Anatole Litvak

Of all the assistants who worked under Litvak in France, Max Ophüls would later become a recognized director.

Mayerling is credited with establishing Litvak's international reputation as a director, and the film was widely praised by critics Some reviewers called it "one of the most compelling love stories the cinema has produced," and "a romantic tragedy of the highest order." American writer Lincoln Kirstein claimed the film had become "a kind of standard for the romantic film in an historical setting." In describing Litvak's cinematography style in the film, critic Jack Edmund Nolan writes that it is "replete with the camera trackings, pans and swoops which later became the trademark of Max Ophuls."

The worldwide success of Mayerling brought Litvak invitations from Hollywood, including being offered a four-year contract by Warner Brothers. Accepting the contract, Litvak became one of Hollywood's leading directors by the late 1930s. He directed such films as Tovarich, a comedy celebrating "outmoded values of the ruined Russian aristocracy." Read Less

Because of Litvak's ability to speak Russian, German, and French, he subsequently supervised the filming of the D-Day Normandy landings. Litvak also filmed aerial warfare with the U.S. Eighth Air Force. For Litvak's joining the army to help him produce the film series, Capra called him one of the "Hollywood knights" who came to America's "rescue," and without whose help "no one could have made the Why We Fight films." Ending the war as a full colonel, he received special awards from the governments of Britain, the United States, and France (including the Légion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre). Read Less