Silent Wierdness: Born Today February 10: Harry Beaumont

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Born Today February 10: Harry Beaumont

1888-1966

Prolific director and actor Harry Beaumont was born on this day in Abilene, Kansas. Though known primarily as a director to the stars int he 1920's, he actually started first in pictures as an actor, and has around 100 such credits to his name. His acting career started when he came as close as anyone can to "running away with the circus;" he quit school to join a touring performance company. This eventually led him to stages in larger and larger cities, culminating with a stage debut in New York City. It was a short jump at the time into film acting in the area and he joined the Edison studio in 1912; but he had actually appeared in several films before this time. His film debut came in 1911 when he was under contract to the foreign Australia Life Biograph Company in One Hundred Years Ago. He had roles in three additional early Australian films, before making his Edison debut in How Patrick's Eyes Were Opened as "The Salesman." A goodly number of his films at Edison were directed by C. J. Williams, including: How Father Accomplished His Work (1912), A Thrilling Rescue by Uncle Mun (1912) and The Totville Eye (1912)--the later of which has survived and has been restored and released on DVD (see Edison: The Invention of the Movies). Though in his 4 years at Edison (really a fairly unheard amount of time for a player to remain at one studio at this time), he worked with many, many late in-house Edison directors! A few include: Harold M. Shaw, Charles M. Seay (of note: he directed Beaumont in a version of the Charles Reade novel It's Never Too Late To Mend), George Lessey, Charles Barbin and Langdon West. I am not being cheeky when I say that probably the most important director that he worked with at Edison was himself! He got his start seemingly by accident in a co-directing sort situation in 1914 (an"apprenticeship" if you will), when he directed My Friend From India with Ashley Miller. His first solo outing as a director came the next year with the short melodrama For His Mother. Many of his earliest directions featured Edison contract player Bessie Learn. He also penned a couple of the scenarios that he directed at Edison as well (though he had written his first scenario in Australia in 1912 for a picture in which he acted--A Daughter of Australia). The first film that he wrote at Edison Lost--A Pair of Shoes in 1914--a short comedic script was directed by Preston Kendall; and he first directed one of his own screenplays in 1915 with the melodrama Her Happiness. Beaumont, meanwhile continued to act in other directors productions at Edison. He left the company and moved to Chicago's Essanay in 1916, and it was at this independent studio the he first directed himself in a film: The White Alley (penned by writer Carolyn Wells...shock/horror...a woman!). While at Essanay, he fell back on his acting career for a time in 1916, but in the end, he directed far more films there, than he acted in, moving ever closer to a career completely behind the camera. His last Essanay film was The Long Green Trail, released in late August of 1917. He then went to work for Goldwyn pictures as a director back east (incidentally, his last acting job came in 1918, on yet another Australian production A Woman Suffers written and directed by Raymond Longford). His work for Goldwyn would prove fateful for his future very successful direction career in the 1920's, as he would become a valuable employee of the future combined company that would be known as MGM. The first film that he directed for the company was ironically titled Go West, Young Man in 1918. A frequent actor appearing in his Goldwyn pictures was the Moore brother Tom (he would later direct brother Matt at Warner's). He next went to work for Metro (one of the "M's" in MGM) in 1922, making the comedy Fourteenth Lover starring Viola Dana & Jack Mulhall (incidentally, also penned by women: Edith M. Kennedy and Alice D. G. Miller). Davis and Shirley Mason became fixtures in his films while at Metro; and he wrote his last screenplay while with the studio: June Madness in1922. In 1923, he went to work for Warner Bros.; and directed Main Street, a dark comedy/drama based on a Sinclair Lewis novel starring Florence Vidor--then wife of famed director King Vidor. The film's success, and it's well connected cast meant that he was now a director of note; and, aside from a couple of films in-between back at Metro, by 1924 he was solidly in demand in Hollywood. Probably his most famous film from the silent era was the 2 hour and 15 minute long Beau Brummel starring John Barrymore and made at Warner's. Right around the time that Warner Brothers were starting to experiment with "mass production" methods of films with sound, Beaumont left for Fox, a studio with the exact opposite approach to "talking films." His first Fox film was his own personal comedic take on the by-then old theme from Fox: the Vamp picture. Sporting an adapted screen play by Kenneth B. Clarke, he directed Womanpower, starring Margaret Livingston and Katherine Perry with Ralph Graves as the "hapless male," in 1926; the film was given a wide release in September of that year. He only lasted at Fox for a few films before being lured to the newly merged MGM in 1928. He started off there with a bang, directing "Latin lover" Ramon Novarro in Forbidden Hours. His first film with sound (which no doubt would have come much earlier if he had remained at Warner's) also came in 1928. He helmed the partial silent (music and sound effects only) Our Dancing Daughters starring a youth by the name of Joan Crawford. The picture was given a much wider release as a fully silent film, which is largely how it is remembered today (the film is available to view in several formats from DVD to streamable). The film made Crawford a national movie star. His next film with sound was also a rather big deal, certainly the studio thought so at the time; Beaumont helmed The Broadway Melody, which was billed as "TALKING SINGING DANCING" and released in June of 1929. It boasted a large cast, though most went uncredited, but the credits are very recognizable even today: Bessie Love, Anita Page and Charles King. It is a big deal because it was the studio's first sounded musical, and would go on to become the first sound film to win the Best Picture Academy Award. The film survives, but it's original early technicolor sequences have been lost. Beaumont was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, as was Bessie Love for Best Actress (the directing Oscar went to Frank Lloyd for his direction of The Divine Lady). His last film in the 1920's came with Speedway, a thoroughly modern film that not only boasted sound effects by Western Electric, but is also about race cars--doesn't get much more contemporary than that(!)--I love one tagline on a print ad for the film that reads: THE TWO-MILE-A-MINUTE COMEDY DRAMA! His first film of the new decade was another musical--by now becoming a bit a specialty for him--that was co-directed with William Nigh: Lord Byron of Broadway. He worked fairly prolifically through at least the lion's share of the 1930's, exclusively for MGM, and with many of his film falling under the, you guessed it, musical genre. During this time he worked with the likes of: Irene Dunn, John Gilbert, Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, Lionel Barrymore and Charles Ruggles, as well as several more turns with Joan Crawford. After 1937's When's Your Birthday he had a seven year hiatus in directing. He returned in 1944 with the Ann Sothern romantic comedy Maisie Goes to Reno. He would direct just five more films, two of them "Maisie" pictures. His last film was a Wallace Beery vehicle: Alias a Gentleman in 1948 (which was also close the last film for Berry who died in 1949). Beaumont, tired of being relegated to lesser projects at MGM, then retired in his adopted state of California. He passed away in a hospital in Santa Monica at the age of 78 on the 22 of December in 1966. His ashes are interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park's Great Mausoleum in Glendale. He is interred with family members.