Born Viktor Aleksandrovich Trivas in St. Petersburg, Russia. He entered German cinema in the late 1920s as an art director for Pabst and worked in this capacity on several films, notably THE LOVES OF JEANNE NEY. In 1931 he wrote and directed NIEMANSLAND (NO MAN'S LAND, shown in the US as HELL ON EARTH), a strong plea for pacifism, all copies of which were destroyed when the Nazis came to power. In 1933 he found refuge in France, then continued to the US, where he wrote a number of scripts, and the original story for Orson Welles's THE STRANGER, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He was the author of a novel, The 32nd Day. Visit the Internet Movie Database for a full list of his credits.  Nominated for Writing (Original Story) 1946: THE STRANGER 1 nomination