This Day in History: 1890-12-05

Fritz Lang, Austrian – American film director, is born in Vienna on this day in 1890. He was part of the pre-WWII German expressionist movement and is probably best known for the science fiction film  Metropolis (1927), in which a rich young man rebels against a social order that keeps workers toiling underground.  Lang was among the many artists, writers and scientists who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s due to persecution.  His Hollywood career was also considered brilliant, if ahead of the times, and many of Lang’s American films are examples of the Film Noir genre.  These include Lang’s 1945 film Scarlet Street  and his 1953 police drama The Big Heat.