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It is the first day of spring - what better day to celebrate Gustav’s birthday?

He was born in Hannover at 8:00 am sharp on this very day in 1902 (narrowly making him a Pisces and not an Aries, contrary to common belief). He was an unwanted child and his mother gave him up on the spot, handing him over to the midwife to raise… and that’s the beginning of one of the most amazing life stories you’ll ever hear.

I love you, Gustel - happy birthday and thanks for everything.

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Just another sequence that needs no words or captions... ❤️

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One of the most beautiful sequences in film history...

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Do you know somewhere one could watch Gloria with English subtitles? I'd love to see Gustav and Brigitte Helm together again, but I don't speak a word of German 😭

Good question… Let me check my collection and I will let you know asap!!!

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It’s Saturday again - time for another special picture of Gustav: this one was taken in Rome in 1930 during the shooting of the beloved German romance movie Liebeslied, which was released the following year… no further words needed ☺️😏

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Screenshots to love - 2

This one is from Barcarole (1935), a romance film set in Venice, in which Gustav starred beside newcomer Czech actress Lida Baarova – by then his marriage was dissolving, as he would soon be divorced from his first wife, opera singer Gitta Alpar, by whom he had his only daughter, Julika; and according to Lida, they both fell helplessly in love on set.

They very soon became an established couple, with Lida spending most of her time at Gustav’s beautiful villa in Schwanenwerder – but then things fell tragically apart, as we all know.

But this lovely movie clearly shows the budding chemistry between the two of them, as well as allowing us to admire an extremely charming and super classy (just as usual) Gustav, still equipped with the heavy kind of make-up that by then was very much an ever-present heritage of the silent movie era!

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Another weekend, another visual treat…

This time we have a snapshot from the movie 'Ich will nicht wissen, wer Du bist' (1932), ('I Do Not Want To Know Who You Are'), in which Gustav stars beside actress Liane Haid as a nobleman who, having presently fallen from grace, finds himself acting as a lady's chauffeur (all the while, of course, wearing the uniform with unparalleled grace).

To me, this remains a beautiful, intriguing picture - sensual yet elegant, and so, oh so cinematic.

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Two among the beautiful love sequences between Freder and Maria that were soon cut out of most of the many reduced versions of Metropolis which we have been forced to watch for nearly a century - they have only been fully restored to us now, with the amazing 2010 version (almost complete now, at two and a half hours long) obtained from the long-lost Argentinian copy.

What a wonderful couple these two were!

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Another (late) weekend treat

One of the (many) things that I find particularly fascinating about Gustav is how underrated of an actor he is: I mean, of course everybody remembers him as Freder in Metropolis, but one simply has to have a look at the rest of his career to realize how versatile as an actor he actually was, especially as he’s been one of the very few silent movie-era actors to smoothly transition to the new spoken movies.

Of course this move also strongly affects the style of acting, for silent movies require a much more exaggerated and stereotypical acting: but if we look at a small masterpiece such as the noir film Asphalt (1929), one of the last silent movies that Gustav starred in, we do see him employ a completely different acting style, despite it still being a silent movie: a much more natural, and yet very tense and subtly dramatic style.

I strongly encourage everyone to watch Asphalt, as it can be easily found not only on DVD, but on YouTube as well - in the meantime, here is a particularly interesting snippet from behind the scenes: in this article from a contemporary cinema magazine, you can see director Joe May trying out a scene with Gustav by acting as the female lead (who in this movie was actress Betty Amann) - as you can see, he is doing just as a Fritz Lang used to do when showing actors how he wanted a scene to be acted: by performing it along with them. How amazing is that?

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Can you imagine leaving home (yes, it was a foster family placement, but it was still technically ‘home’) at 14 years old to volunteer in the Great War as a war correspondent and traveling all the way to Belgium, one of the worst-hit countries during the First World War? And then remaining there for years, completely on your own, suffering from extreme hunger and poverty while working as a journalist and starting out as a stage actor?

Well, Gustav did all of that. All I can say is that though I do realize that times were different back then and people grew up a lot quicker, it must have really taken balls of steel.

Here is an extremely rare photo of Gustav in 1916 in Bruxelles, wearing his volunteer uniform. Unfortunately I don’t know who the older guy is, a brother in arms I guess - but look at that smile… it was already there.

