Henrik Galeen

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Henrik Galeen aka. Heinrich Wiesenberg (born January 7, 1881 in Stryj , Austria-Hungary (today: Ukraine ), † July 30, 1949 in Randolph (Vermont) , United States ) was a screenwriter , director and film actor .

Life

Galeen came to Berlin via Vienna , where he initially studied mechanical engineering. He gained his first acting experience on touring stages that took him to Switzerland and Northern Germany . In 1906 Max Reinhardt got him from the Deutsches Theater and made him his assistant. There is evidence of an engagement at the house there for the 1909/10 season. Through his friend John Gottowt , he met the Swede Elvira Adler, who became his first wife. In 1911 Galeen went to the Berlin Volksbühne as a director. He made the acquaintance of the writer Hanns Heinz Ewers , who was associated with the occult lodge Ordo Templi Orientis and - like Albin Grau - was a supporter of the English magician and occultist Aleister Crowley . With the screenplay for The Student of Prague (1913) Ewers introduced occultism in German film. Galeen already worked here as an assistant director. His first directorial work for the film was Der Golem , which he shot together with Paul Wegener in 1914.

Galeen's career was suddenly interrupted by a draft notice. It was only after the First World War that he had the opportunity to work for the film again. He wrote scripts for German film classics such as The Golem, How He Came into the World (1920), Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (1922) and The Wax Figure Cabinet (1924). His best films as a director were the remake of Der Student von Prag (1926, with Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss ) and Alraune (1928, with Brigitte Helm and Paul Wegener).

In the summer of 1920 he and Gottowt took over the very successful artistic management of the theater in Kommendantenstrasse in Berlin.

Galeen saw the turn to sound film in England , where he directed Die Siegerin with Olga Chekhova in 1928 . He has also worked on several British films, including International Film Distributors, British Talking Pictures and British Sound Film Productions. He did not return to Germany until 1931 and wrote the screenplay for Shadow of the Underworld for Harry Piel, which was also written in French. Finally, the spy film Salon Dora Green was Galeen's last directorial work. The announced stone phantom never came to fruition. Galeen left Germany after the seizure of power of the Nazis . His son Ivar Galeen, who lives in Sweden , brought him to Gothenburg before the war , before they both left for the USA in February 1940 and settled in New York . There, father and son operated a bakery for a time.

Henrik Galeen kept in touch with other emigrated film people from time to time; with Paul Falkenberg, an artist agent in Hollywood and a former employee of Georg Wilhelm Pabst , he wrote an anti-fascist update of the Golem material in December 1943 . He was also active in making dolls. In 1948 Galeen married Baroness Ilse von Schenk for the second time. He died in Randolph, Vermont, in 1949 after a long period of cancer.

Despite their importance in the making of famous German Expressionist films, Galeen and his work have largely been forgotten today.

Filmography (selection)

(D = actor, R = director, B = script)

literature

  • 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. 181.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Galeen, Henrik
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wiesenberg, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Screenwriter, director and film actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Stryj , Austria-Hungary (today: Ukraine )
DATE OF DEATH July 30, 1949
Place of death Randolph (Vermont) , United States