Franz Bachelin

Franz Bachelin (10 November 1895 – 26 May 1980) was a German art director. In 1946, he and Hans Dreier did the art direction for The Searching Wind.^[1] He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Journey to the Center of the Earth.^[2][3]

Franz Bachelin
Born	(1895-11-10)10 November 1895 Sinsheim, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire (now Baden-Württemberg, Germany)
Died	26 May 1980(1980-05-26) (aged 84) Pacific Palisades, California, U.S.
Occupation	Art director
Years active	1937–1966
Children	Inez Storer

Bachelin's last credited work as a cinema art director was for part two of the US television series Star Trek episode "The Menagerie".^[4] Bachelin originally assumed responsibility for art direction for the originally-planned Star Trek pilot episode "The Cage" after the first art director for the series pilot, Pato Guzman, left the production company to repatriate to his native Chile.^[5] This original series pilot was turned down by the National Broadcasting Company (the first television network to broadcast Star Trek), and was only released in 1988 as a filler episode in Paramount Television's Star Trek: The Next Generation television series during a writers' strike. Bachelin did not receive screen credit for his work on "The Cage".^[6]

Selected filmography

• The Hitler Gang, Paramount Pictures (1944)
• The Searching Wind (1946)
• Stalag 17 (1953)
• The Naked Jungle (1954)
• War and Peace, Paramount Pictures & Ponti-deLaurentitis (1955)
• Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
• Star Trek, Desilu (1964)
• Batman, Fox (1966)