born Dec. 5, 1890, Vienna, Austria-Hungary
died Aug. 2, 1976, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.
Austrian-born U.S. film director.
He studied architecture in Vienna and served in the Austrian army in World War I. While recovering from war wounds, he began to write screenplays. He found work at a movie studio in Berlin, where he later directed successful films such as Between Two Worlds (1921), Dr. Mabuse (1922), the two-part The Nibelungen (1924), the expressionistic Metropolis (1926), and M (1931). After making the anti-Nazi film The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse (1933), he left Germany for Paris and later Hollywood. His U.S. films, which equal his German films in their intensity, pessimism, and visual mastery, include Fury (1936), You Only Live Once (1937), Ministry of Fear (1944), Rancho Notorious (1952), and The Big Heat (1953). Many of his films deal with fate and man's inevitable working out of his destiny.