Arthur Gottlein

Arthur Gottlein (* 15. June 1895 in Vienna , † 16th September 1977 ) was an Austrian film pioneer, actor , assistant director , director , film editor , manager , screenwriter and film official (trade).

Live and act

Gottlein attended business school and made his first contact with film as early as 1913 when he took part in the first ambitious Austrian large-scale production, The Millionuncle, by producer Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky , with an unspecified auxiliary activity . For his Sascha film , he subsequently worked in various, continuously subordinate functions. Gottlein worked (since 1915) mainly as an assistant director or assistant director, at the beginning of the 20s also on some very expensive and ambitious large-scale productions by the Hungarian Michael Kertesz , above all Sodom and Gomorrah and The Slave Queen . During the First World War , Gottlein served as a soldier in the kuk war press office , which he helped with the production of patriotic and propaganda films.

After the war, Gottlein also worked with other important directors such as Robert Wiene , Alexander Korda , Max Neufeld , Robert Land , EW Emo and Kurt Gerron . He is said to have been involved in up to 150 films in the first 25 years of his professional career. He directed at least three films known by name, of which only one can be dated, until 1938: The Rastelbinder , Who Do Not Follow the Lord and Affair . At the end of the 1920s, Arthur Gottlein and Otto Nemeth developed their own sound film equipment called Imago Vox. With the dawn of the sound film era, Gottlein shot a series of short comedies with Karl Farkas , with whom he had already been in front of the camera in Nameless in 1923 , and made several cultural and advertising films.

Gottlein’s last domestic work was in 1937 as the production manager for Jakob Julius Fleck’s Anzengruber film adaptation of The Pastor of Kirchfeld , the last Austrian film production that was completely independent of anti-Semitic requirements until 1945. As a result of the annexation of Austria , the Jew Gottlein was sidelined. In July 1939 he managed to escape from Genoa to the Philippines .

There he directed seven feature films in English and Tagalog for the US company Minerva Pictures with local crews , for which he also wrote the scripts. None of these films is currently known by name. In 1941 Gottlein traveled briefly to Shanghai , from where he could no longer return to the Philippines due to the outbreak of the Pacific War . He then founded the Shanghai Puppet Theater, with which Gottlein performed pieces by Ferdinand Raimund and Johann Nestroy in English and Chinese.

In 1949 Arthur Gottlein returned home to Vienna; his involvement in films was now minimal. In 1966 he organized an exhibition on Austrian film in the Vienna City Hall, ten years later he published the souvenir book “Der Österreichische Film”, which looked back on Austrian cinema history with numerous illustrations.

In addition to his practical work in film and his work as a film chronicler, Gottlein also did charitable work and was intensely committed to the rights of filmmakers. In 1922 he took part in the founding of the Filmbund and from 1954 worked as an employee of the union of filmmakers for the social security of film artists. In the fall of 1956 he organized an aid campaign for Hungarian refugees .

He received a number of awards from the Austrian state, including the Silver Medal of Honor for his services to the Republic of Austria and the title of professor in 1976.

Filmography

• 1921: Cherchez la femme! (Assistant director)
• 1921: Mrs. Dorothy's confession (assistant director)
• 1922: Sodom and Gomorrah (assistant director)
• 1922: The Punishment (assistant director)
• 1922: Sin (assistant director)
• 1923: The young Medardus (assistant director)
• 1923: nameless (actor)
• 1924: If you still have a mother (assistant director)
• 1924: The Slave Queen (assistant director)
• 1927: The Rastelbinder (direction with Heinz Hanus and Maurice Armand Mondet)
• 1929: Youth Revolution (assistant director)
• 1929: Eros in chains (assistant director)
• 1930: The fate of a beautiful woman (Madame Blaubart) (Premiere: 1932) (production manager)
• 1934: Boards that mean the world (assistant director)
• 1935: Diary of the Beloved (assistant director and production manager)
• 1936: Miss Lilli (assistant director)
• 1937: The pastor of Kirchfeld (recording manager)

annotation

1. ↑ other sources cite June 13th

literature

• The Austrian film. A picture book by Arthur Gottlein, published by the Austrian Society for Film Studies, Communication and Media Research. P. 121 f., Vienna 1976
• Ludwig Gesek : Small Lexicon of Austrian Films , p. 16, Vienna 1959
• Christian Cargnelli, Michael Omasta (eds.): Departure into the Unknown. Austrian filmmakers who emigrated before 1945. Wespennest, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-85458-503-9 , p. 49.
• Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 578.

Web links

• Gottlein biography in the documentation archive of the Austrian Resistance
• Arthur Gottlein in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Arthur Gottlein at filmportal.de
• Gottlein in searchdictionaries.com