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German filmmaker Fritz Lang is profiled. Lang was a perfectionist who was described by many as a bully. He was creative, rigid and demanding in making all of his films.

He was known as the quintessential bully, but he could be Winnie-the-Pooh; he lacked a sharp sense of humor, but could roar at a practical joke played by a member of his crew; he was artistic and creative to the core, but could display a sense of rigidity completely hostile to creativity. He was Fritz Lang. German to the marrow: lovable and generous to some, despotic and abusive to others.

His defenses always at play, he wisecracked to journalists that he was something that was always hated in Hollywood: "A perfectionist. Nobody likes a perfectionist."

The truth is, he was both hurt and amused by the accusation that he was a Prussian bully. Yet he would not forgo wearing that monocle, which only added an aura of ironhanded austerity to his formidable presence. It's possible he took satisfaction in scaring the hell out of people...especially actresses.

Politically, he was no Prussian. He leaned, in fact, to the left, and in his initial projects gravitated to themes that were documentary in orientation, taking a corrosive view of society--a society that seemed, on the surface, so normal. Early in his career he was fascinated with guilt, innocence, and madness. Even before Hitler appeared, Lang envisioned a madman running the world in Das Testament der Doktor Mabuse. In Metropolis he captured the dismal aspect of life in an assembly-line society. In M he dealt with both child abuse and psychopathology. His first American film, Fury, caught the schizoid American tenor of lynch mobs in a democratic society; in later years he regretted not having used a black man, instead of Spencer Tracy, as the lynch victim.

He also made some klunkers, and a host of "commercial" ventures: You and Me, for instance, which hardly anyone remembers, a comedy starring Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, and Robert Cummings. "The worst film I ever made," he told one interviewer.

It He could hardly bring himself to discuss the other "worst film" he ever made: The Secret Beyond the Door, filmed under his own Diana Productions logo at Universal Studios. It's a meandering tale about a gentle homicidal maniac whose hobby is collecting rooms--rooms in which dastardly deeds were committed. When his wife discovers that the only locked room is a duplicate of her bedroom, she naturally becomes upset.

The lead chosen to play this iffy role was the fine actor Michael Redgrave, who had been so successful in England in The Lady Vanishes and Dead of Night, among other films. He had previously appeared in only one American film (Mourning Becomes Electra), without much success, and was quite apprehensive about the challenge, as well as uneasy about working with Lang, whose reputation preceded him. The part of the wife was to be played by Joan Bennett, not because Lang thought she was best suited for the role, but because she was then married to Walter Wanger, a major force at Universal.

Lang could be charming and riveting in his interaction with people. He was either loved or hated, instantly. And when Redgrave met Lang for the first time at the then plush, Spanish-architectured Union Station in Los Angeles, he loved him.

Instead of sending his publicist and the studio transportation, Lang had insisted upon going all the way downtown from his office at Universal personally to greet and welcome Redgrave. The Redgraves arrived en masse: Michael's wife, the lovely actress Rachel Kempson, and their young children--Corin a baby Lynn 4, and Vanessa 11 years old. It was a clear, cool day; smog had not yet been invented. Redgrave looked cheerfully British--a dark worsted suit, gray hat and conservative tie, black shoes, heavy black fur-lined wool coat draped on his arm. His cheeks had a tendency toward ruddiness, his skin somewhat translucent and shining. Lang was a study in contrast, with typical California-casual: white shoes, red and green ascot around his throat, beige fedora, and an elegant white double-breasted cashmere coat. And, yes, his monocle.

In a few days they settled down to shooting the confusing and rambling script of The Secret Beyond the Door. Lang himself had done much of the writing in collaboration with a fairly inexperienced writer named Silvia Richards. He oft quoted and joked about his old producer Erich Pommer's advice against mixing business with pleasure vis-a-vis the opposite sex: Pommer had warned him never to have an affair with an actress he was working with, and Lang would quip roguishly, "I never did--never during a picture." This time (not the first) his involvement was with a writer, during, before, and after the picture.

Richards, a tall, windswept, handsome blond woman, distinctly American and bright, was nevertheless in awe of Lang. She more or less gave in to story points that fit Lang's visual perception, forsaking motivation for mood. It was not a good creative mix, and the result was an aimless assemblage of scenes that didn't work. The film was to fare poorly at the box office and be rejected by the reviewers.

During the filming, Lang was fighting his customary battles with the studio heads, usually centered on money and how many takes he could have. He was also sounding off about a subject that was always on his mind: censorship. Still, shooting moved along without too many disagreements.

Then, one day, Lang was directing Joan Bennett in an automobile process shot, in which the thought-voice technique was to be used. The lighting was ready; the camera was rolling, focused on Bennett "driving" an automobile that was quivering to simulate movement. Her face was a dark veil of concentration. Redgrave stood in the shadows, watching and waiting for the next scene.

"Action," Lang whispered. Even in uttering this one word, his Viennese accent bled through.

Bennett's thoughts were to be read aloud by the scriptgirl (as they were then called). But for some reason, Lang insisted on reading the words himself. First there was a long silence as the camera studied Bennett's puzzled face. Then, Lang's voice:

"Vy did he did it?"

The silence resumed as Bennett strained to concentrate, Redgrave still stoic and unsmiling on the sidelines. Again, Lang's voice: "Vy did he did it? Vy did he did it?" he said repeatedly, emphasizing the implicit thought each time.

Unable to contain her laughter or sustain concentration any longer, Bennett threw her head forward and broke up. "Fritz," she screamed, "'Vy did he do it,' not 'Vy did he did it'!" Except for Lang and Redgrave, both of whom remained stonefaced, everyone on the set--the crew, the scriptgirl, the editor--all were chuckling with amusement.

Lang's face turned red with embarrassment. The Perfectionist did not make mistakes! Nor could he understand the humor. "You've ruined ze scene," he shouted. "Everybody blames me for spending too much money."

The rest of the day he was in a bad humor, and that afternoon excoriated the New York actress Barbara O'Neil because she was unprepared with her lines. She was, in fact, so frightened of Lang that she was unable to speak. The gentle, softspoken Michael Redgrave looked away with a bereaved expression as Lang obstreperously terrorized O'Neil.

Later in the afternoon Lang tried the same bullying technique on another member of the cast, Natalie Schafer. To her everlasting pride, she parried with the speed of a snapping turtle, "Don't you shout at me!" Lang apologized immediately. It is almost possible The Perfectionist was not aware of the effect he had upon people. "You don't have to shout," he said quietly to the feisty Miss Schafer. And he broke for lunch.

And so it was that Fritz Lang, who was fascinated with things American--the West, rifles, the California skyline, American cooking, American Indians, American gangsters, the American rocket program--learned to parse a sentence. "Vy did he did it?" was an error he never made again.