After graduating from the conservatory in 1920, Hugo Haas began acting at the National Theater in Brno, in Ostrava and in Olomouc.

In 1930,[3] the Czech director, critic, and poet Karel Hugo Hilar made Haas a member of the Prague National Theatre drama company, where he remained until his emigration in 1939.

With the advent of sound film, Haas was able to apply his comedic talent in Svatopluk Innemann's Muži v offsidu in 1931.

[4] Following the 1938 Munich Agreement and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in early 1939, Hugo Haas was dismissed from the National Theater due to his Jewish origin.

In 1951, he launched a successful if unacclaimed career as a film director in Hollywood with a string of B movie melodramas, usually starring blonde actresses in the role of a predatory mantrap.

The Haas pictures generally received poor reviews but were for the most part commercially successful, and on occasion, the films featured well-known names, including Eleanor Parker, John Agar, Vince Edwards, Rock Hudson, Joan Blondell, Agnes Moorehead, Julie London, Corinne Griffith, and Marie Windsor.

The financial success of Pickup led to the creation of the independent Hugo Haas Productions, which he used to produce 12 of his 14 American films from 1951 to 1959.

His ventures were risky; he did not secure distribution deals with larger studios until after the movies were made, sometimes delaying their release for months or even years.