14, on your own since childhood and at war. Wow.

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Screenshots to love - 1

Just wanted to post what might be two of my favorite frames from Metropolis... what are yours?

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Another weekend treat

Hello everyone! I am slightly late with posting my weekend goodies, but here is a rare one indeed that was well worth the wait - a couple of super rare pictures of Gustav chilling on the weekend, including one with one of his beloved dogs. These pictures are among several taken in the same location, which I gather was the surroundings of Gustav's beloved house in the Schwanenwerder neighborhood of Berlin, characterized by its being built on an island right on the Havel river.

It was here that Gustav lived for several years while at the top of his acting career, and as you can see, he also had some sort of little farm where he liked to raise animals and do farm work, in addition to playing tennis in the adjacent tennis court. Unfortunately, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels lived just 4 doors down from Gustav''s place, and that is how the illicit relationship between him and actress Lida Baarova (who was mostly living with Gustav at the time as they were a couple by then) started... with the consequences that we all know of.

Anyway, Gustav seems to have been very fond of the very beautiful house where he resided in Schwanenwerder, especially given how tough and hungry his first years as a writer and an actor had been (more on that later). Enjoy!

(photos taken from Aros's book 'Gustav Fröhlich’).

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Hi guys!

You will probably know that over the years, Gustav appeared on countless German and Eastern European postcards, as these were very popular back then for cinema stars and such - there are literally tons of these old postcards from the 20s, 30s, 40s and even 50s floating around among collectors, with some being snapshots/stills from his movies and other being portraits of him, alone or with his co-stars.

So, I just thought that I'd share some of my favorite ones from my own collection... Do you have any favorites yourself? If so, feel free to share!

Here is the first one, still one of the best in my humble opinion. Enjoy!

P.S.: Why does nobody ever talk about his HAIR? Magnificent. As Warren Zevon would say, 'his hair was perfect'.

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Hello everyone,

time for another snippet from Gustav's life!

You might remember that a very young Gustav left home as a teenager to start a career as a journalist, and he was a war correspondent in occupied Brussels by then, and later a press supervisor in Celle (can you imagine, a teenage reporter during the war, just like Herge's Tintin character!!!).

Indeed, his first professional venture was as a journalist and an author of dime novels (most specifically, two volumes of a series titled "Heinz Brandt, der Fremdenlegionär").

However, the passion for acting soon overtake him, and while he kept working as a journalist, he started acting on the theatre stage as well (his stage name was Gustav Geef).

His debut on the big screen came as early as 1922 with a smaller role in a Dutch film titled 'De Bruut', but the great breakthrough would be in the following year with Heinz Goldberg's 'Paganini'', starring the one and only Conrad Veidt. Here Gustav played the role of Franz Liszt... it must have been great for a young actor such as Gustav to play alongside such a legend in the making!!!

Here are the very first pictures ever taken of Gustav as a young actor just starting out on the stage world… the first one is still signed ‘Gustav Geef’. Enjoy!

(Photos from Gustav’s own autobiography, ‘Waren das Zeiten’).

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Well, I guess I am in a very Gustavian mood today, so here are some more Metropolis goodies for you, folks! There’s one of two duplicates that I was able to find in better quality versions :-)))

As you can see from these pictures, Lang always had a very clear idea of precisely how he wanted a scene to be acted, and his directing style was all about showing the actors what they were supposed to do by doing it himself - he would always do that with Gustav and Brigitte.

And he was 100% a super attentive perfectionist, never satisfied with the first take, as Gustav knew all too well, as he told us about how physically excruciating and exhausting the shooting process was for him. It actually lasted for over a year, and it was of course a real odyssey - but well worth every single effort in the end.

Lest we forget how tough (and yet magnificent) of a process the making of this movie was for all involved!

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I am so sorry, but why would you follow me out of all people. You seem like a serious person

I suppose it’s out of my passion for Nosferatu (the black and white Murnau original) and the Bram Stoker book... sorry for sounding serious, I didn’t mean to

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Hi everyone! It’s Saturday, and I have decided to always post some particularly nice pictures of Gustav on the weekend - and since for most of us Metropolis is where it all started, what about some rare behind-the scenes photos? Enjoy!!!