Trivia

Thank to his great successes of his movies Karl Freund soon was spotted for the American film business as well. From 1930 he shot numerous movies in the USA and some his most popular works belong to the horror genre.

Developed the 3-camera system of filming television shows while working on I Love Lucy (1951), which is still used to this day.

The cinematographer Karl Freund belonged to the most important cinematographers of the German silent film and he took part in many important productions of the 10s and 20s.

Head cinematographer for many years on the I Love Lucy (1951) Show.

He soon became a demanded cinematographer who often worked together with two of the than greatest movie stars - Asta Nielsen and Henny Porten.

He began is professional career as a film projectionist in cinemas in 1906, later he deviated to the cinematography. In this function he became active for the movie "Heisses Blut" (1911) for the first time.

Weighed 360 pounds.

Member of A.S.C. (American Society of Cinematographers).

Karl Freund was among other married with the actress Gertrude Hoffmann.

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.

Freund worked as a cinematographer on over 100 films, including the German Expressionist films The Golem (1920) and The Last Laugh (1924).

Karl Freund began his career in 1905 when, at age 15, he was hired as an apprentice projectionist for Alfred Duskes films.

Freund worked with director Fritz Lang on a multiple projects, of which Metropolis (1927) is the best known.

Between 1926 and 1929, Freund was the production head at Fox Europa Film.

Freund was drafted by the Imperial Army to fight in World War I but was released from duty after only three months.

Freund was an innovator in the field of cinematography, often noted for pioneering the unchained camera technique, arguably the most important stylistic innovation of the 20th century, setting the stage for some of the most commonly used cinematic techniques of modern contemporary cinema. In films such as "Der letzte Mann", the unchained camera was a revolution in early film. For the first time, the camera was free of the tripod and could move around the set. Because it was no longer confined to one position, thousands of new shots were possible.

In 1911, Freund moved to Belgrade to create a film laboratory for the Brothers Savic.

In 1907, he began work at the International Cinematograph and Light Effect Society.

Freund co-wrote, and was cinematographer on, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927), directed by Walter Ruttmann.

Several innovative ways of moving the camera were introduced by Freund, including putting the camera on a crane. He would also put the camera on a cart that moved along a track.

Freund was known to wear the camera on his stomach and walk around while it was filming.

Early in his career Freund began to experiment with different ways of filming and new aspects of film. In 1914 he worked with Oskar Messter, a pioneering inventor and experimenter with sound film technology.

In 1944 he founded the Photo Research Corporation of Burbank to manufacture TV cameras and exposure meters.

He is best known for photographing Metropolis (1927), Dracula (1931), and television's I Love Lucy (1951-1957), and for directing The Mummy (1932).

In 1937, Freund visited Germany to bring his daughter to the United States, saving her from almost certain death in the concentration camps. His ex-wife Susette remained in Germany, where she was first imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp and then murdered at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in March 1942.