(b. Rózsahegy, Hungary 1904 – d. Hollywood 1964)

Photo from Lorre’s application for U.S. citizenship. Click to see the application.

Born as Ladislav Loewenstein. Actor. Interested in the theater from early on, Lorre acted on various stages in Breslau, Zurich and Vienna before coming to Berlin in 1929 when Bertolt Brecht invited him to play the role of Fabian in his production of Marieluise Fleißer’s Pioniere in Ingolstadt. Performances in Dantons Tod and Frühlings Erwachen followed. 1931 proved to be the year of Lorre’s breakthrough. Playing Gala Gay in Brecht’s own production of Mann ist Mann at night, Lorre would stand in front of the cameras of Fritz Lang during the day in the role of the child murderer Hans Beckert in the director’s first sound feature, M. The success of the film turned Lorre into an international film star; after M he appeared in eight more German films, often in smaller comical roles.

In 1933, Lorre emigrated via the much-traveled route first to Vienna, then Paris, then London, before reaching the US through a contract with Columbia Pictures. Known in the United States primarily for his performances as the child murderer in M and as the anarchist in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Lorre was typecast from the beginning of his U.S. career as a menacing and enigmatic presence, often as a sexual threat or outsider. His most successful period was at Warner Bros. where he appeared next to Humphey Bogart and Sidney Greenstreet in numerous films of the 1940s, most notably Casablanca (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1942). In the 1950s his career declined, and he returned to Germany to make his only film as director, Der Verlorene (1951). Disillusioned by the lack of success he returned to Hollywood where he would appear in endless self-parodies on film and television.

(b. Vienna 1890 – d. Beverly Hills 1976)

Director. One of the most renown and accomplished directors of the 20th century, Lang’s exceptional career began as scriptwriter for Joe May’s company where he met his future wife Thea von Harbou. Working with Erich Pommer as of 1917, Lang applied a style at once austere and lyrical to romantic, sentimental, sensationalist and fantastic story material: Der müde Tod (1921), Die Nibelungen (1921, two parts), Metropolis (1927), Spione (1928). Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922, two parts) is notable for its attempt to represent psychological processes filmically; Metropolis, the futuristic tale of a repressive technocratic society, is renown for its special effects, its extravagant sets and even more extravagant budget, which caused financial difficulties for UFA, while M (1931) subverts the conventional detective thriller by developing a deep psychological portrait of a serial killer and child molester.

Photo from Lang’s application for U.S. citizenship. Click to see the application.

In 1933, Lang emigrated to France, and then on to the U.S., where he had the classic difficulties of a European director in the Hollywood studio system. Thus it took him several years of being idle before realizing his first project, Fury (1936), which met with both critical and popular success. While trying his hand at virtually every genre—including Westerns such as The Return of Frank James (1940), Western Union (1941), and Rancho Notorious (1952, with Marlene Dietrich), costume drama such as Moon Fleet (1955), and anti-Nazi films such as Hangmen Also Die (1943), Man Hunt (1941) Ministry of Fear (1944), and Cloak and Dagger (1946)—Lang’s most astounding achievements in Hollywood are in film noir. Scarlet Street (1947) and Secret Beyond the Door (1947), made for his own Diana Productions, are dark thrillers about the entanglement of love and murder; later famous noirs include The Blue Gardenia (1953), The Big Heat (1953), and Human Desire (1954). In 1956, Lang returned to Germany for the first time after the war; hired by producer Arthur Brauner, he directs a remake of Das indische Grabmal (1959) and Die tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse (1960)—both of which fail miserably in their attempt to revive his earlier success, and a disappointed Lang returns to Beverly Hills.