Lourié was born in Kharkov, Russian Empire, in 1903.[3]
His first experience with cinema was in 1911 when a movie theater opened in Kharkov. In 1919, he worked on an anti-communist film titled Black Crowes. After he fled from the Soviet Union, he made his way to Istanbul. While there he made money for a fare to Paris, France, by painting and drawing movie posters. He even slept in the theater on top of a piano to save money.[4]
Film career
In the 1930s, he worked as a production designer for such directors as Jean Renoir, Max Ophüls, and René Clair.[4] As an assistant and production designer to Renoir, he worked on such French films as La Grande illusion and La Règle du Jeu.[5] After Renoir had moved to Hollywood in the early 1940s, Lourié moved as well, and worked with other directors including Sam Fuller, Charlie Chaplin, and Robert Siodmak.[1] In 1952, he made his directorial debut with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the first of three dinosaur films that Lourié would direct.[4] The film was profitable,[5] but Lourié has said that he regrets that the film typecast him as a science fiction director.[4] He decided that after his 1961 film, Gorgo, which he directed in 1959, he would stop directing movies because he did not want to direct "the same comic-strip monsters."[5] Eight years later, he received an Academy Award nomination for his visual effects on Krakatoa, East of Java.[2]
