Karl Freund

Karl Freund behind camera (1915)

Karl W. Freund, A.S.C. (January 16, 1890-May 3, 1969(1969-05-03) (aged 79)) was a cinematographer and film director best known most noted for photographing Metropolis (1927), Dracula (1931), and television's I Love Lucy (1951-1957).

Early life

Born in Dvůr Králové (Königinhof), Bohemia, his career began in 1905 when, at age 15, he was hired as an assistant projectionist for a film company in Berlin where his family had moved in 1901.

Early career

He worked as a cinematographer on over 100 films, including the German Expressionist films The Golem (1920), The Last Laugh (1924) and Metropolis (1927). Freund co-wrote, and was cinematographer on, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927), directed by Walter Ruttmann.

Freund emigrated to the United States in 1929 where he continued to shoot well remembered films such as Dracula (1931) and Key Largo (1948). Notably, his work on Dracula came under a mostly disorganized shoot,^[1] with the usually meticulous director Tod Browning leaving cinematographer Freund to take over during much of filming, making Freund something of an uncredited director on the film. He won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Good Earth (1937).

Directing and TV career

Between 1921 and 1935, Freund directed ten films, of which the best known are probably his two credited horror films, The Mummy (1932) starring Boris Karloff, and his last film as director, Mad Love (1935) starring Peter Lorre.

Freund's only known film as an actor is Carl Theodor Dreyer's Michael (1924) in which he appears as a sycophantic art dealer who saves the tobacco ashes dropped by a famous painter.

At the beginning of the 1950s, he was persuaded by Desi Arnaz at Desilu to be the cinematographer in 1951 for the televisions series I Love Lucy. Critics have credited Freund for the show's lustrous black and white cinematography, but more importantly, Freund designed the "flat lighting" system for shooting sitcoms that is still in use today. This system covers the set in light, thus eliminating shadows and allowing the use of three moving cameras without having to modify the lighting in-between shots. And where Freund did not invent the three camera shooting system, he did perfect it for use with film cameras in front of a live audience.

Freund and his production team also worked on other sitcoms produced at/through Desilu such as Our Miss Brooks.^[2]

Personal life

In 1937, he visited Germany to bring to the United States his only daughter, Gerda Maria Freund, saving her from almost certain death in the concentration camps. Karl's ex-wife, Susette Freund (née Liepmannssohn), remained in Germany, where she was interned at the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Selected filmography

• The Robber Bride (1916)
• The Queen's Love Letter (1916)
• The Princess of Neutralia (1917)
• The Man in the Mirror (1917)
• The Marriage of Luise Rohrbach (1917)
• Countess Kitchenmaid (1918)
• Intoxication (1919)
• Catherine the Great (1920)
• The Oath of Peter Hergatz (1921)
• The Rats (1921)
• The Story of Christine von Herre (1921)
• Variety (1925)
• Madame Wants No Children (1926)
• The Mill at Sanssouci (1926)
• Doña Juana (1927)
• A Knight in London (1929)
• Fräulein Else (1929)

See also

• List of German-speaking Academy Award winners and nominees

References

External links

• Karl Freund at the Internet Movie Database
• Karl Freund at Find a Grave
• The Life and Films of Karl Freund, Hollywood Innovator