The Four Companions

Carl Froelich (5 September 1875 in Berlin – 12 February 1953, also in Berlin) was a German film pioneer and film director. From 1903 Froelich was a colleague of Oskar Messter, one of the advance guard of German cinema, for whom initially he worked on the construction of cinematographic equipment. As cameraman for Messter’s weekly newsreels he filmed among many other things the aftermath of a train accident on the Berlin elevated railway on 28 September 1908, one of the worst transport disasters of the time. In 1913 Froelich made his directorial debut with Richard Wagner. In 1920 he founded his own production company, Froelich-Film GmbH, among the productions of which were Kabale und Liebe (1921) and Mutter und Kind (1924). During these years he often filmed with the actress Henny Porten, who made her screen debut in one of his earliest films, and with whom between 1926 and 1929 he shared ownership of a production company. In 1929 Froelich made the first German sound film, Die Nacht gehört uns (“The Night Belongs To Us”). In 1930 he took over two glasshouses in Berlin-Tempelhof, which had been used as studios in the days of silent film, and had them converted to sound film studios. Here he produced many films, including Rolf Hansen’s short film Das Schönheitsfleckchen (1936) (“The Beauty Spot”), the first German drama film in colour. In 1931 he was advisor, as “senior artistic director”, to Leontine Sagan’s famous boarding-school film and later lesbian classic, Mädchen in Uniform (“Girls in Uniform”) (1931). By 1933 Froelich was one of Germany’s most noted film artists, producing successful films with the stars of the period, among others Hans Albers, Heinz Rühmann, Ingrid Bergman and Zarah Leander.

Froelich became a member of the National Socialist Party in 1933 and took over the direction of the Gesamtverbandes der Filmherstellung und Filmverwertung (“Union of Film Manufacture and Film Evaluation”). In 1937 he was awarded a professorship and in 1939 was appointed president of the Reichsfilmkammer, an office which he retained until the end of the war in 1945. The Reichsfilmkammer was subordinate to the Reichskulturkammer, which as a National Socialist trade organisation regulated and controlled access to all artistic professions. He was one of the few filmmakers that received the title “Filmprofessor” from Goebbels. After the end of the war Froelich was arrested and in 1948 de-Nazified. His studio had been badly damaged during the war and did not resume production. Only two more films were made under his direction before his death: Drei Mädchen spinnen and Stips. —wikipedia