Karl W. Freund, A.S.C. (January 16, 1890-May 3, 1969) was a
cinematographer and
film director.
Early life
Born in
Dvůr Králové ,
Bohemia, his career began in 1905 when, at age 15, he got a job as an assistant projectionist for a film company in
Berlin where his family 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,
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). He won an
Academy Award for Best Cinematography for
The Good Earth (1937).
Directing, acting, and TV career
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...
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