Karl Hartl was an Austrian

Austrians

Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....

 film director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

.

Life

Born in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Hartl began his film career at the Austrian Sascha-Film

Sascha-Film

Sascha-Film, in full Sascha-Filmindustrie AG and from 1933 Tobis-Sascha-Filmindustrie AG, was the largest Austrian film production company of the silent film and early sound film period.-History:...

 company of Alexander Kolowrat

Alexander Kolowrat

Count Alexander Joseph von Kolowrat-Krakowsky , better known as "Sascha", was an Austrian film producer of Bohemian descent...

 and from 1919 was assistant to the Hungarian director Alexander Korda

Alexander Korda

Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...

. As a production manager, he in the 1920s accompanied Korda to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, until in 1926 he returned to Vienna to work for his former class-mate director Gustav Ucicky

Gustav Ucicky

Gustav Ucicky was an acclaimed Austrian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. He was one of the more successful and acclaimed directors in Austria and Germany from the 1930s through to the early 1960s...

.

From 1930 he worked for Universum Film AG

Universum Film AG

Universum Film AG, better known as UFA or Ufa, is a film company that was the principal film studio in Germany, home of the German film industry during the Weimar Republic and through World War II, and a major force in world cinema from 1917 to 1945...

 (UFA) and gave his debut as director of Ein Burschenlied aus Heidelberg ("A Fraternity Song from Heidelberg") starring Hans Brausewetter

Hans Brausewetter

Hans Brausewetter was a German film actor of the silent era. He appeared in 135 films between 1922 and 1945. He appeared in the 1923 film The Treasure, which was directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst...

 and Willi Forst

Willi Forst

Willi Forst, born Wilhelm Anton Frohs was an Austrian actor, screenwriter, film director, film producer and singer...

, with young Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

 as a screenwriter. Together with Luis Trenker

Luis Trenker

Luis Trenker was a German-language South Tyrolian film director, architect, and actor.-Biography:...

 he directed the Gebirgsjäger

Gebirgsjäger

Gebirgsjäger, in English Mountain Riflemen, is the German designation for mountain infantry. The word Jäger is the traditional German term for rifleman...

drama Berge in Flammen ("Mountains in Flames") in 1931. He then experimented with other genres, for example the comedy Die Gräfin von Monte Cristo ("The Countess of Monte Cristo") (1932) with Brigitte Helm

Brigitte Helm

Brigitte Helm was a German actress, best remembered for her dual role as Maria and her double, the Maschinenmensch, in Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film Metropolis.-Career:...

 and Gustaf Gründgens

Gustaf Gründgens

Gustaf Gründgens , born Gustav Heinrich Arnold Gründgens, was one of Germany's most famous and influential actors of the 20th century, intendant and artistic director of theatres in Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg...

, and in the same year achieved his final breakthrough with the flying drama film F.P.1 antwortet nicht

F.P.1

F.P.1 antwortet nicht, or F.P.1 Doesn't Respond was the name of a novel written by noted science fiction and fantasy writer/director Kurt Siodmak, best known as the creator of The Wolf Man....

written by Curt Siodmak

Curt Siodmak

Curt Siodmak was a novelist and screenwriter. He made a name for himself in Hollywood with horror and science fiction films, most notably The Wolf Man and Donovan's Brain...

 and produced by Erich Pommer

Erich Pommer

Erich Pommer was a German-born film producer and executive. He was involved in the German Expressionist film movement during the silent era as the head of production at Decla, Decla-Bioscop and from 1924 to 1926 at Ufa responsible for many of the best known movies of the Weimar Republic such as...

, with Hans Albers

Hans Albers

Hans Philipp August Albers was a German actor and singer. He was the single biggest male movie star in Germany between 1930 and 1945 and one of the most popular German actors of the twentieth century.- Life and work :...

, Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...

 and Sybille Schmitz

Sybille Schmitz

Sybille Schmitz was a German actress.-Biography:Schmitz attended an acting school in Cologne and got her first engagement at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1927. Only one year later, she made her film debut with Freie Fahrt , which attracted her first attention from the critics...

 in the leads. His lavish science fiction film Gold

Gold (1934 film)

Gold is a 1934 science fiction film directed by Karl Hartl and starring Hans Albers.-Cast:* Hans Albers - Werner Holk* Friedrich Kayßler - Prof...

, released in 1934, is surprisingly listed as among the most successful German films

Cinema of Germany

Cinema in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film.Unlike any other national cinemas, which developed in the context of relatively continuous and stable political systems, Germany witnesses major changes to its...

 of the genre. Karl Hartl had some experience in Spanish documentaries, and in 1937 also directed the popular criminal comedy Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war

The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes

The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes is a German mystery comedy of 1937, directed by Karl Hartl.- Plot :Hans Albers plays the detective Morris Flynn, and Heinz Rühmann his assistant Macky McMacpherson...

("The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes") starring Hans Albers and Heinz Rühmann

Heinz Rühmann

Heinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a popular German film actor.-Life and work:Rühmann was born in Essen, Westphalia. His role in the 1930 movie Die Drei von der Tankstelle led him to film stardom. He remained highly popular as a comedic actor throughout the 1930s and early 1940s...

