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

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 received honors and 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.
Fritz Lang died 2 August 1976 at age 85 in Beverly Hills, California after having directed 19 films in Germany, one in France, and 23 features in Hollywood.

Fritz Lang received:
International Critics Special Mention Award at the 1946 Venice Film Festival for "Hangmen Also Die!" [1943]

a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 (at 1600 Vine Street)
Honorary Award at the German Film Awards in 1963
Life Career Award at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1976

"Fritz Lang Epic Collection" DVD box set [2004]
Kino Video b&w DVD set [11/2004] 5 disks orig $89.99 - out of prodn/used
DVD set contains "Die Nibelungen: Siegfried" [1924]; "Die Nibelungen: Die Kriemhilds Rache" [1924]; "Metropolis" [1927 silent masterpiece]; "Spies" [1928]; "Woman In The Moon" [1929]; plus the 43-minute documentary "Metropolis Case" [undated] featuring film historian Enno Patalas, and other extras

"Fritz Lang: The Early Works" DVD Box Set [2012]
Kino Intl. b&w DVD set [11/2012] 3 disks for $35.93
contains 3 authorized & restored b&w silent feature films: "Harakiri" [1919], "The Wandering Image/Shadow (Das Wandernde Bild)" [1920], and "Four Around The Woman (Vier um die Frau)" [1921]

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

"Die Pest In Florenz" silent film [Deutsche Eclair Germany Nov 1919]
aka "La Peste à Florence (The Plague In Florence)"

An evil seductress suddenly appears in Florence, causing both the city's ruler and his son to fall madly in love with her; the son kills his father before an order to torture the woman can be carried out, then turns the city's churches into dens of sexual debauchery; acts of evil and corruption continue unabated until the arrival of Death, who brings with her a horrible plague which she is about to loose upon the city • Produced by Eric Pommer; directed by Otto Rippert; screenplay by Fritz Lang, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's short story 'The Mask of Red Death' (not by Flaubert's 1836 report); starring Theodor Becker, Karl Bernhard, Julietta Brandt, Erner Huebsch, Franz Knaak, Otto Mannstaedt, Auguste Prasch-Grevenberg, Marga von Kierska, Hans Walter, Anders Wikman
full credits at IMDb • movie entry at Wikipedia
IMDb lists as 92 minutes; restored 1999/2000; YouTube version is 202 minutes
watch full movie with German intertitles [5/2020 upload; 1:42:37] online at YouTube

"Spiders, Part 1: The Golden Lake"
aka "Die Spinnen, Erste Teil: Der Goldene See" [1919]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spiders_(film)
http://www.amazon.com/Spiders-Kino-Classics-Carl-Vogt/dp/B0063E00HU/

"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
Ayn Rand: "..as close to a great work of art as the films have yet come" [1969]

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

"Metropolis" [U.F.A./Paramount Jan 1927 silent]
A work of genius, a wondrous & sensational 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 100 Movies (5/2005)

"The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" in German [1933]
"The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse" in French [1933]

"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

"Clash By Night"
[R.K.O. Radio Pictures June 1952]

Clash By Night 1952 movie starring Barbara Stanwyck

A bitter & cynical woman returns from New York City to her small coastal hometown. She agrees to marry, has a baby, and becomes bored; when the wife of her brother's best friend leaves him, the two unhappy people begin an affair. Directed by Fritz Lang; adapted by Alfred Hayes from the 1941 play by Clifford Odets; starring Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, Paul Douglas, Marilyn Monroe, J. Carrol Naish, Keith Andes & Silvio Minciotti
Turner Home Ent. b&w DVD [7/2005] for $17.99
Turner Home Ent. b&w VHS [8/96] out of prodn/many used
full credits at 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

"Human Desire" [Columbia Aug 1954]
Based on the novel by Emile Zola; directed by Fritz Lang; starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame,
Broderick Crawford & Edgar Buchanan; full credits at 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]

"The Dinosaur and The Baby" TV documentary [1967]
61 minute-conversation between Jean-Luc Godard and Fritz Lang, directed by André S. Labarthe
credits at IMDb

"Fritz Lang: Interviews" [Univ Press of Mississippi 10/2003] Edited by Barry Keith Grant
http://www.amazon.com/Fritz-Lang-Interviews-Conversations-Filmmakers/dp/1578065771/

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

"Fritz Lang" [Da Capo Press 1988?] by Lottie Eisner
http://www.amazon.com/Fritz-Lang-Lotte-H-Eisner/dp/2866424220/
http://www.amazon.com/Fritz-Lang-Lotte-H-Eisner/dp/019519912X/

"Fritz Lang: The Nature of The Beast" [St. Martin's, 1997] by Patrick McGilligan
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312132476/

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

book about Lang's "Dr Mabuse" [5/2001] by David Kalat
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Case-Dr-Mabuse-Twelve/dp/0786423374/
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Case-Dr-Mabuse-Novels/dp/0786410663/

"Fritz Lang: His Life and Work - Photographs & Documents" [2001]
by Nicole Brunnhuber, Gabriele Jatho, Rolf Aurich, and Wolfgang Jacobsen 3931321746

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

	"Fritz Lang: Circle of Destiny" aka "Fritz Lang, Le Cercle du Destin - Les Films Allemands" [2000 TV] 54-minute documentary film directed by Jorge Dana Image Ent. color/b&w DVD [8/2001] for $17.99 full credits from IMDb
	"Le Film Noir: L'Áge d'Or du Film Criminel Américain" [2004] by Patrick Brion Subjects include Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Stanley Kubrick, Nicholas Ray & Orson Welles Editions de la Martinière French-language hardcover [9/2004] for €42,75 at Amazon France Patrick Brion's weblog (in French)
	"Art By Film Directors" [2004] by Karl French includes chapters on Charlie Chaplin, Jean Cocteau, Sergei Eisenstein, Federico Fellini, Terry Gilliam, Peter Greenaway, Alfred Hitchcock, Dennis Hopper, John Huston, Takeshi Kitano, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, Alan Parker, Gordon Parks, Satyajit Ray, Martin Scorsese, Josef von Sternberg, Wim Wenders, and others Mitchell Beazley 11½x9½ hardcover [11/2004] for $30.40
	"Conversations With The Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age: At The American Film Institute" [2006] by George Stevens, Jr. interviews with 32 major writers, directors & cinematographers, including Ingmar Bergman, writer Ray Bradbury, Richard Brooks, Frank Capra, William Clothier, Stanley Cortez, George Cukor, Federico Fellini, George Folsey, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, James Wong Howe, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Gene Kelly, Stanley Kramer, Fritz Lang, David Lean, Ernest Lehman, Mervyn LeRoy, Harold Lloyd, Rouben Mamoulian, Satyajit Ray, Jean Renoir, George Stevens, King Vidor, Hal Wallis, Raoul Walsh, Billy Wilder, Robert Wise, William Wyler & Fred Zinnemann Knopf 9½x6½ hardcover [2/2006] for $23.10
	"A Divided World: Hollywood Cinema and Emigre Directors In The Era of Roosevelt and Hitler, 1933-1948" [2011] by Nick Smedley Examines some of the important programs of the New Deal and the subsequent response of the film community, and also compares and contrasts the major works of three European directors – Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch & Billy Wilder – with the products of mainstream Hollywood. Intellect Ltd 9x6¾ pb [2/2011] for $40.00

Magic Lantern Video & Book StoreFritz Lang [Friedrich Christian Anton Lang - 1890-1976]

Magic Lantern Video & Book Store
Fritz Lang
[Friedrich Christian Anton Lang - 1890-1976]