Harry Piel (July 12, 1892) was a director, screenwriter, producer, actor and the first German action star. When he was nineteen, he moved to Paris, where he met the director Léonce Perret who ensured him a job in the film production company Gaumont, for which Piel wrote his first screenplay. Piel made his directing debut with Schwarzes Blut (1912) and later made films such as Der Triumph des Todes (1912), Ein Millionenraub (1914), Die grosse Wette (1915), Die Abenteuer des Kapitän Hansen (1917) and Die Krone von Palma (1919), specializing in the action genre. In 1919, he acted for the first time, in the film Der grosse Unbekannte. Because of the many scenes of explosions of houses and bridges, Piel earned his nickname: The Dynamite Director. As an actor, he performed his own stunts and soon became an action hero. Piel made the transition from silent to sound film easily when he filmed Schatten der Unterwelt (1931), Johnny stiehlt Europa (1932), Ein Unsichtbarer geht durch die Stadt (1933), Der Dschungel ruft (1936) and Sein bester Freund (1937). Afterward he had political troubles. His production company, founded in 1921, was nationalized and after the war, the British courts sentenced him to six months in prison and prohibited his work until 1949. In 1950, he founded his new production house and made Der Tiger Akbar (1951) and Gesprengte Gitter (1953). However, these films did not achieve his former success and he stopped making movies in the 1960s.