Hans Janowitz was a Bohemian-born German author.

Janowitz was an officer in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, but returned from it as a pacifist. Shortly after the war ended, he met the similarly minded Carl Mayer

Carl Mayer

Carl Mayer was an Austrian screenplay writer who wrote or co-wrote the screenplays to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , The Haunted Castle , Der Letzte Mann , Tartuffe , Sunrise and 4 Devils , the last five being films directed by F. W...

 in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, who suggested he work as an author. Together they wrote the script to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari), which was filmed by Robert Wiene

Robert Wiene

Robert Wiene was an important film director of the German silent cinema.Robert Wiene was born in Breslau, as the elder son of the successful theatre actor Carl Wiene. His younger brother Conrad also became an actor, but Robert Wiene at first studied law at the University of Berlin. In 1908 he also...

 during 1919 and 1920, and released in February 1920. The movie is a prominent work of German expressionism

German Expressionism

German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...

.

Supposedly, the film was at first offered to director Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...

, in the early part of his career, who suggested the now-famous framing story of the madman remembering his past, who then recounts the tale of a girl's mysterious murder, first read about by Janowitz in a newspaper account. Janowitz and Mayer protested the change, but it was made anyway over their objections, and Lang left the project to direct another film. Wiene was then hired to direct the film.

Janowitz then worked with another two movies by F. W. Murnau. As early as 1922, he ended his movie career and became active in the oil business.

Movies

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, 1920)
• The Head of Janus
  The Head of Janus
  The Head of Janus was a 1920 horror silent film directed by F. W. Murnau. The film was an unauthorized adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but the source material went unrecognized by the German media due to changes in the characters'...
  
  (Der Januskopf, 1920)
• The Beloved Roswolskys (Die Geliebte Roswolskys, 1921)
• Marizza, called the Smuggler Madonna (Marizza, genannt die Schmugglermadonna, 1922)

External links