.

After most of the talented directors, technicians, actors had been forced to leave in the course of the 1938 Anschluss

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, Hartl became director of production for Wien-Film

Wien-Film

Wien-Film GmbH was a large Austrian film company, which in 1938 succeeded the Tobis-Sascha-Filmindustrie AG and lasted until 1985...

, the newly-created and indirectly[sic] stated-owned body through which the UFA, and beyond them the Nazi government represented by Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels

Joseph Goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...

, controlled the Austrian film industry

Cinema of Austria

Austria has had an active cinema industry since the early 20th century. Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky was among the Austrian pioneers of this art. Several Austrians pursued a career in pre-Nazi Germany and later in the United States, among them Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, Billy Wilder, Fred...

. In this role, which he retained until the end of the war

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Hartl seldom undertook work on individual films himself but was nevertheless involved at a senior level with some of the most significant entertainment films of the Nazi period.

After 1945 he resumed film-making. On 3 July 1947 he set up in Salzburg

Salzburg

-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...

, with the support of the Creditanstalt

Creditanstalt

The Creditanstalt was an Austrian bank. The Creditanstalt was based in Vienna, founded in 1855 as K. k. priv. Österreichische Credit-Anstalt für Handel und Gewerbe by the Rothschild family...

, the film production company Neue Wiener Filmproduktionsgesellschaft. One of his most acclaimed films of this period was Der Engel mit der Posaune ("The Angel With The Trombone") in 1949, which brought together many compatriot Austrian stars: Paula Wessely

Paula Wessely

Paula Anna Maria Wessely was an Austrian theatre and film actress. Die Wessely , as she was affectionately called by her admirers and fans, was Austria's foremost popular postwar actress....

, Attila

Attila Hörbiger

Attila Hörbiger was an Austrian stage and movie actor.Hörbiger was born in Budapest, then Austria–Hungary, the son of engineer Hanns Hörbiger and younger brother of actor Paul Hörbiger...

 and Paul Hörbiger

Paul Hörbiger

Paul Hörbiger was an Austrian theatre and film actor.-Life and work:Paul Hörbiger was born in Budapest, the son of Hans Hörbiger, an engineer who wrote Welteislehre on glacial cosmology, and elder brother of actor Attila Hörbiger. In 1902 the family returned to Vienna, while Paul attended the...

, Oskar Werner

Oskar Werner

-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...

 and Maria Schell

Maria Schell

Maria Margarethe Anna Schell was an Austrian/Swiss actress, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1956 for Gervaise....

. His later films included Weg in die Vergangenheit (1954) and Mozart

Mozart (1955 film)

Mozart is a 1955 Austrian drama film directed by Karl Hartl. It was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Oskar Werner - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart* Johanna Matz - Annie Gottlieb...

, which entered the 1956 Cannes Film Festival

1956 Cannes Film Festival

-Jury:*Maurice Lehmann *Arletty *Louise de Vilmorin *Jacques-Pierre Frogerais *Henri Jeanson *Domenico Meccoli *Otto Preminger *James Quinn *Roger Regent *María Romero...

.

Karl Hartl was married to the actress Marte Harell. He died in Vienna aged 79 and is buried in an Ehrengrab

Ehrengrab

An Ehrengrab is a distinction granted by certain German, Swiss and Austrian cities to one of their citizens for extraordinary services or achievements in their lifetime. If there are no descendants or institutions to care for the gravesite, the communities or cities will take responsibility for...

 of the Hietzing

Hietzing

Hietzing is the 13th municipal District of Vienna . It is located west of the central districts, west of Meidling...

 graveyard.

Films

• 1931 Berge in Flammen
• 1932 Der Prinz von Arkadien
• The Countess of Monte-Christo
  The Countess of Monte-Christo
  The Countess of Monte-Christo is a 1932 German comedy drama film directed by Karl Hartl and starring Brigitte Helm, Rudolf Forster and Lucie Englisch...
  
  (1932)
• 1932 F.P.1 antwortet nicht
• 1934 Gold
  Gold (1934 film)
  Gold is a 1934 science fiction film directed by Karl Hartl and starring Hans Albers.-Cast:* Hans Albers - Werner Holk* Friedrich Kayßler - Prof...
  
  
• 1934 So endete eine Liebe
• 1935 Der Zigeunerbaron
• 1937 Ritt in die Freiheit
• 1937 Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war
  The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes
  The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes is a German mystery comedy of 1937, directed by Karl Hartl.- Plot :Hans Albers plays the detective Morris Flynn, and Heinz Rühmann his assistant Macky McMacpherson...
  
  
• 1942 Wen die Götter lieben
• 1949 Der Engel mit der Posaune
• 1951 Der schweigende Mund
• 1952 Haus des Lebens
• 1955 Mozart
  Mozart (1955 film)
  Mozart is a 1955 Austrian drama film directed by Karl Hartl. It was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Oskar Werner - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart* Johanna Matz - Annie Gottlieb...
  
  
• 1956 Rot ist die Liebe

External links

Filmportal.de Karl Hartl