Born Today January 6: Fred Niblo

1874-1948 

Actor/Performer turned Director Fred Niblo, was born Frederick Liedtke on this day in York, Nebraska (sources that cite his birth name as Frederico Nobile are not correct). His early career in live theater and vaudeville gave little clue to the importance he would later have on silent cinema. He took on the name Fred Niblo very early on as a stage name; and he spent 20 years performing around the globe as a monologist using this name (this is a person that gives dramatic readings in a live solo setting--if anyone has ever watched the fourth season of American Horror Story: Freaks, then you are familiar with the concept). During this period of time he married the sister of "Broadway man" before he became a fixture on Broadway George M. Cohan. This occasioned Niblo becoming the manager of the family stage act the Four Cohans. It would be another 15 years until he would actively get into motion pictures (his first credit actually comes as a writer in 1913 for the short The Gangsters , a film starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle). His active entry into films proper actually occurred in Australia, rather than in his native U.S.; and it was in Australia that he made his first two films. He started out as a "do it all man."  He wrote, directed and starred in both films.  The first of these was the comedic drama Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, which was released in January of 1916.  The second of these films, also released in 1916, was the comedy Officer 666.  His first film appearance in a film which he didn't direct came in 1918 Coals Of Fire, a Famous Players-Lasky production directed by Victor Schertzinger. It was also in Australia, that Niblo was hired by domestic film producers Thomas H. Ince Corp.;  and the first film that he made for them was also shot in Australia: The Marriage Ring was released in August 1918; it was also the first film that he directed in which he did not himself act. Niblo would eventually make his way back to the states, landing back in his old haunt of New York City. He would continue to make films for Ince there, sometimes using the city as a prop for a few on-location shoots.  He is also responsible for the rare "horror" film made for Ince; in 1919 he directed Enid Bennett (whom he had met and married in Australia after the tragic early death of his first wife Josephine Cohan) in The Haunted Bedroom.   Many of Niblo's later 1910's  and early 1920's films starred his second wife Enid. The first film that enthusiasts usually remember when his name as a director comes up is the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks outing The Mark of Zorro.  This film marks a turn to refinement in his directing style. He made fewer films during a year's time--spending instead more time in the crafting of his films.  He would eventually get into the production side of the business as well. His first project in that regard came on perhaps his most famous film of them all: Blood and Sand in 1922.  While Blood and Sand is a fine film--very, very well crafted--the fact that it stars Rudolph Valentino probably accounts for it's extreme fame beyond your average silent film buff (Niblo would direct that other Latin Lover  Ramon Novarro in 1924 as "the lover" in a Bess Meredyth adaptation of  Thy Name Is Woman & also in The Red Lily in 1924). After Blood and Sand, Niblo moved over to Louis B. Mayer company; with the melodrama The Famous Mrs. Fair (1923) representing the first title he directed for them.  The truly giant job of his career was as the director whose name appeared in the credits of one of the most expensive films shot to the date--it remains, adjusted for inflation, one of the most expensive in film history:  the epic Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1925. Famously shot on location in Italy, the film actually had a bank of directors, who all had assistant directors under them; a couple of them, such as Rex Ingram were actually famous in their own right. It must have seemed in MGM's best interest to have just one director listed on posters (and I personally wonder about Irving Thalberg's possible influence here...but that is just my own speculation), but such a large project with multiple shoots going on in different locations simultaneously, could not have be pulled off at that time by just one person (or really anyone now either for that matter). Luckily history has provided us with the names of the other uncredited directors; not to say that this in any way diminishes Niblo's directorial accomplishment on the project. The film is an amazing work of art, and all concerned provided their best work.  What is interesting to me, is that Niblo was a really good director, but of more "intimate" pictures; Ben-Hur was certainly a rather large departure for him and his directing style to date. And, this was a style that he returned to the following year in the romantic drama The Temptress which stars the great Greta Garbo (he direct her again in 1928 in The Mysterious Lady).  The same can be said for his direction Norma Talmadge in Camille, which also dates from 1926.  The last film that he directed in the 1920's, and his last fully silent film, was Dream Of Love released in December of 1928; the film starred Joan Crawford.  Niblo didn't make another film until 1930, when he helmed (apparently with some "help" from Lionel Barrymore) the John Gilbert film Redemption, which was  a partial silent and by this new decade of "all talkies," a rather strange artifact for a new release.  His first all talking film also dates from 1930; ironically it was both a "b film" and a western--two types of films that he was not accustomed to working on. The film was Way Out West and starred William Haines. He only directed four more films after this, the last of which was Blame The Woman, which was a co-direction with Maurice Elvey.  He then retired from the industry. In all his time as a director, virtually no actor had a bad word to say about him. He was apparently very respectful of and patient with them. He lived another 16 years, dying in New Orleans on the 11 of November in 1948 at the age of 74 after contracting pneumonia. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale along with the ashes of his second wife. Niblo only child with his first wife was Fred Niblo Jr.; he became an important writer of screenplays, mostly in the 1930's and 1940's. 

