Page "Thea von Harbou" Paragraph 2

Thea Gabriele von Harbou's first collaboration with Fritz Lang was marked by a common interest in the exotic foreign land of India.

As von Harbou worked on an adaptation of her 1917 novel Das indische Grabmal ( The Indian Tomb ), Joe May assigned Fritz Lang to aid her in the writing of the screenplay and the details regarding production.

Praising Thea's skills, Erich Kettelhut recalls, " She was not only well-liked by her colleagues, but also as much a creative force, as highly motivated and smoothly efficient, as her husband.

Her loving personality was crucial to the professional teamwork.

Von Harbou's ability to reach out to people and find compromise in the worst situations was a vital resource ".

After her marriage to Fritz Lang, the two went to work on a script that would echo pride for German nationality, Die Nibelungen and further raise von Harbou's esteem as a writer for the screen.

Thea von Harbou became known for her unique habit of wearing the same dress throughout filming, even as she cooked hot meals for the crew during late nights.

During this time of poverty in 1920s Germany, von Harbou became active in acquiring food for her film crew, as on friend recalls, " She was even able to talk the Ufa into carrying the costs so the crew could get their meals for free ... she stood there on the rough floor of that drafty shed for hours and didn't mind peeling potatoes or cleaning vegetables with the other women.

Such was the spirit of sacrifice ".

Often Thea von Harbou would take her screenplays and make them into full length novels to coincide with the release of the film, however this was not the case with Metropolis, one of her most famous works.

Thea von Harbou was an incredibly active player in producing Metropolis, and this epic film became not only one of Fritz Lang's best known films, but one of significance to German cinema.

Despite writing the novel, the screenplay, and developing the distinct moral ending of Metropolis, she is awarded with finding Gustav Fröhlich, who plays the lead role Freder Fredersen.

Her next big production with Fritz Lang would be M, a film about a child murderer, and would be written with incredible attention to accuracy.

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou had been inthralled with news coverage of Peter Kürten, known as the Monster of Düsseldorf, during the late 1920s.

Not only did von Harbou use newspaper articles for the script, but she " maintained regular contact with the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz and was permitted access to the communications and secret publications of Berlin's force ".

Recalling the script, von Harbou's secretary, Hilde Guttmann, claims, " I saw many other film manuscripts, but never one which could compare with the manuscript for M. Two typewriter ribbons were stuck together to give us three colors: one black and red, and the other blue.

The camerawork and the action were typed in black, the dialogue blue, and the sound, where synchronized, was typed in red ".

Unfortunately, she is uncredited as the script writer for M. Thea von Harbou's ability to write for the screen propelled silent German cinema into the spot light.

Furthermore, behind the most well-known German directors sat Thea von Harbou writing the action.