Henrik Galeen

Henrik Galeen
Born	Heinrich Wiesenberg (1881-01-07)7 January 1881 Lemberg, Austria-Hungary
Died	30 July 1949(1949-07-30) (aged 68) Randolph, Vermont, United States
Occupation(s)	Actor, screenwriter, film director
Years active	1913–1935 (film)

Henrik Galeen (7 January 1881 – 30 July 1949) was an Austrian-born actor, screenwriter and film director considered an influential figure in the development of German Expressionist cinema during the silent era.

Early years

Considerable mystery exists about Galeen's early life, and for many years it was uncertain where exactly he was born. Galeen came from a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. He moved from Austria to Germany before the First World War, and became assistant to the leading theatre figure Max Reinhardt. Galeen subsequently became an actor in Berlin and touring other German-speaking cities.

German silent films

Galeen first became involved in film in 1913 when he worked on the screenplays for several uncredited films. In 1914 he wrote, directed and acted in The Golem the first of several depictions of the mythical figure The Golem. Following the First World War, he went to work for a branch of the major German studio UFA. He worked as a screenwriter on films such as Ruth's Two Husbands (1919) and Waxworks (1924).

In 1922 he was engaged to write a version of Dracula, but wrongly believing it to be in copyright, he changed the name to Nosferatu (1922). The film has come to be regarded as a classic of German expressionist cinema and along with two of his later films, The Student of Prague (1926) and Alraune (1928), serves as the basis for Galeen's high reputation. He also worked on a number of less-remembered films including a series of thrillers starring Harry Piel.

Later career

From 1928 to 1931 he lived in Britain, where he directed a feature film After the Verdict (1928) which was the first film to be shot at Wimbledon. He also worked on a number of short films. He returned to Germany in 1931 and directed a final film there The House of Dora Green (1933). Following the Nazi Party's rise to power in 1933, Galeen went into exile in Sweden before moving on to the United Kingdom and eventually to the United States. He died in Vermont in 1949, at age 68.

Selected filmography

Title	Year	Credited as				Notes	Ref(s)
		Director	Screenwriter	Actor	Other
The Golem	1915	Yes	Yes	Yes		as Trödler
The Spinning Ball	1919		Yes
Ruth's Two Husbands			Yes
The Forbidden Way	1920	Yes	Yes
The Golem: How He Came into the World			Yes
Judith Trachtenberg		Yes
Roswolsky's Mistress	1921		Yes
Nosferatu	1922		Yes
City in View	1923	Yes	Yes
The House Without Laughter				Yes		as William Brent
Dangerous Clues	1924		Yes	Yes		as Francis Margreit
Waxworks			Yes
Die Liebesbriefe der Baronin von S...		Yes	Yes
Zigano	1925		Yes
The Telephone Operator			Yes
Eyes Open, Harry!	1926		Yes
The Student of Prague		Yes	Yes
Alraune	1928	Yes	Yes
His Greatest Bluff			Yes
The Lady with the Mask			Yes		Yes	Screen story writer
Shadows of the Underworld	1931		Yes
Bobby Gets Going			Yes
L'Auberge du père Jonas	1932		Yes
Ombres des bas fonds			Yes
The House of Dora Green	1933	Yes
Nosferatu the Vampyre	1979				Yes	Film credits "Based on Nosferatu by Henrik Galeen and Dracula by Bram Stoker"

Sources

• Isenberg, Noah William. Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era. Columbia University Press, 2009.
• Bock, Hans-Michael & Bergfelder, Tim. The Concise CineGraph. Encyclopedia of German Cinema. Berghahn Books, 2009.

External links

• Works by or about Henrik Galeen at Internet Archive
• Henrik Galeen at IMDb