his Jewish roots and his role as a Home Guard donor. Mandl is hardened enough to wrest modest compensation from the Nazis when he “Aryanized” his company. What practically no one other than him managed to achieve during expropriations by the Nazi regime. Mandl is building a new business empire in South America. But after a secret service conspiracy, he ends up wrongfully imprisoned as a Nazi spy. Nevertheless, the Austro-Argentinian had to fight hard until he got back the fortune he had stolen from the Nazis in 1957. Surrounded by new, beautiful women, the jet-set manager gets back into business with the Hirtenberger Group – until dubious ammunition exports collide with Austrian neutrality.
“The Patron King – The Uncanny Life of Fritz Mandl” is a film about a border crosser who led a uniquely dazzling life. The career of the ammunition manufacturer is traced with exclusive interviews and family photos, a previously unpublished tape recording by Fritz Mandl and historical game scenes. The ORF documentary was filmed in Austria and Argentina with funding from the Broadcasting Corporation (VGR). To this day, Buenos Aires is the home of Fritz Mandl’s eldest daughter, Maria “Puppe” Mandl. She and others describe impressively and unvarnishedly that Mandl had two faces. The family patriarch with a total of five wives could be amiable and captivate people. But he could also act imperiously and implement his intentions in an ice-cold manner.
The lives of Fritz Mandl and Hedy Lamarr remained strangely linked for decades. Mandl probably always saw Lamarr as the dream woman, but she showed him his limits. She portrayed him as a fascist dark man from whom she had to emancipate herself in order to become a global star. Nevertheless: as the historian Ursula Prutsch writes, Mandl was much more than an eerie supporting character in the film diva’s previous life. The first TV documentary about Fritz Mandl tells the story of a survivalist who navigated stormy times like no other.
And today – 100 years after Fritz Mandl became general director of the Hirtenberger cartridge factory at the age of 24? The former flagship company has long been history. In 1981, Mandl’s widow sold the company to what was then Voestalpine, which slipped into the Noricum scandal with the new subsidiary. However, Mandl’s hunting villa “Fegenberg” in Schwarzau in the mountains in Lower Austria has been preserved. However, it is no longer owned by the Mandl family and was the setting for various scenes in the “People & Powers” production.