Norman Lourie

Norman Lourie (1909-1978) was a South African film producer and cinema manager who moved to Israel.

Biography

Norman Nachum Lourie was born in Johannesburg on 1 June 1909. He was one of three sons of Harry Moishe Lourie (originally Luria) and his wife, Regina Muller. His father, who came from Lithuania, was a jeweler and was prominent in Jewish affairs, at one stage serving as President of the South African Jewish Board of Education. Norman graduated from the London School of Economics with a B.Sc. and, upon his return to South Africa, joined the firm of Katz & Lourie as an optician.

In England he became an early proponent of the Zionist ideal of a Jewish state and promoted the concept of Habonim. In Johannesburg he became the founder of this Jewish Youth Movement, which soon had branches in other cities. It is likely that it was under his guidance the young Leon Schauder made his first film, In Them Our Hopes, which dealt with Habonim. In 1935 he raised funds for and was captain of the South African team that attended the second World Maccabiah Games in what was then still the British Mandate of Palestine.

Subsequently he joined William Boxer who, in 1938, had established Alexander Films, which was South Africa’s first cinema advertising company. Boxer was also managing director of Alpha Film Studios and Empire Films, both of which would feature in Lourie’s film career. In 1942 he produced Palestine on the March from film material shot on location, but processed and edited at the Alpha Film Studios. That year he also produced the short Saturday Night, which featured the singer Chris Blignaut. In 1944 he was the producer of Here Ends Today, a staged World War II documentary set in a South African transit camp in the western desert where men and women are about to attend a concert put on by S.A. Entertainments. The director was filmmaker Michal Waszynski, who had made the Polish feature The Dybbuk in 1937.

Earlier Lourie had been involved in the planning of a luxury cinema theatre in Johannesburg for 20th Century-Fox on the corner of President and Von Brandis Streets. It was designed to seat 2,200 people and opened on 15 March 1940 with a screening of Stanley and Livingstone, directed by Henry King. Lourie became the managing director of the theatre until his war-time duties called him away. During World War II he remained a film producer, but had the rank of captain in the British Army’s Jewish Brigade. A short entitled Road to Liberty (1946), which dealt with the Jewish Brigade, was produced by Alexander Films and released by 20th Century-Fox. A 1941 court case against the directors of Alexander Films involving the removal of equipment belonging to C. Francis Coley’s Union Film Productions does not seem to have harmed his reputation.

In 1946 he and his family moved to the embryonic Jewish state where, the following year, he founded Palestine Films Inc. Here the American writer/director Joseph Krumgold became his partner and together they produced a number of early Israeli documentaries. Their film House in the Desert (1947) was shown at the Venice Film Festival. Another success was 48 Hours a Day (1949), directed by Victor Vicas. Both these films were screened in supporting programmes at the Piccadilly in Yeoville, Johannesburg. In addition Palestine Films also became a distributor of Hollywood productions and Lourie became the local representative of the Pathé and Paramount newsreels.

In 1950 he gave up his interest in the film industry and transformed what was a modest guest house in Tel Aviv into the Dolphin House, Israel’s first luxury resort, which he continued to run for some 15 years. In 1930 he had married Nehama Nadya (Nadia) Kleinman, who had been born in Odessa, but had moved to London with her family when she was 16 years old. The couple were divorced in 1952. He later married Alena Neuman. He died in Jerusalem on 27 March 1978.

(Note: A number of the early Israeli/Palestinian films are available for viewing through The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive at https://en.jfa.huji.ac.il/)