Mavi Boncuk |
Aram Gulyuz, a Turkish-Armenian director who produced over 200 feature movies, has died September 1, 2018 in Istanbul at age 87. He was born in the city’s Sisli district in April 13, 1931.
Aram Gülyüz, “the most prolific director and the biggest tease of Yeşilçam” worked in London in his youth before stationing in Korea during the war working as a translator. Gülyüz founded Metro Film 1958 and began filmmaking in 1958 with money borrowed from his mother and established a production company. His first production was İstanbul Macerası | Inshalla, Razzia am Bosporus (1958), a joint Turkish-German production (Metro Film Istanbul, Theumer Filmproduktion)directed and acted by Carl Möhner[1]. He was the author of Istanbul Adventure.The first films he directed, which he also wrote, were Sensiz Yıllar (1960) and Aşk ve Yumruk (1961) which brought him mainstream success.Aram Gülyüz directed films in almost every genre from child star Ayşecik franchise to remakes of American films, to adventures and detective stories, and to musicals and erotic films as well as TV series, and video films. Some of the names who praised Gülyüz are: director Yılmaz Atadeniz, “the most skilled and practical director I’ve ever seen,” actress Ayla Algan, “he made me love comedy and taught me how to do it,” and actor Ediz Hun, “he knows how to get the best performance from an actor.”
Directors like Fevzi Tuna, Erdoğan Tokatlı, and Temel Gürsu worked as assistant directors to Gülyüz. He is the first director to shoot with sound in Turkish cinema and cites Alfred Hitchcock, Blake Edwards, Billy Wilder, and “above all Woody Allen, who satirises all things serious,” as inspiring him in his directorial style. He directed 140 films including Sokakların Kanunu / Street Law (1964), Ölüm Çemberi (1965), The Man with the Golden Arm (1966), Black Car (1966), In the Name of Law (1968), the first-ever Lucky Luke film Red Kit (1970), White Butterflies (1971), Lieutenant’s Daughter (1968) and most recently Time Machine 1973 (2017).
[1] Carl Martin Rudolf Möhner (11 August 1921 – 14 January 2005) was an Austrian film actor. He appeared in more than 40 films between 1949 and 1976. He was born in Vienna, Austria, and died in McAllen, Texas from Parkinson's disease. His most famous role was as Ernst Lindemann, Captain of the Bismarck in the 1960 film Sink the Bismarck! opposite Kenneth More.
