Günther Rittau

Birth : 1893-08-07, Königshütte, Upper Silesia, Germany [now Chorzów, Slaskie, Poland]

Death : 1971-08-06

Movies

Die fidelen Detektive
Director of Photography
Frauen sind für die Liebe da
Cinematography
Wenn wir alle Engel wären
Cinematography
Die fröhliche Wallfahrt
Director of Photography
Das Erbe vom Pruggerhof
Director of Photography
Das Forsthaus in Tirol
Director of Photography
Der Fischer vom Heiligensee
Director of Photography
Children, Mother, and the General
Director of Photography
Laslo Benedek interrupted his thriving Hollywood career to return to Europe as director of the German Kinder, Mutter und ein General (Children, Mother and the General). The film is set in Berlin during the last days of WW II. Desperate for manpower, Hitler has ordered that all able-bodied teenaged boys --some as young as 15 -- be drafted into the army. Frau Asmussen (Hilde Krahl) is one of five mothers who learn to their horror that their boys have been slated to be cannon fodder on behalf of the Third Reich. Asmussen and the other mothers head directly to the front to plead with the German generals for the lives of their sons. Not directly an indictment of Germany's involvement in (or incitement of) the recent war, Kinder, Mutter und ein General stresses the futility and heartbreak of all wars everywhere.
Das Kreuz am Jägersteig
Director of Photography
Vor uns liegt das Leben
Director
Eine alltägliche Geschichte
Director
Die Jahre vergehen
Director
The successful shipowner Georg Behrendsen and his wife Irene are coming from South America to Germany for business. While negotiating in the home of senator Kersten, the senator's son Wilhelm (Werner Fuetterer) is taking care of Irene Behrendsen. The two fall in love with each other and decide to marry after Irene's divorce from her husband. But the old senator forces his son to decide whether to marry Irene or to become head of the shipping company. Not to break the family tradition, Wilhelm decides against the marriage. Irene, full of hatred against the senator, goes back to her husband. 25 years later. The senator is still head of the shipping company, because Wilhelm was killed in the war. He concentrates his love now on his daughter Victoria and he can't refuse any wish of her. Some day she tells him that she has been falling in love with a young german guy from overseas called Peter Behrendsen, not knowing that he is the son of the women who hates the senator the most.
Der Scheiterhaufen
Director
Meine vier Jungens
Director
Der ewige Klang
Director
Wenn du noch eine Heimat hast
Director
U-Boat, Course West!
Director
This Nazi propaganda film follows the exploits of a German submarine as it prowls the North Atlantic.
Brand im Ozean
Director
Tom Finberg and Nick Dorland, two highly competent divers working for the Caribbian Oil Company, have been the best friends in the world since the day they met. But this wonderful friendship is endangered by their falling in love with the same young woman, Juana, the young owner of a hacienda. Worse, following a misunderstanding, generated by the belle's scheming uncle, Pedro de Alvarado, the two men fall out with each other. But when Tom is trapped under the surface of the burning ocean, Nick finally comes to his rescue.
The Curtain Falls
Director of Photography
Nightclub Hostess
Director of Photography
The young Suzy is a nightclub hostess in a cabaret in which Frehel is the star. Because one night she gets propositions from a rich widower who would like to have her as his girlfriend, Suzy wishes to leave this place, where she has no future, for a better one. Abandoned by her protector, a young hoodlum named Robert, she gets the occasion to get away from it. She decides to go on vacation on the Riviera and stay at the Chateau des Cedres, the former residence of a noble family that has been transformed into a bourgeois guest house by the baroness Saint-Leu. Shy and elegant, in her modest suit, Suzy stays there under the name of Suzanne Michelet and soon makes new friends among the young people of very wealthy families.
Nordlicht
Director of Photography
Faded Melody
Director of Photography
After an emergency plane landing in the desert, the actress Barbara gets to know the industrialist Thomas. After they are rescued, the two live at Thomas' place in Berlin. Although she confesses her love for him, Thomas asks his brother Werner to look after Barbara, as he feels he is too consumed by work and doesn't wish to be bound to anyone. Only after a fight with his brother does Thomas realize how much in love with Barbara he really is; but by that time, she has left him. For years, Thomas searches in vain for her until one day he meets her in New York ... where she is now married.
