Karl W. Freund

Karl W. Freund, A.S.C. (January 16, 1890-May 3, 1969) was a German cinematographer and film director.

Born in Königinhof, Bohemia, his career began in 1905 when, at age 15, he got a job as an assistant projectionist for a film company in Berlin.

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 emigrated to the United States in 1929 where he continued to shoot well remembered films such as Dracula (1931) and Key Largo (1948). He won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Good Earth (1937). In 1937, he went to Germany to bring his only daughter, Gerda Maria Freund, back to the United States, 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 and eventually taken in March, 1942 to Bernburg Euthanasia Center where she was murdered.

Between 1921 and 1935, Freund also directed ten films, of which the best known are probably 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 Dreyer's Michael (1924) in which he has a cameo 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".

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Cinematographer, Director. He has been called "The Giotto of the Screen" for his mastery of camera movement, daring angles, and atmosphere. Born in Koniginhof, Bohemia (now Dvur Kralove, Czech Republic), Freund was a newsreel cameraman for Pathé from his teen years and joined the UFA studio in Berlin in 1919. An artist of great ingenuity, he became one of German Cinema's leading cinematographers of the 1920s. His most celebrated achievement was "The Last Laugh" (1924), widely regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made. Working closely with director F.W. Murnau and screenwriter Carl Mayer, Freund created such expressive images that the story for this silent film is told almost entirely without intertitles. He strapped the camera to his chest, mounted it on a bicycle, and built special cranes and dollies to ensure a constant flow of visual movement. He furthered these experiments in E. A. Dupont's "Variety" (1925) and Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927). In 1929 he was brought to Hollywood by Universal Studios. Between 1931 and 1935 Freund directed 10 films, including the horror classics "The Mummy" (1932) and "Mad Love" (1935), before returning to cinematography at MGM. He won an Academy Award for "The Good Earth" (1937) and received Oscar nominations for "Pride and Prejudice" (1940), "The Chocolate Soldier" (1941), and "Blossoms in the Dust" (1941). Among his other credits are "The Golem" (1920), "The Spiders" (1922), "Tartuffe" (1926), "Berlin - Symphony of a Great City" (also co-produced, 1927), "Dracula" (1931), "Camille" (1937), "Golden Boy" (1939), "Tortilla Flat" (1942), "A Guy Named Joe" (1943), and "Key Largo" (1948). As head cameraman of Desilu Productions in the 1950s, Freund was director of photography for "I Love Lucy" (1951 to 1957) and pioneered the three-camera set up for television shooting that is still used today. He was also the founder of the Photo Research Corporation, a manufacturer of camera equipment, which he ran from 1944 until shortly before his death.

Bio by: Bobb Edwards

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Apr 12 2023, 22:29:58 UTC