Born Today January 29: Owen Davis

1874-1956

Writer, principally of plays, Owen Gould Davis, was born on this day in Portland, Maine, but was raised in Bangor.  His family was large--consisting of 9 children--so the favorite past-time for them was stage performances in the town.  This is appears to be the catalyst for sparking Davis' interest in the theater and his beginnings as a playwright. Davis' principle vehicle was the straight-forward melodrama with the proverbial happy ending.  It seems that the first staging of one of is plays came in Bridgeport, Conn. in 1897; by 1900, his work was on Broadway. In 1914 his work was first adapted for a motion picture; and this was no slouch of a production either. The Wishing Ring: An Idyll of Old England was directed by Maurice Tourneur, who also personally wrote the scenario directly from Davis' play (the film remains the earliest surviving feature by Tourneur and is a treasure of National Film Registry and has been released on DVD). Around a dozen films using his work adapted for the screen were made in the 1910's, including Lola (1914/I)--which features a plot similar to Frankenstein with a revival of the dead, but then moves to something like a "zombie" film with the dead being revived without the return of the soul (the film stars Clara Kimball Young and is unfortunately lost).  Sinners (1920) was the first film utilizing his work made in the 1920's--it is a little known Alice Brady vehicle. That decade saw the largest number of films made from his work than any other; and by 1927 Davis was himself on the payroll of Paramount--by 1929 it was Davis doing the adapting of other writers work directly for the screen (a good example of his work in this regard is in They Had To See Paris in 1929--a comedy starring Will Rogers and based on the novel of Homer Croy). [See also Frozen Justice (1929)--an early talkie--in which Davis was merely credited with "additional dialog."] [And on anther side note: Davis was already in the adaptation business before working on films, adapting novels and short stories for the stage--a profession that he continued throughout his life.] The first film produced that contained sound, in this case sound effects, based on his work, was an adaptation of his "old dark house" comedy play in three acts: The Haunted House in 1928.  The 1930's wasted no time in adapting one of his plays for the musical screen; Spring Is Here (a Rodger & Hart affair) was released in 1930.  His works remained popular fodder for adaptation during the first half of the decade, but began to wane thereafter; failing off to a trickle in the 1940s and 50's. His popular play adaptation of Lockridge's Mr. and Mrs. North, first adapted for film in 1942, became his first work to make it on to the small screen of television in 1946; and the Kraft Theatre presented two episodes based on his plays (both in 1948). Several popular "photoplay" series presented adaptations of his plays in the 1950's--the last of which was the Lux Video Theatre in 1956. There would be a 37 year hiatus between this and the next adaptation for film, which came with Jezabel, a made-for-television film in Mexico, in 1993.  As of this writing, there are no pending projects.  Davis also wrote plays for radio production and was the author of two non-fiction books--one of which was about his lifetime spent on Broadway.  He also sported a nearly half a dozen pen names. He died after a brief hospital stay on the 14th of October in New York City.  He was 82 years of age.  I can find no information regarding a grave or cremation. 

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