Many of the Expressionistic film-makers in Germany during the Twenties eventually came to the United States. Caligari screenwriter Carl Mayer did, as well as Conrad Veidt, the actor who played the somnambulist Cesare in Caligari. (Veidt, interestingly enough, was also a member of Reinhardt's acting company.) In addition to these men, the great German film director F. W. Murnau, who directed the first "vampire" film, Nosferatu (1922), also went to Hollywood and directed several important films. The innovative Expressionistic cinematographer Karl Freund, who had photographed Wegener's 1920 version of The Golem and Fritz Lang's science-fiction classic, Metropolis (1927), became one of the most in demand cinematographers in Hollywood. Freund was the cinematographer of Dracula (1931), and he also became an accomplished film director. He directed such horror film masterpieces as The Mummy (1932, the first of the series) and Mad Love (1934). Mad Love starred the now famous, late actor Peter Lorre, who achieved stardom with his powerful portrayal of the child murderer in Fritz Lang's M (1931). Fritz Lang, director of Metropolis (1927), was the first scheduled director of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but he was committed to finish an earlier project. The Expressionist Paul Leni, a set designer for Max Reinhardt, came to the United States in 1927 and directed Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs (1928), a silent film produced by Universal Pictures. Leni is important because he singlehandedly developed a new genre of the horror film, juxtaposing scenes which utilized carefully designed and lighted sets and uniquely focused cameras against scenes intended as comic interludes. Leni's unique approach was certainly an influence on James Whale, the director of the first two Frankenstein films. Leni's influence can also be found in the work of Whale's art director for the first two Universal Frankenstein pictures — Charles D. Hall, who was the art director for Leni's The Man Who Laughs (1928), The Cat and the Canary (1927), and The Last Warning (1929). Although Leni's output was slight (he died in Hollywood in 1929), he was an important link between the German and American cinemas.
Thus, the influence of German Expressionism on early Hollywood films is profound and readily evident. Most directors truly concerned about film art knew of the German Expressionistic films and learned from them. Upon close examination of the classic horror films of the Thirties, it is discovered that these films are not simply idle "crowdpleasers," but serious attempts by concerned individuals at producing art.
