The illustrious director Fritz Lang (1890-1976) was born in Vienna and worked as an artist before entering the German film industry as a screenwriter. He began directing in 1919 and quickly gained recognition as a master of shadowy, often sinister expressionism. Among his most celebrated German films are Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), Metropolis (1927), Spione (1928, aka Spies) and M (1931).

Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933, Lang became an American citizen two years later and settled into a 20-year career in Hollywood. His U.S. debut, MGM's Fury (1936), is a powerful study of the psychology of mob violence, with Spencer Tracy as an innocent man threatened by lynching. You Only Live Once (1937), Lang's equally affecting follow-up, stars Henry Fonda as a Depression-era ex-con who is framed for murder, and Sylvia Sidney as his wife.

For 20th Century-Fox, Lang directed two exciting Westerns, The Return of Frank James, starring Fonda; and Western Union (1941), inspired by a Zane Grey story about two brothers (Randolph Scott and Barton MacLane) who are on opposite sides of the law. Ministry of Fear (1944) is Lang's adaptation of Graham Greene's espionage thriller about an ex-mental patient (Ray Milland) who inadvertently stumbles into a sinister plot hatched by Nazis.

An effective if not always diplomatic director of actors, Lang directed Joan Bennett to memorable effect in four films of the 1940s: Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), Scarlet Street (1945) and The Secret Beyond the Door (1948).

Lang directed Marlene Dietrich in an entertaining Western, Rancho Notorious (1952) and guided Barbara Stanwyck through one of her most humane and touching performances in Clash By Night, a Clifford Odets drama also well-acted by Robert Ryan, Paul Douglas and Marilyn Monroe. The Big Heat (1953) and Human Desire (1954), both featuring Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame, were two of Lang's atmospheric film noir thrillers of the period.

Moonfleet (1955), Lang's first effort in CinemaScope, is a British period piece with Stewart Granger as a hero of questionable motives.

Disillusioned with what he termed the "rat race" of Hollywood, Lang returned to Germany in 1957 and directed a handful of films there. He eventually came back to the U.S. and spent his retirement in Beverly Hills.

by Roger Fristoe