Lady Killer
Director of Photography
Lucien Bourrache, a good looking non-commissioned officer at the Spahis, is used to charm many women. He met Madeleine Courtois at Cannes. She is beautiful and lives in luxury. He lends her a large amount of money, which she loses gambling. Then she drops him. But Lucien is now in love, and once demobilized, he goes to Paris to find her again. But he's not so sexy without his uniform, and Madeleine and him do not belong to the same milieu.
Ride to Freedom
Director of Photography
Winter in the Woods
Director of Photography
The Green Domino
Director of Photography
Liebeslied
Director of Photography
Der grüne Domino
Director of Photography
The Gypsy Baron
Director of Photography
Prince Woronzeff
Director of Photography
Baron Franz von Naydek is constantly being mistaken for Prince Woronzeff, since both look identical. One day, Woronzeff decides that this similarity might come in handy. Since he is very ill and can no longer deal with the intrigues of his relatives, he begs his friend Naydek to play the role of prince for a while. Naydek agrees and everything seems to be going splendidly. Woronzeff’s ex-nag Diane sees through the game, however, but says nothing, since she’s fallen for Naydek. He, in turn, has the hots for Nadja, Woronzeff’s daughter, long thought lost and who has now reappeared. The prince’s relatives fear for their inheritance and so refuse to acknowledge Nadja’s existence. In the interim, Woronzeff dies. Now Naydek is obliged to play the role for a much longer time than he bargained for.
Gold
Director of Photography
Using an atomic reactor, two scientists try to create gold.
Kind, ich freu' mich auf Dein Kommen
Director of Photography
F.P.1 Doesn't Answer
Director of Photography
F.P.1 is a huge airplane landing dock in the Atlantic where pilots making the transatlantic flight can stop. Yet a saboteur tries to sink the technical wonder in this classic German science fiction film from 1932. The film was also created with English and French speaking actors at the same time.
Happy Ever After
Cinematography
Two window cleaners help a girl who is trying to get to Hollywood.
A Blonde Dream
Director of Photography
Rival window cleaners Willy I and Willy 2 befriend Jou-Jou, an aspiring dancer, who has been tricked out of money by a con-man posing as an American movie mogul, and together they turn an old railway carriage into a "Villa Hollywood" for her.
Quick
Cinematography
A woman staying at a health spa (Lillian Harvey, goes to the theater every night to see "Quick" a comic performer, who wears clown make-up. She meets him off stage, without make-up and doesn't recognize him. He courts her, hoping she'll like him for himself but she maintains her crush on "Quick."
Quick
Director of Photography
Lilian Harvey plays Eva, a young girl taking some time in a health spa and spending her evenings in the town's vaudeville theatre enamoured by a heavily made-up clown called Quick. Quick takes a shine to her and tries to woo her without make-up and masquerading as the theatre's manager. Unable to resolve her feelings for Quick and the theatre manager, Eva is angered when she finally learns that they are one and the same.
Tumultes
Director of Photography
Fresh out of prison a small-time crook finds his girlfriend's dropped him, which sends him into a murderous rage.
The Tempest
Director of Photography
Two inspiration sources appear clearly: contemporary American gangster movies and Alfred Döblin’s novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929).
Bombs Over Monte Carlo
Director of Photography
The captain of a battleship of a small Balkan country is fed up with following strange orders from the country's queen.
Her Highness Commands
Director of Photography
Simultaneously made French version of "Ihre Hoheit Befiehlt": An officer, posing as a deli clerk, and a princess, posing as a manicurist, meet at a ball. The court especially the prime minister oppose a marriage, for political reasons.
