William Thiele is remembered today as the father of the sound film operetta with seminal classics such as Drei von der Tankstelle (1930). While often considered among the most accomplished directors of Late Weimar cinema, as an Austrian Jew he was vilified during the onset of the Nazi regime in 1933 and fled to the United States where he continued making films until the end of his career in 1960. Enchanted by Cinema closely examines the European musical film pioneer's work and his cross-cultural perspective across forty years of filmography in Berlin and Hollywood to account for his popularity while discussing issues of ethnicity, exile, comedy, music, gender, and race.

Jan-Christopher Horak is former Director of UCLA Film & Television Archive. Previously he was Director at Munich Filmmuseum, and Curator, George Eastman Museum. He has had professorships in Rochester, Munich, Salzburg, UCLA, and Miami, and presently is teaching at Chapman. He has published more than three hundred articles and reviews in English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Swedish, Japanese, and Hebrew publications.