Willy Schmidt-Gentner

Willy Schmidt-Gentner (6 April 1894 – 12 February 1964) was one of the most successful German composers of film music in the history of German-language cinema.

After World War I Schmidt-Gentner worked as a civil servant checking that cinema owners were paying their full taxes.

For Sascha-Film he composed the music for some of the greatest specimens of the Wiener Film genre, among others Maskerade and Hohe Schule (both 1934).

For them he scored not only their many escapist romantic comedies, but also some of their few overt propaganda films such as Heimkehr (1941), Wien 1910 (1942) or Das Herz muß schweigen (1944).

After the end of the war Schmidt-Gentner remained loyal to Vienna and successfully continued his composing career for many more films, predominantly musicals set in Austria, until he retired in 1955.