2013 Essays

Olga Printzlau

McKenna, Denise

Olga Printzlau was a prolific writer who began her career as an artist, but turned to screenwriting after becoming interested in the “literary possibilities” of film. By 1920 she was credited with having written 352 produced scenarios (“Olga Printzlau to Write” 183). During the twenties she was sought after for her skill in adapting popular stories and novels to the screen, most notably F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned (1922) and Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence (1924). But by the late 1920s Printzlau’s attention seems to have turned more to her theatre work, and her film career dwindles significantly after 1930, with no known screen credits after 1933.