Max Nosseck

A German-born director who, like Fritz Lang, left his homeland with the rise of the Nazis, Max Nosseck (aka Alexander M. Norris) was most noted for his B-movie crime features. Dillinger (1945), made for Monogram and starring Lawrence Tierney, is considered a minor classic in the crime genre, with some startling expressionist techniques at work (the scene in which Dillinger returns to seek revenge on a waiter who crossed him, and the camera suddenly goes subjective as a piece of broken glass heads for the man's throat, and then cuts back to a view of the empty tavern and the man's figure sinking behind a table, is startling for its shifts in point of view, sheer quiet, and violence). The Brighton Strangler (1946) is generally regarded as Nosseck's best and most atmospheric thriller, and it served as the basis for the A-picture A Double Life, starring Ronald Colman. Although he also directed Black Beauty (1946) at 20th Century-Fox, which was his biggest hit, Nosseck never considered this film representative of him or his style. He later resumed his directorial career in Germany.

~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide