[1] He was the son of the pioneering film producer Jules Greenbaum who had founded Deutsche Bioscope.
He began as a cameraman in 1915 working on German silent movies, especially in association with directors Urban Gad, Max Mack, and Franz Hofer.
Most of the time he worked for his father's company Greenbaum-Film GmbH in Berlin, even directing some detective films around 1920.
His career continued into the sound era and he moved to England working on such films as The Stars Look Down (1940), Hatter's Castle (1942), Thunder Rock (1942), So Evil My Love (1948), Night and the City (1950) and I'm All Right Jack (1959), usually credited as Max Greene.
During the succeeding decades, he worked on many classic films by leading producers Michael Balcon, Alexander Korda and the Boulting Brothers.