Born Today January 17: Oscar C. Apfel

1878-1978

Born on this day in Cleveland, Ohio, Oscar C. Apfel was ever the man of the mid-west.  He lived a portion of his young adult life where he was born and worked in commerce.  For some reason he suddenly decided to become an actor, abrutly switched careers and soon debuted on the local stage.  No one could have predicted that he would end up one the most prolific directors and actors of the silent era.  Starting on the stage in 1900 at the age of 22, he was surprisingly suited for the stage and moved quickly through stage ranks to became both a director of plays and a producer of them.  He soon migrated to Broadway itself, and reportedly became the youngest stage director at the time in the U.S.  It stands to reason, that being in the geographical environs of the first studios in the New York area, he would eventually become a part of the film industry in some fashion.  As it happens, he went to work for the company that gave the world it's first film studio: Edison.  Apfel's career unfolded a bit backwards; usually actor became directors, not the other way around.  In his case, he directed a full two years before he appeared in a film.  He made his motion picture directing debut on the 1911 short The Wedding Bell; dramatizing the terrible conditions of New York tenements, it was more of a "public service announcement"--an awareness drama--than it was a melodramatic fancy (this would not be the last time Apfel was involved in this sort of film, Apfel directed one of the first films depicting the Armenian Genocide: Auction of Souls aka Ravished Armenia in 1919).  He stayed with Edison through a good deal of 1912, where he used a number of innovative camera and editing techniques that are not often seen in films dating from the era --including the zooming close up and a dissolve.  Certainly, the last film that he made for them,  The Passer-By, used both of these very well and showed him to be a very careful and crafty filmmaker (the film survives and is available--it was included on the box set Edison: The Invention Of The Movies).  He then moved on to Reliance-Majestic studio, which was one of the newer studios locating significant operations on the west coast and later had a contracutuel connection, and even later, a partnership with D.W. Griffith.  Thelma (1912) appears to be the first film that he made for them after his move there.   It was at this studio that he directed himself in his film acting debut in 1913; the film was The Fight For Right.  Probably Apfel's most important work came at Jesse Lasky's studio.  The company's other director of note was Cecil B. DeMille--DeMille though had never directed a film--so he was paired up to make films with the more experienced Apfel. They made several films together, and none is more well known than The Squaw Man 1914--their very first. The film is really famous for being the first feature ever to be shot in Hollywood; and though it rightly deserves it's fame (not least because it was Cecil B. DeMille directing debut), but there were other Hollywood firsts that date all the way back to 1911 that are not nearly as celebrated.  Apfel would team up with DeMille later that same year to direct the very first version of Brewster's Millions starring Edward Abeles and Joseph Singleton who had appeared in The Squaw Man. The "mentoring" of DeMille continued in The Master Mind (1914) (screenplay by Clara Beranger), and with making of The Only Son (also in 1914 and marking the directors debut of DeMille's brother William). The feature film business in Hollywood was indeed off to a roaring starting by The Famous Players-Lasky distribution network. Apfel would continue his co-directing partnership with DeMille for a couple of more productions, but struck out on his own again for The Last Volunteer (August 1914) with his own Hollywood feature, starring Eleanor Woodruff as the beguiling Katrina.  Although Apfel would helm up a couple of short films after this point, the rest of his directing would lie in the direction of feature films only.  In 1915, Apfel joined Fox Film after directing a couple of films for Oliver Morosco Photoplay Co. He stayed with the company through most of 1916, next ending up with a contract at Paralta. His last film at Fox was Fires of Conscience (September 1916) starring William Farnum; while his first Paralta production was A Man's Man (April 1917) starring J. Warren Kerrigan, an actor that had been discovered by Tom Ricketts another director that made Hollywood history by making one of the very first films of any length there in 1911, the same year that Apfel got into directing at Edison back east.  Apfel next went to work for World Film after only directing 2 titles for Paralta; he stayed with World through several titles, the first of which was Tinsel (July 1918) and with the last being The Steel King (November 1919).  He directed no films in 1920 and only one--Ten Nights in a Bar Room--in 1921. In 1922 he began to direct films under his own production house Apfel Productions, which is listed as only producing just one film in 1922: The Wolf's Fangs. One of Apfel's most well known directions from the 1920's was the very first Bulldog Drummond film released in 1922, starring matinee heart-throb Carlyle Blackwell as the titular character. His directing career in the 1920's jumped around from company to company, including a short stint at Metro directing Viola Dana. He ended up directing Buddy Roosevelt the western Code of the Cow Country for Action Pictures in 1927.  His directing career came to a close without ever working on a film with any sort of sound; he, did however, return to acting and had a part ("Champagne Joe") in the Fox prohibition themed crime melodrama Romance of the Underworld (November 1928), which featured Western Electric sound effects and musical score. He had his first speaking role in the Hal Roach full sound "Blondie" short Hurdy Gurdy, featuring Thelma Todd in 1929. He ended the decade with the role as "Major" in the Marion Davies drama Marianne also released in 1929.  He had a very prolific acting career throughout most of the 1930's, cut short only by his death from a sudden heart attack on the 21st of March in 1938 at the age of 60.  His last film in which he played an uncredited Red Cross personnel, Angel of Mercy, a short film part of MGM's Passing Parade series, was released in May of 1939, over a year after his death. For such a consequential and long working person in the cinema history, it is surprising that I can find no information on his burial/memorial.  

Still from The Squaw Man [source: the American Film Institute]

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