Eric Ambler – Wikipedia

Posted on by

Eric Clifford Ambler Obe (born June 28, 1909 in London, † October 22, 1998 ibid) was a British writer. He is considered one of the founders of the thriller.

Eric Ambler was the son of Alfred Ambler and Amy Madeline Ambler, born Andrews. The father first worked as a advertising acquisitioner, then as an advertising manager of a factory in South London. In addition, he appeared in Music Halls with a vocal team that also belonged to his wife since the First World War. After visiting Colfes’ Grammar School in Lewisham/Südlondon, Eric Ambler began studying engineering at the Northampton Engineering College in Nordlondon in 1925, which he stopped after one year to work as a technical intern in a factory. During this time, the first literary texts were created, including a novel manuscript. From 1928, Ambler followed his father to the advertising industry, initially in the Great US advertising agency Dorland, later as director in an independent advertising agency. In the early days of incandescent lamp production, an electrical factory had brought a new pear onto the market, which clearly made weak light. Ambler invented the name Moonlight And thus triggered such a rush to the misconstructions that the company was able to sell all of its inventory.

He had his first literary success in 1936 The Dark Frontier (German The dark border district ). Since a publisher offered him a contract for five more novels, he gave up his job in the advertising agency in 1937 to devote himself entirely to the letter, although he was temporarily lived in France and the United States. In his novel Cause for Alarm (German Reason for unrest ) he described the smuggling paths between the then fascist Italy and the Kingdom Yugoslavia in 1938 that he was asked for further information by the British Foreign Office. However, Ambler had only done a thorough research and studied the commercially available maps very precisely. Especially his fifth novel The Mask of Dimitrios (German Die Maske des Dimitrios ) is considered one of the milestones and the classic of the genre thriller.

In 1939 he married the American fashion artist Louise Crombie, whom he had met in Paris.

In 1940 Ambler joined the British royal artillery as a driver, completed the officer training and was later divided into Army Kinematograph Service. In this newly created department, he worked with the young Peter Ustinov, among other things, and was responsible for various military educational and feature films. From 1943 he served as a British liaison officer in Italy and, among other things, made propaganda films for the Allies with John Huston. After his retirement from the army after the end of the war, a career followed as a screenwriter who led him to Hollywood in 1957. By 1959 he wrote about a dozen scripts for English and American productions. His screenplay adaptation for the film of the Great Atlantic was nominated for an Oscar in 1953. The most successful is his script for A Night to Remember (German The last night of Titanic ), a film adaptation of the Titanic disaster, which can still exist in its sharp social drawing today. Ambler divorced his wife Louise in 1958 and married the British screenwriter Joan Harrison, a close employee of the British film director Alfred Hitchcock.

From 1950 to 1958 he wrote together with Charles Rodda under the pseudonym Eliot Reed Five thrillers, well done by craftsmanship, but not particularly sensational. His first novel was under its own name after the Second World War Judgement on Deltchev (German The Deltschev case ), in which he billed with the show processes in the communist Eastern Europe. As a result, he wrote more eleven thrillers, on average one every three years. Unlike John Le Carré, Ambler did not limit himself to the classic east-west conflict, but took up topics very early on that were only discussed in public much later and very controversial: neocolonialism in The Night-Comers (1956, German Visit to night ); International arms trade in Passage of Arms (1959, German Gun smuggling ); The Palestine Inflict In The Levanter (1972, The Levantiner ); or money laundering and tax avoidance in Send No More Roses (1977, German Please no more roses ). His protagonists are almost always “normal people”. These get into an opaque, dangerous situation for them. This constellation serves Ambler to show the current conflicts of his time in their effects on everyday life. A brief, laconic but exact language serves.

In 1969 Eric Ambler moved to Clarens in Switzerland. In 1985 he published his autobiography under the ambiguous title Here lies (“Here is” or “here lies”), in 1993 the souvenir band followed Who killed Blagden Cole? Life and crime stories . In 1987 he returned to London, where he died on October 22, 1998. His second wife Joan had already died in 1994.

Romance of the first period [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

  • 1936 The Dark Frontier – The dark border district.
    • German by Walter Hertenstein and Ute Haffmans, Diogenes Zurich 1979; ISBN 3-257-20602-X.
  • 1937 Uncommon Danger -US title: Background to Danger – Unusual danger.
  • 1938 Cause for Alarm – Reason for unrest.
  • 1938 Epitaph for a Spy – The hour of the spy.
    • German by Peter Fischer; Fischer Frankfurt am Main 1963;
    • under the title since 1979 Obituary for a spy at Diogenes Zurich;
    • New translation by Matthias Fienbork; Diogenes Zurich 2002; ISBN 978-3-257-23250-9.
  • 1939 The Mask of Dimitrios -US title: A Coffin for Dimitrios – Die maske des dimitrios 1944 von Jean Negulesco Verfilmt ( Die maske des dimitrios )
  • 1940 Journey Into Fear – The fear travels.
    • German by Walter Hertenstein, Diogenes Zurich 1975;
    • New translation by Matthias Fienbork, Diogenes Zurich 1996; ISBN 978-3-257-20181-9.

