Luise Fleck

In Germany Luise and her husband worked for Berlin production companies, particularly for Liddy Hegewald and UFA. During this period they made between 30 and 40 films, sometimes as many as nine in a single year. When Hitler took power in 1933 they returned to Vienna, as Jacob was Jewish, but continued to produce for "Hegewald-Film" in Vienna and Prague, while Luise's son Walter Kolm-Veltée, who had taken a qualification in sound production at Tobis-Tonbild-Syndikat, was nominally responsible for direction. When in 1938 the National Socialists also took power in Austria in the Anschluss, and control over the Austrian film industry passed virtually overnight into the hands of the Reichskulturkammer, there was no more work for them.

Jacob Fleck was interned in 1938 in Dachau Concentration Camp, but was released in 1940, when he and Luise went into exile in Shanghai. They co-operated with the Chinese director Fei Mu in the co-direction of the film Söhne und Töchter der Welt ("Sons and Daughters of the World"), which before the establishment of the People's Republic of China was the only collaboration between Chinese and foreign film makers. Its premiere took place on 4 October 1941 in the Yin Du Theatre in Shanghai.

In 1947, the same year in which Austria's first post-war film studio opened the Flecks returned to Vienna to plan their comeback, which however never materialised, although a few films were made under the name of a revived Neuer Wiener-Kunstfilm. Luise Fleck died in 1950, Jacob Fleck three years later.

In 1911 her first credited work as co-director was released: Die Glückspuppe ("Good Luck Doll"). Other dramas followed in the same year: Der Dorftrottel ("The Village Idiot"), Tragödie eines Fabriksmädels ("Tragedy of a Factory Girl") and Nur ein armer Knecht ("Just a Poor Fellow"). In 1913 were premiered her works as director and producer "Der Psychiater" ("The Psychiatrist") and Das Proletarierherz ("The Proletarian Heart"). During World War I, she directed the pro-Habsburg propaganda dramas Mit Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland ("With Hand and Heart for the Fatherland") (1915) and Mit Gott für Kaiser und Reich ("With God for Kaiser and Reich") (1916). In 1918 appeared Der Doppelselbstmord ("The Double Suicide"). She also made use of Austrian literature in Die Ahnfrau ("The Ancestress"), based on the play of the same name by Franz Grillparzer, and Lumpazivagabundus, both from 1919. From 1911 to 1922, the year in which her husband Anton died, Luise is known to have directed over 45 films, and the number may have been considerably higher. Luise Kolm, as she was then called, was principally responsible for the studio's production of socially critical dramas that dealt with questions of class conflict and ideological questions, unlike the standard productions of other film studios of the time. The actor Eduard Sekler, who worked for Wiener Kunstfilm, described her in this way: "Luise Kolm was a brilliant all-round talent while her husband Kolm just looked after the money - she did everything, she cut and spliced the films, wrote the intertitles and helped her brother in the laboratory. Without her drive and initiative it's doubtful if the firm could have remained in existence." Further works by her were the film adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's middle-class tragedy Flirtation in 1927 and When the Soldiers in 1931. The Priest from Kirchfeld appeared in cinemas in 1937. It was Luise and Jacob Fleck's first sound film production of the well-known anti-clerical play of 1870 by Ludwig Anzengruber, after two silent films 1914 and 1926. It was intended as anti-Nazi and pro-Catholic "Austria propaganda", but was not perceived as such by the critics, who misinterpreted and discounted it. Altogether Luise Fleck wrote at least 18 screenplays, directed 53 films and produced 129 films. Some sources assume far higher figures, allowing for her work being often uncredited.

• Die Glückspuppe (1911) • The Wedding of Valeni (1914) • The Priest from Kirchfeld (1914) • With Heart and Hand for the Fatherland (1915) • On the Heights (1916) • The Tragedy of Castle Rottersheim (1916) • The Vagabonds (1916) • Summer Idyll (1916) • With God for Emperor and Empire (1916) • The Stain of Shame (1917) • Lebenswogen (1917) • The Black Hand (1917) • In the Line of Duty (1917) • The Spendthrift (1917) • Rigoletto (1918) • Double Suicide (1918) • Don Cesar, Count of Irun (1918) • The Ancestress (1919) • The Master of Life (1920) • Eva, The Sin (1920) • Let the Little Ones Come to Me (1920) • Doctor Ruhland (1920) • Trance (1920) aka Anita • The Dancing Death (1920) • The Voice of Conscience (1920) • Spring Awakening (1924) • The Priest from Kirchfeld (1926) • The Orlov (1927) • A Girl of the People (1927) • The Prince's Child (1927) • Flirtation (1927) • The Beggar Student (1927) • The Merry Vineyard (1927) • Doctor Schäfer (1928) • The Beloved of His Highness (1928) • Yacht of the Seven Sins (1928) • The Little Slave (1928) • The Most Beautiful Woman in Paris (1928) • His Majesty's Lieutenant (1929) • The Happy Vagabonds (1929) • The Tsarevich (1929) • Crucified Girl (1929) • The Right to Love (1930) • The Citadel of Warsaw (1930) • When the Soldiers (1931) • An Auto and No Money (1932) • Our Emperor (1933) • The Priest from Kirchfeld (1937)