[photo: A.J. Find A Grave]

[photo: Scott G. Find A Grave]

Wikipedia

Find A Grave Entry

Born Today January 3: Dorothy Arzner

Arzner on the set (photo credit unknown)

1897-1979

One the most important directors of the 20th century Dorothy Emma Arzner was born on this date in San Francisco.  Though born in San Francisco, she grew up in Los Angeles, where her father owned a resturant popular with Hollywood celebrities.  To look at her body of work as a director, on the page, it would not suggest her importance to the history of cinema; the fact is, that not only is she one of the most important directors to come out of the U.S., she was also responsible for launching the careers of a whole host of strong minded and seriously talented actresses (the list is impressive and includes Katherin Hepburne and Lucille Ball).  She was the first woman to become a hired gun at any major studio; and her work with women of the silent era is equally of import.  She is also a a very important inspiration to filmmakers in the LGBT community.  She broke barriers when the cost doing so was more than sky-high. 

Azner's original plan for a career was to become a doctor; she spent two years in a pre-med program at the University of Southern California; she even spent time working as an ambulance corp in World War I.  The experience made he realize that becoming a physician was not what she wanted to do in life.  Around the time she returned from the war, she caught the movie bug.  It probably didn't hurt that she had been around people in the business through her father's establishment as she was growing up.  There were obviously some family connections.  She is known to have been introduced to William de Mille, the brother of Cecil, through the owner of the newspaper that she went to work for after returning from the war.  This lead to a job as a stenographer at Famous Players-Lasky, which would shortly become Paramount.  She was exposed to editing rooms and active film sets during her work, intriguing her and piquing her interest in directing.  This also lead to her working on the editing, without formal credit, of the Donald Crisp directed 1919 film Too Much Johnson; working along side one Nan Heron--who curiously as only one credit (this would lead me to believe that the credit for editing of the film should be Arzner's).  She does have full credit on the next Crisp directed film that she edited in 1920: The Six Best Cellars.  Her first experience with directing came with work on the 1922 Valentino film Blood and Sand which Fred Niblo was heading up; she directed additional footage for the film for which she received no credit, and was known to be very much involved with the editing, though again, she was given no credit.  

Her career throughout most of the rest of the 1920's was in the Paramount editing department and as a writer for director James Cruze, one of the film industry's first minority directors at a major studio, who saw in her talent and technique.  Her scenario writing is featured in Inez From Hollywood (1924), one of the only films that she worked on the 1920's that was not a Cruze picture (the director was Alfred Green).  Her work, yet again went uncredited formally, on Cruze's Old Ironsides, but it earned her praise at the studio who knew her contributions to the film (she importantly was the script supervisor for the film); this led to her first real directing job.  She was not just handed this job on merits alone however, she had to fight for it.  In the end, she threatened to move to Columbia and Paramount realized she meant it.  She was then given the reigns to Fashions For Women, which was released in March of 1927.  The film turned out to be quite the financial success, so the brass at the studio had to at least acknowledge in private that they had a talented director on their hands.  She directed two more films in 1927, one of which, Get Your Man, starred Clara Bow.  This is worth pointing out, because in 1929 she would direct Bow in her first talkie The Wild Party.  In the process of making this film, Arzner invented, more or less impromptu, the boom mike--but didn't patent it, and therefore a male employee at Fox or did, gets credit for it's invention.  Arzner deserves all the credit in the history books however.  You also be hard pressed to find a poster for the film that contains Arzner's name, this despite coming in 3rd for earnings that year.  She became the first female director to make an all sound film. In 1927,  Arzner met the woman that she would spend the rest of her life with.  She met Marion Morgan on the set of Fashions (Morgan was credited with editing on the film), who was a choreographer and sometime screenwriter (the two also almost shared the same birthday--Morgan was born on January 4th).

Many hold that her films in the early 1930's--the bulk of her work-during the pre-code days of Hollywood are not just her finest work, but rank as some of the most important pre-code films period.  Arzner would go on to be the the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America in 1936 (a newly formed organization at the time).  Although she lived to the age of 82, she left directing in the 1940's.  The last film that she directed was a war picture for Columbia (the company she had threatened to abscond to in the 1920's while at Paramount).  That film First Comes Courage stars Merle Oberon as a woman risking her life working for the Norwegian underground; the film is definitely a product of the time; however it is an interesting feminist slant on war subjects turned out at the time.  Arzner died passed away in 1979--on 1 October, 8 years after Morgan had died (Dorothy was 16 years younger of her) and she moved to La Quinta afterward.  Par Arzner's wishes, she was cremated and her ashes were scattered.

One of my favorite Hepburn films of the 30's, made in 1933.

IMDb

Wikipedia

Leave Virtual Remembrances @ Find A Grave