Romance of the second period [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

  • 1951 Judgement on Deltchev – The Deltschev case
  • 1953 The Schirmer Inheritance – Schirmer’s inheritance
    • German by Harry Reuss-Löwenstein, Th. A. Knust and Rudolf Barmettler, Fischer Frankfurt am Main 1955;
    • New translation by Nikolaus Stingl, Diogenes Zurich 2001; ISBN 978-3-257-23274-5.
  • 1956 The Night-Comers -US title: State of Siege – Uninvited guests
  • 1959 Passage of Arms – weapons smuggling
  • 1962 The Light of Day – Topkapi
    • German by Elsbeth Herlin, 1965, under the title In the first morning light , Title 1969 in Topkapi changed
    • New translation by Nikolaus Stingl, Diogenes Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-257-20536-8.
  • 1964 A Kind of Anger – a kind of anger
    • German by Susanne Feigl and Walter Hertenstein, Diogenes Zurich 1975
    • New translation by Malte Krutzsch, Diogenes Zurich 1997; ISBN 978-3-257-20179-6.
  • 1967 Dirty Story: A Further Account of the Life and Adventures of Arthur Abdel Simpson – dirty story
    • German by Günter Eichel, Diogenes Zurich 1968
  • 1969 The Intercom Conspiracy -The InterCom complement
    • German by Dietrich Stössel, DTV Munich 1973
    • New translation by Dirk van Gunsteren, Diogenes Zurich 2000; ISBN 978-3-257-23154-0.
  • 1972 The Levanter – The Levantiner
  • 1974 Doctor Frigo – Doktor Frigo
    • German by Tom Knoth and Judith Claassen, Diogenes 1975
    • New translation by Matthias Fienbork, Diogenes Zurich 2001; ISBN 978-3-257-23268-4.
  • 1977 Send No More Roses -US title: The Siege of the Villa Lipp – please no more roses
  • 1981 The Care of Time – With time
    • German by Hans Hermann, Diogenes Zurich 1983
    • New translation by Matthias Fienbork, Diogenes Zurich 2000; ISBN 978-3-257-23131-1.

Short stories [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

  • Waiting for Orders (Short stories from 1930-1940, including The Army of Shadows , The Intrusions of Dr. Czissar , The Blood Bargain )

Autobiography [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

  • 1985 Here Lies – Ambler by Ambler. An autobiography
  • 1993 The Story So Far – Who killed Blagden Cole? Life and crime stories

Romance published under the pseudonym Eliot Reed together with Charles Rodda [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

  • 1951 Shooter
  • 1951 Tender To Danger (US title); also: Tender to Moonlight (English title, 1952)
  • 1953 The Maras Affair
  • 1954 Charter to Danger
  • 1958 Passport to Panic
Literary template
  • 1942: Hunted by agents ( Journey Into Fear ) – Regie: Norman Foster/Orson Welles
  • 1943: Spy in OrienteXpreß ( Background to Danger ) – Region: Raoul Walsh – still roman “uncmumn Danger”
  • 1944: Hotel Reserve – Regie: Victor Hanbury, Lance Comfort und Max Greene – nach dem Roman „Epitaph for a Spy“
  • 1944: Die Maske des Dimitrios – director: Jean Negulesco
  • 1950: life -threatening ( Highly Dangerous ) – Director: Roy Baker, also a screenplay by Ambler – based on the novel “The Dark Frontier”
  • 1953: Epitaph for a Spy – GB/television series in 6 parts, directed by Patrick Harvey
  • 1963: Epitaph for a Spy – GB/television series in 4 parts, directed by Colin Jeavons
  • 1963: Topkapi
  • 1976: Fear travels with ( Journey Into Fear ) – Director: Daniel Mann
  • 1978: International blackmail – Fernsehserie, Regie: Dante Guardamagna – Nach dem Roman The Intercom Conspiracy
  • 1984: A kind of anger – television film, director: Uli Edel
  • 1989: Time is running ( The Care of Time ) – TV film, director: John Davies
script
  • Film critic cooperative (ed.): Eric Ambler (= Film’s crookings. Year 26, Issue 12, 1982 = total sequence No. 312). Verlag Film criticism, Munich 1982.
  • Gerd Haffmans (ed.): About Eric Ambler. Certificates from Alfred Hitchcock to Helmut Heissenbüttel (= Diogenes paperback. Volume 20607). Extended new edition. Diogenes, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-257-20607-0.
  • Ronald J. Ambrosetti: Eric Ambler (= Twayne’s English authors series. Band 507). Twayne Publishers u. a., New York 1994, ISBN 0-8057-8369-5.
  • Stefan Howdal: Eric Ambler. A biography. Diogenes, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-257-06325-3.
  • Peter Lewis: Eric Ambler. Continuum, New York 1990, ISBN 0-8264-0444-8.
  • Chapter: The Ambler lesson. In: Jörg Fauser: Reading fabric. From Joseph Roth to Eric Ambler. Verlag Neue criticism, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-8015-0366-6, pp. 201-207.
  • Bernhard Valentinitsch: Historical and political background in Eric Ambler’s political thriller ‘The Levanter’. In: Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies (JIPSS). Band 7, Nr. 1/2013, Graz 2013, S. 7–23.
  • Dangerous business. The world of Eric Ambler , TV-BRD 1987, Regga: Jutta Szostak.