Johannes Guter

Guter fell out of favor as a director in the 1940s, Ein fröhliches Haus (1944) starring Carla Rust and Rolf Weih, being the only notable production during the 1940s.

Between 1939 and 1940 he directed Tran and Helle (impersonated by Ludwig Schmitz and Jupp Hussels) comedy shorts, Nazi propaganda films which normally accompanied Die Deutsche Wochenschau cinema newsreels.

The 1930s saw a drop in the number of feature films directed by Guter, though he began directing an increasing number of film shorts, a venture he began in 1929 with Meister des weißen Sports bei bedeutenden Spielen.

One of his most significant releases was his 1925 film Der Turm des Schweigens (The Tower of Silence), which became the first of Guter's movies to be restored and was re-premier at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival.

Despite his connection with the German film industry, Guter spent much of the 1920s living in Latvia, where he spent time attempting to build a Latvian film industry.

Guter was first married to Latvian actress Mirdza Schmitchene and in 1919 he married opera singer Heidy Wilms.

In 1917 he was employed at the Hessian State Theatre in Wiesbaden and finally at the Trianon Theatre in Berlin.

By 1910 he had directed his first play in Vienna, before moving to Frankfurt where he worked at the New Theatre as a director.

After the Russian Revolution of 1905, he fled to Berlin in Germany, only to be arrested for the murder of a police officer when he returned to his homeland in 1907. In 1908, after bail was posted, he fled again before his trial, this time settling in Vienna.