Lew Landers (born Louis Friedlander; January 2 1901 – March 28 1969) was an American film and television director who worked primarily on low‑budget genre pictures, often referred to as B‑movies, during the 1930s through the 1960s.
Born in New York City, Landers began his career in the motion‑picture industry as a film editor for Columbia Pictures. He transitioned to directing in the mid‑1930s, receiving his first directing credit with the feature The Crime of the Century (1935). Over the course of his career he directed more than 100 theatrical films and dozens of television episodes, covering a range of genres that included horror, crime drama, westerns, adventure, and melodrama.
Among his more frequently cited works are The Return of the Vampire (1943), The Lone Wolf in London (1940), and The Black Arrow (1948). In the 1950s and 1960s, Landers shifted increasingly toward television, directing episodes for series such as Perry Mason, The Lone Ranger, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Landers was known for his ability to work quickly and efficiently within the constraints of modest budgets, a skill valued by studios that produced large numbers of genre pictures for the double‑feature market. He remained active in the industry until shortly before his death in Los Angeles, California, in 1969.
His extensive filmography and contributions to mid‑century American genre cinema have been documented in standard film reference works and databases.
