Gunther von Fritsch letter about “Redes” film discovered

Long after the film Redes was released in 1937 in the United States, Gunther von Fritsch, the editor of the film, wrote a letter to William Alexander in 1976 recounting the film production experience. This letter was compiled from eight letters which Gunther wrote to his wife while he was in Mexico working on the film in Alvarado and Mexico City. It’s a long letter, as it had to be, full of detail about the conditions in Alvarado, the circumstances surrounding the filming process, the moods of his fellow mates on the film crew and his observations on Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North) and the great early Russian films (Potemkin) which influenced the Redes story. His chief cinematic point in the letter was that Redes was a film destined to survive the decades of wear and oblivion because it was a film which had something to say, it had a point of view and it was about something important. Gunther was Fred Zinnemann’s friend from high school days in Austria, and both he and Fred went on to make their careers in Hollywood following the production of Redes.