Harald Reinl

Harald Reinl

Harald Reinl (8 July 1908 in Bad Ischl, Austria – 9 October 1986 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain) was an Austrian film director. He is known for the films he made based on Edgar Wallace and Karl May books (see Karl May movies and Edgar Wallace movies) and also made mountain films, Heimatfilms, German war films and entries in such popular German film series as Dr. Mabuse, Jerry Cotton and Kommissar X. Reinl began his career as an extra in the mountain films of Arnold Fanck. He worked as screenwriter on the film Tiefland directed by and starring Leni Riefenstahl. Reinl's first movie as director was the mountain film Mountain Crystal (1949). He was Oscar nominated for his documentary feature Chariots of the Gods (1970). By the 1970s, he had semi-retired to the Canary Islands. In 1986, in his Tenerife retirement home, he was stabbed to death by Daniela Maria Delis, his alcoholic wife and a former actress from Czechoslovakia.

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