FINDING
JEAN

"In demand for his pioneering cutting techniques, [Jean] built his reputation as an editor for Austrian director G.W. Pabst and his cinema of social consciousness, working on such films as Westfront 1918 (1930), The Threepenny Opera (1931), and Kameradeschaft (1931)", (Archives West: biographical notes for Frontiers, 1970). Leaving Germany in 1932, Jean traveled to France to work with Pabst as well as for other great filmmakers of the period, like Pierre Chenal, Jean de Limur, and Max Orphuls.

While Pabst chose to return to Germany with the outbreak of World War II, Jean would remain in Paris with his wife, Ellen Serra, a modern dancer turned actress whom he had met in Germany. One of the last films Jean would have made with Pabst was the Le Drame de Shanghai (Shanghai Drama, 1938). In 1939, Jean enlisted in the French Army rather than face deportation back to Germany. He served in the French Foreign Legion in Morocco for three years. At the end of his service, he and his wife emigrated to the U.S. Within a few months of working for Paramount Pictures, Jean was drafted into the U.S. Army Signal Corps' Motion Picture Unit in 1942, where he served until 1945. Residing in New York City, he continued to work on films throughout the world. 

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"In the 1950s, he worked with such talents as Garson Kanin, Burgess Meredith, and Jean Renoir. His time spent at 20th Century Fox earned him an Academy Award in [1953 in the Best Short Subject category for] Light in the Window (1952), an innovative profile of 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. For the next [twenty] years, he was based in New York City, making industrial films, television features and series, documentaries, and travel films" (Archives West: biographical notes for Frontiers,

 1970). Although many of the less-cinematic (more bread & butter) films of the 1950's and 60's are not listed here, the following is the most complete filmography I have found online at the site for the French-language version of wikipedia (with a few notable additions):

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Filmographie

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• 1928: Vormittagsspuk  (Ghosts Before Breakfast, court-métrage)

• 1929: Das Land ohne Frauen (Land Without Women) 

• 1929: Die Nacht gehört uns (released in Eng. as The Night is Ours)

• 1930: Menschen im Busch (documentaire)

• 1930: Auf Tigerjagd in Indien (documentaire)

• 1930: Westfront 1918 (Quatre de l'infanterie)

• 1930: Dreyfus (about the Alfred Dreyfus case)

• 1930: Der Korvettenkapitän (The Corvette Captain)

• 1931: Die Dreigroschenoper (L'Opéra de quat'sous)

• 1931: Das Lied vom Leben (documentaire)

• 1931: Kameradschaft (La Tragédie de la mine)

• 1932: Skandal in der Parkstraße

• 1932: Die Herrin von Atlantis (L'Atlantide)

• 1933: Don Quichotte (Adventures of Don Quixote)

• 1933: Du haut en bas

• 1935: Arènes joyeuses

• 1935: Le Petit sauvage

• 1935: La Rosière des halles

• 1936: La Brigade en jupons

• 1936: La Garçonne

• 1937: L’Affaire Lafarge

• 1937: Dunja (Nostalgie)

• 1938: Le Drame de Shanghai

• 1938: Die Zehnte soll es sein (Accord final)

• 1939: Le Monde en Armes (auch Regie, Directed and edited by Jean Oser)

• 1940: Von Mayerling bis Sarajevo (De Mayerling à Sarajevo)

• 1944: A Salute to France

• 1948: Will it Happen Again? (re-released under numerous titles)

• 1948: Israel in Action

• 1950: Magnetic Tide

• 1951: Working Together

• 1952: Joy of Living

• 1952: Light in the Window (Oscar 1953, First prize in Venice, 1953)

• 1953: The American Road

• 1960: Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years (TV series, documentaire)

• 1965: F.D.R. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (TV series, documentaire)

• 1966: The Lover's Knot

• 1967: Behind the Veil

• 1970: Waterloo

• 1970(s): Frontiers

• 1991: Der andere Blick ( The Other Eye, appearance, documentary)

• 1993: A History of World Cinema (appearance, documentary)

• 1995: Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (appearances in Episodes 3 and 6, documentary)