Her Grace Commands
Director of Photography
An emancipated Princess, who has just returned home to her court in the Balkans from England, goes in disguise to a servants’ bal and falls in love with an alleged caterer, who turns out next day to be a lieutenant of the guard. Without letting on to her masquerade, she makes sure he climbs the ranks quickly. At the same time, she tries to thwart her engagement to an unpopular prince.
In the act
Director of Photography
Simultaneously made French version of "Einbrecher": A wealthy old husband looks for the successor for his young wife.A devious gentleman burglar is one possibility he toys with.
Burglars
Director of Photography
The young wife of a rich old husband is prevented of a fling by a gentleman-burglar, who falls in love to her.
Darling of the Gods
Director of Photography
Also known as Darling of the Gods, this was Emil Jannings' second talkie appearance. Jannings stars as famed operatic singer Albert Winkelmann, who is greeted with cheers, applause and romantic propositions whenever he performs in his native Vienna. But when he embarks on a tour of South America, tragedy strikes. The sweltering climate causes Winkelmann to lose his voice on stage, a disaster met with hoots and cat-calls. Dispirited he returns to Europe, where he soon learns that no one is aware of what happened in South America. Intending to retire so as not to be exposed to further humiliation, Winkelmann is goaded back on stage -- where, miraculously, his gorgeous voice returns.
The Blue Angel
Director of Photography
Prim professor Immanuel Rath finds some of his students ogling racy photos of cabaret performer Lola Lola and visits a local club, The Blue Angel, in an attempt to catch them there. Seeing Lola perform, the teacher is filled with lust, eventually resigning his position at the school to marry the young woman. However, his marriage to a coquette -- whose job is to entice men -- proves to be more difficult than Rath imagined.
Melodie des Herzens
Director of Photography
A young maid from the country looses her job as maid in k.u.k. Budapest, when she stays out too long with her beau, a soldier, who's saving money to buy a horse to open a transport company. After being unemployed for quite a while and her rent is long overdue, the landlady offers her a better job in a nightclub. Meanwhile the soldiers family has decided that her son should marry the daughter of a rich farmer. The soldier finds out about his girl friends profession, and accepts after struggling with himself the match his parents have made. At the day of his engagement his girl friend comes to his hometown with enough money to buy a horse, which leads to a conflict between her, the fiancee, her family, himself and his parents.
Asphalt
Director of Photography
One of the last great German Expressionist films of the silent era, Joe May’s Asphalt is a love story set in the traffic-strewn Berlin of the late 1920s. Starring the delectable Betty Amann in her most famous leading role, Asphalt is a luxuriously produced UFA classic where tragic liaisons and fatal encounters are shaped alongside the constant roar of traffic.
Homecoming
Director of Photography
Following World War I, after a long imprisonment, two German prisoner-of-war soldiers escape from a Siberian lead-mine. Karl manages to reach Germany before Richard, and is sheltered by Anna, wife of Richard. While Richard is still on his homeward trek, Karl and Anna fall in love. And then Richard comes home.
Prince or Clown
Director of Photography
Metropolis
Camera Operator
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
Metropolis
Director of Photography
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
The Tower of Silence
Director of Photography
Eva lives in the sinister Tower with her father, a mad inventor, and her grandfather. The aviator Wilfred Durian and his lovely wife live nearby in the town. But Durian's famous flight across the Australian desert was not all it seems... and when his 'dead' partner Arved Holl is rescued by Eva and comes to claim his former fiancée's hand, the whole house of cards is about to come tumbling down. Meanwhile, Eva's own family history is not quite as she had always believed...
The Last Laugh
Camera Operator
An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious Hotel is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.
Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge
Director of Photography
When Kriemhild, thirsty for revenge, marries to Etzel, king of the Huns, she invites King Gunther and his court to visit them, intending to finally take the life of the man responsible of her disgrace.
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried
Director of Photography
Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.
The Stone Rider
Director of Photography
In a distant Teutonic village, people dance and drink merrily celebrating a wedding feast. However, an elderly man tells the villagers that the valley where they live wasn't always happy but sorrowful. This was due to the tyranny of the master of the mountains who ruled the valley despotically.