Carl Froelich

Carl August Hugo Froelich (5 September 1875 – 12 February 1953) was a German film pioneer and film director. He was born and died in Berlin.

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.

Between 1912 and 1951 he made 77 films.

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), Die Brüder Karamasoff (1922), 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).

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