Ingster was born in 1903 in Riga of what is now Latvia. He worked with Sergei Eisenstein in Russia before arriving in the United States in 1930. In the 1930's, he worked as a writer for several movies, among them The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. His directorial debut was in the 1940 classic "Stranger on the Third Floor," in which he was also a writer. Two of his other efforts were as contributing writer of the controversial 1943 propaganda film "Song of Russia" and writer-director of the 1949 comedy "The Judge Steps Out."