Fritz Lang [1890-1976] Page at Magic Lantern Video & Book Store

"I should say that I was a visual person. I experience with my eyes
and never, or rarely, with my ears ... to my constant regret."
— Fritz Lang

Friedrich Christian Anton Lang was born 5 December 1890 in Vienna, Austria, After high school, he trained as a painter and traveled across Europe & North Africa & Asia. He was drafted into the Austrian army at the start of World War I, and was severely wounded in June 1916. During his convalescence, he began to write scripts for Germany's new film industry. After writing scenarios for nine silent films [1916-1919], he directed "Die Spinnen (The Spiders)" [1920], a huge commercial success. He married Lisa Rosenthal in 1919, who committed suicide in 1921; that same year he married Thea von Harbou, his scriptwriter on subsequent German films. The films that he made in Germany are highly-stylized, superb examples of dramatic mysticism and visual expressionism. His first sound film, "M" [1931], set high standards for the sound film, through his montages of sound and image.

Lang and von Harbou divorced in 1933, the same year that he fled Germany because of the rise of the Nazis. The story that Josef Goebbels offered him the position of director of the German Cinema Institute (later given to filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl) and that Lang fled Germany the same night is only partially verified. He spent about a year in Paris – making one film, "Liliom" [1936] – before further flight to the United States.

Lang arrived in Hollywood in June 1934. He brought his expressionist vision to then-popular film noir, and also made anti-Nazi movies, but he was not under contract and his long-standing reputation for being difficult to work with made it increasingly tough to get work with the studios, and being on the secret but very real Hollywood Blacklist did not help. But he persevered, and made 23 films in 21 years, often by producing them himself. At the end of the 1950s, he traveled to Germany and made what turned out to be his final three films there.

By 1960, he was nearly blind. He lived in retiremnt in Beverly Hills, and wrote scripts and story ideas (never produced), and recived honors & attention for his career from Cahiers du Cinema in France, from Jean-Luc Godard (a role as himself in "Contempt" [1963]), from the Cannes Festival (jury president in 1964), and from biographer Peter Bogdanovich {1969). Lang married Lily Latte, his longtime companion {from about 1931) in 1971.
He died 2 August 1976 in Beverly Hills, California after having directed 19 films in Germany, one in France, and 23 features in Hollywood.

"Die Hochzeit im Excentricclub"
aka "Wedding In The Eccentric Club" [1917] (writer)

"Spiders, Part 1: The Golden Lake"
aka "Die Spinnen, Erste Teil: Der Goldene See" [1919]

"Spiders, Part 2: The Diamond Ship"
aka "Die Spinnen, Zweite Teil: Das Brillantenschiff" [1920]

"Die Nibelungen: Siegfried" [U.F.A. Feb 1924]
Co-written & directed by Fritz Lang; co-written by Thea von Harbou; full credits from IMDb

"Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge" [U.F.A. April 1924]
Directed by Fritz Lang; written by Thea von Harbou; full credits from IMDb

"Metropolis" [studio mo 1925]
A work of genius, a wondrous & senational experience, and so costly that the film bankrupted U.F.A., the national
film studio of Weimar Germany. Directed by Fritz Lang; listed on Time Magazine's All-TIME 100Movies (5/2005)
full credits from IMDb

"Western Union" [Fox 1941]

Directed by Fritz Lang; based on the 1939 novel by Zane Grey; starring Robert Young, Randolph Scott, Dean Jagger, Virginia Gilmore, John Carradine, Slim Summerville, Chill Wills, Barton MacLane, Russell Hicks, Victor Kilian, Minor Watson, George Chandler, Chief John Big Tree, Chief Thundercloud & Dick Rich
Fox Video color VHS [11/89] for $39.98
full credits from IMDb
11"x17" poster from Amazon for $9.99

"Scarlet Street" [Universal Dec 1945]

A cashier rescues a dame from her abusive boyfriend; smitten, he tells her that he is a wealthy artist and sets her up in an apartment (using his shrewish wife's money), where he creates inspired paintings. The boyfriend sells the paintings under the girl's name, with terrible consequences. Directed by Fritz Lang; based on the film "La Chienne" [France 1931] by Jean Renoir; starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay, Jess Barker & Rosalind Ivan
Kino Video b&w DVD [11/2005] for $21.99
Alpha Video b&w DVD [2/2002] for $7.98
Timeless Multimedia b&w VHS [12/91] for $9.99
full credits from IMDb

"The Big Heat" [Columbia Oct 1953]

A police detective's routine investigation of a cop's suicide takes a turn when a B-girl offering evidence is found murdered. He puts pressure on the local rackets boss, which causes the bombing death of the cop's wife, leading to white-hot vengeance. Directed by Fritz Lang; starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin, Jeanette Nolan, Peter Whitney, Carolyn Jones & John Doucette
Sony b&w DVD [12/2001] for $21.99
Sony b&w VHS [5/2000] out of prodn/used
full credits from IMDb

"Das indische Grabmal"
aka "The Indian Tomb, or Journey To The Lost City" [1959]

"The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse"
aka "Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse" [1960]

"Fritz Lang: The Image and The Look"
[British Film Institute, 1981] Edited by Stephen Jenkins

"Fritz Lang: The Nature of The Beast" [St. Martin's, 1997]
by Patrick McGilligan

"The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision & Modernity"
[British Film Institute, 2000] by Tom Gunning 0851707432

"Fritz Lang Interviews" [University Press of Mississippi, 2003]
Edited by Barry Keith Grant

"Fritz Lang: Genre and Representation In His American Films" [2003?]
by Reynold Humphries

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Fritz Lang