His family was involved in theater; his paternal uncle was the theatrical impresario Otto Brahm.

After serving as an infantryman in the Imperial German Army on both the Western and Russian Fronts during World War I,[2] he traveled and worked among the cities of Vienna, Berlin and Paris, which had the most artistic cultures of the time.

[citation needed] With the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s, Brahm left the country, first moving to England.

He joined an increasing number of European emigres working in the American film studios in this period.

He directed the ill-fated Let Us Live, the true story of two men wrongly convicted of murder who were almost executed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.