20 Facts About Karl Freund

Karl Freund is best known for photographing Metropolis, Dracula, and television's I Love Lucy.

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

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

Karl Freund was a newsreel cameraman in 1907 and a year later was working for Sascha-Film in Vienna.

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

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

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

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

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

Karl Freund's only known film as an actor is Carl Theodor Dreyer's Michael in which he appears as a sycophantic art dealer who saves the tobacco ashes dropped by a famous painter.

Early in his career Karl Freund began to experiment with different ways of filming and new aspects of film.

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

Karl Freund would put the camera on a cart that moved along a track.

Several other innovative ways of moving the camera were introduced by Karl Freund, including putting the camera on a crane.

Karl Freund immigrated to the United States in 1929, where he continued to shoot well-remembered films such as Dracula and Key Largo.

Karl Freund won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Good Earth.

Between 1921 and 1935, Freund directed 10 films, of which the best known are probably his two credited horror films, The Mummy starring Boris Karloff, and his last film as director, Mad Love starring Peter Lorre.

Karl Freund used this technology as the light detection system in his luminance meter.

Karl Freund married Susette Liepmannssohn in 1915; they had one daughter and later divorced, though sources differ on whether their marriage ended in 1918 or 1920.

Karl Freund died at St John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California on May 3,1969, at the age of 79.