Name Otto Kanturek | Role Cameraman | |
Died June 26, 1941, Cawston, United Kingdom Movies Woman in the Moon, Night Train to Munich, The Wrecker, Abdul the Damned, Girl in the News Similar People Thea von Harbou, Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat, Fritz Lang, Oskar Fischinger | ||
Otto Kanturek (27 July 1897, Vienna – 26 June 1941, Cawston, Norfolk) was an Austrian cameraman, cinematographer and film director.
Life
He trained at the Graphischen Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna and, after a voluntary internship for Gaumont Newsreels, he became an assistant film cameraman with them in 1912 and the following year got a post with the producer Erich Pommer in Paris filming newsreels for Pathé, Gaumont and Éclair. In 1914 he went to Milan to work for Milano-Film, then in 1915 to work with Sascha-Film in Vienna and with Alexander Korda in Budapest. In 1916 he was conscripted and was seconded to the special photographic services. During the First World War he also made his debut as Chief Cameraman.
In 1920 he moved to Berlin and spent the 1920s working on several films, including Fritz Lang's Frau im Mond. After the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933, he left Germany for Vienna and Prague, where he directed the film Das Glück von Grinzing. In 1933 he came to London, where he finally settled and continued his work as a cameraman, including on Blossom Time (known in German as Du bist mein Herz) with Richard Tauber. He also worked as a director on the romantic comedy The Student's Romance. He died whilst filming the aerial shots for A Yank in the RAF from an Avro Anson, when it collided with a Hawker Hurricane.