Carl Froelich (5 September 1875 in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
– 12 February 1953, also in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
film pioneer and
film directorA film director, or filmmaker is a person who directs the making or production of a film. Some also consider a film producer to be a filmmaker....
.
From 1903 Froelich was a colleague of
Oskar MessterOskar Messter was a German inventor and film tycoon in the early years of cinema.-Biography:He was born in Berlin, where his father had founded a company selling and manufacturing optical equipment in 1859...
, one of the advance guard of German cinema, for whom initially he worked on the construction of cinematographic equipment. As cameraman for Messter's weekly newsreels he filmed among many other things the aftermath of a train accident on the Berlin elevated railway on 28 September 1908, one of the worst transport disasters of the time.
Between 1912 and 1951 he made 77 films.
In 1913 Froelich made his directorial debut with
Richard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas...
.
Carl Froelich (5 September 1875 in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
– 12 February 1953, also in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
film pioneer and
film directorA film director, or filmmaker is a person who directs the making or production of a film. Some also consider a film producer to be a filmmaker....
.
Apparatus builder and cameraman
From 1903 Froelich was a colleague of
Oskar MessterOskar Messter was a German inventor and film tycoon in the early years of cinema.-Biography:He was born in Berlin, where his father had founded a company selling and manufacturing optical equipment in 1859...
, one of the advance guard of German cinema, for whom initially he worked on the construction of cinematographic equipment. As cameraman for Messter's weekly newsreels he filmed among many other things the aftermath of a train accident on the Berlin elevated railway on 28 September 1908, one of the worst transport disasters of the time.
Film director and producer
Between 1912 and 1951 he made 77 films.
In 1913 Froelich made his directorial debut with
Richard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas...
. In 1920 he founded his own production company, Froelich-Film GmbH, among the productions of which were
Kabale und Liebe (1921) and
Mutter und Kind (1924). During these years he often filmed with the actress
Henny PortenHenny Porten was a German film actress and producer of the silent era. She appeared in over 170 films between 1906 and 1955...
, who made her screen debut in one of his earliest films, and with whom between 1926 and 1929 he shared ownership of a production company.
In 1929 Froelich made the first German
sound filmA sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before reliable synchronization was made commercially...
,
Die Nacht gehört uns ("The Night Belongs To Us"). In 1930 he took over two glasshouses in Berlin-Tempelhof, which had been used as studios in the days of
silent filmA silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially spoken dialogue. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the late 1920s with...
, and had them converted to sound film studios. Here he produced many films, including
Rolf HansenRolf Hansen was a German film director. He directed 20 films between 1936 and 1960.-Selected filmography:* Sauerbruch – Das war mein Leben * Desires * Die grosse Liebe...
's short film
Das Schönheitsfleckchen (1936) ("The Beauty Spot"), the first German
drama filmA drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, crime and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves,...
in colour. In 1931 he was advisor, as "senior artistic director", to
Leontine SaganLeontine Sagan was an Austrian actress and theatre director.Born in Budapest, Sagan trained with Max Reinhardt. The first and most widely known of her two films is Mädchen in Uniform...
's famous boarding-school film and later
lesbianLesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
classic,
Mädchen in UniformMädchen in Uniform , 98 minutes, is a German feature-length film based on the novel and play Gestern Und Heute by Christa Winsloe and directed by Leontine Sagan with significant artistic direction from Carl Froelich, who funded the film...
("Girls in Uniform") (1931).
By 1933 Froelich was one of Germany's most noted film artists, producing successful films with the stars of the period, among others
Hans AlbersHans Albers was a German actor and singer. He was the single biggest male movie star in Germany between 1930 and 1945 and one of the most popular German actors of the twentieth century.- Life and work :...
,
Heinz RühmannHeinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a popular German film actor.- Life and Work :Rühmann was born in Essen, Rhineland....
,
Ingrid BergmanIngrid Bergman was a Swedish actress. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress in the first Tony Award ceremony in 1947. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
and
Zarah LeanderZarah Leander was a Swedish actress and singer.Leander began her career in the late 1920s, and by the mid 1930s her success in Europe, particularly in Germany and the Scandinavian countries, led to invitations to work in the United States...
.
Some of the best-known of the films he made during this period were:
- 1934: Ich für dich - Du für mich for the Reich Propaganda Directorate of the NSDAP
- 1938: Heimat
Heimat is a German word that has no simple English translation. It is often expressed with terms such as home or homeland, but these English counterparts fail to encapsulate centuries of German consciousness and the thousands of connections this quintessential aspect of German identity carries with...
- 1940: Das Herz der Königin
Das Herz der Königin is a 1940 German historical film, making selective use of the life story of Mary, Queen of Scots and her execution by Queen Elizabeth I for anti-British propaganda purposed, in the context of the Second World War going on at the time.The cast included* Zarah Leander, starring...
("The Queen's Heart"), an anti-BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
historical film about Mary, Queen of Scots
- 1941: Der Gasmann, a propaganda film
A propaganda film is a film, either a documentary-style production or a fictional screenplay, that is produced to convince the viewer of a certain political point or influence the opinions or behavior of people, often by providing deliberately misleading, propagandistic content.-History:The...
, in which Heinz Rühmann plays a gas-meter reader suspected of being a foreign spy
Culture politics
Froelich became a member of the
National Socialist PartyParties in various contexts have referred to themselves as National Socialist parties. Because there is no clear definition of national socialism, the term has been used to mean very different things...
in 1933 and took over the direction of the
Gesamtverbandes der Filmherstellung und Filmverwertung ("Union of Film Manufacture and Film Evaluation"). In 1937 he was awarded a professorship and in 1939 was appointed president of the
ReichsfilmkammerThe Reichsfilmkammer was a public corporation based in Berlin that regulated the film industry in National Socialist Germany between 1933 and 1945...
, an office which he retained until the end of the
warWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1945. The
Reichsfilmkammer was subordinate to the
Reichskulturkammer, which as a National Socialist trade organisation regulated and controlled access to all artistic professions.
After the end of the war
After the end of the war Froelich was arrested and in 1948
de-NazifiedDenazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the Nazi regime. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering impotent the...
. His studio had been badly damaged during the war and did not resume production. Only two more films were made under his direction before his death:
Drei Mädchen spinnen and
Stips.
External links
Cinegraph.de: Das Froelich-Atelier filmportal.de: Biography