Hans Moser

Hans Moser (August 6, 1880 - June 19, 1964) was an Austrian actor who, during his long career (from the 1920s up to his death), mainly played in comedy films.

Born Jean Juliet in Vienna, Moser very often portrayed the man in the street, typically someone else's subordinate (servant, waiter, porter, shopkeeper, coachman, petty bureaucrat, etc.). Practically always Moser played honest, moral and well-intentioned people who, unable to keep cool and think clearly in crucial situations, get themselves and everyone around them into all kinds of "trouble". As the (often widowed) father of a beautiful daughter he was the stubborn family bully who realizes only at the end of the movie, when all cases of mistaken identity have been cleared up and all secrets are revealed, that he has been terribly wrong all the time.

Strangely, Moser was particularly famous, and adored, for mumbling indistinctly (for comic effect) rather than pronouncing words and sentences clearly, and also for failing to finish his sentences -- facts which, combined with his (moderate) Viennese dialect, make it very hard for non-native speakers to understand what he is saying.

In Moser's comedy films, Paul Hörbiger , Theo Lingen , Oskar Sima , and Annie Rosar were some of his congenial partners. However, it should be noted that Moser was also a serious actor, especially on the stage and, towards the end of his life, on television. In many a musical film, Moser can also be heard interpreting a Wienerlied .

Hans Moser died in Vienna in 1964, aged 84. His continuing popularity can perhaps be seen by the fact that his style of speaking is still being parodied, also by very young entertainers.

Select filmography

N B The Internet Movie Database lists 153 films.

• Die Stadt ohne Juden (The City Without Jews ) (1924) (based on the novel by Hugo Bettauer )
• Himmel auf Erden (Heaven on Earth) (1935)
• Ungeküsst soll man nicht schlafen gehn (1936) (alongside Liane Haid)
• Anton, der Letzte (1939)
• Rosen in Tirol (1940) (alongside Johannes Heesters)
• Wiener G'schichten (Vienna Tales) (1940)
• Abenteuer im Grandhotel (1943)
• Schrammeln (1944)
• Der Hofrat Geiger (1947)
• Jetzt schlägt's 13 (1950)
• Hallo Dienstmann (1952) (a typical Antel movie)
• Opernball (1956)
• Hallo Taxi (1958)
• Die Fledermaus (1962) (playing the non-singing role of Frosch, the drunken jailer)
• Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald (Tales from the Vienna Woods ) (1964) (based on the book by Ödön von Horvath)