Paul Davidson

Davidson worked in the garment trade before founding the Allgemeine Kinematographen-Theater Gesellschaft, Union-Theater für lebende und Tonbilder G.m.B.H. (A.K.T.G.) in Frankfurt am Main on 21 March 1906 and opening a cinema, the Union-Theater (U.T.), in Mannheim, Germany, in June the same year. Three years later on 4 September 1909, Davidson opens his first movie palace in Berlin, the U.T. am Alexanderplatz. He follows it with the even more plush U.T. Unter den Linden on 21 August 1910. In less than ten years, Davidson creates an empire of over 56 cinemas in Germany, Belgium, and Hungary, drawing 6 million patrons in 1913. In 1909 Davidson transforms the A.K.T.G. into the Projektions-AG "Union" (PAGU), the first publicly traded film company in Germany. A year later he starts Germany's first distribution company, renting rather than selling outright prints of the Johnson-Jeffries Fight. By 1912, Davidson has also gone into production, financing two Max Reinhardt films, which open Davdison's newest movie palace, the U.T. Kurfürstendam in Berlin on 3. October 1913. A financial crisis at the beginning of World War I forces Davidson to sell his cinema chain to the Danish Nordisk Film Company in August 1915. Davidson focuses forwith on film production and on his new star, soon to be star director, Ernst Lubitsch. When the Univversum Film A.G. (UFA) is created by decree of the German Military High Command in November 1917, the Nordisk's Union-Theater chain, as well as Davidson's PAGU are once again united under one roof. Lubitsch and Davidson's films continue to fill the coffers of the UFA. On 7 April 1921, Davidson resigns from his positions as production head of UFA and on the Board of UFA, joining Lubtsch, Famous Players, Joe May, Dimitri Buchowetzki, and others in forming the Europäischen Film-Allianz (EFA). UFA looses its most successful producer, eventually finding a worthy replacement when Erich Pommer joins UFA after the merger with Decla-Bioscop AG in early 1922. Davidson's offers to buy the PAGU are rejected. After the failure of the EFA, Davidson founds the Paul-Davidson AG on 17 September 1924, producing films "independently" within the UFA. He cancels his contract in spring 1927 and enters a mental institution, not the first tiome he has exprienced a breakdown. He commits suicide at the institution a few months later.