HUGO HAAS

Hugo Haas was an actor, director, and writer from the 1920s to the 1960s. He was a native of Czechoslovakia, and in 1937, he wrote the screenplay for a movie, "Skeleton on Horseback", based on a play by Karel Capek (best remembered as the author of "R.U.R.", the first literary mention of robots), and that movie was obviously intended as an allegory against Hitler and fascism. When Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia right after the movie was made, Haas fled to the United States, but he never achieved major prominence in movies, although he is well remembered for directing a series of movies about an old man in love with a young beautiful woman (starring Haas himself, with a series of "bad girls", including Cleo Moore)! Some of his works include King Solomon's Mines, Edge of Hell, and Born to Be Loved. He passed away in 1968 at the age of 67.