1879-1952
Prolific silent film era director Bertram Bracken was born on this day in San Antonio; "Bert" as he was affectionately known, grew up in Lampass, Texas. Ivy League educated, he started his career in banking; quite the feat for the son of southern grocery store owners. He also served in the United States military for a time. The biographical information on him does not record how he became involved with film making, but his acting career started in Chicago on the stage in the 1890's (a few other individuals have actually become interested in acting during military service--so that is always a possibility). He quickly went from actor to owner of his own stock company, which he apparently ran until he was hired by Star Film (the Gaston Méliès' company) in 1910. He made his acting debut with them in 1911 in the short historical western The Immortal Alamo starring Francis Ford. There is ample evidence that his acting filmography is not complete; Star Film listed him a being directed by Gaston Méliès--one of Georges Méliès' older brothers--in several films that we do not have credits for Bracken acting in. It is possible that a few films for the G. Méliès Gaston Méliès produced and in but Bracken both directed and acted in are mistaken for actually having been directed by the Frenchman. A good example of this is The Castaway; which is currently listed as Bracken's directorial debut released in December of 1912. His wife at the time, Mildred, was a frequent star of his early directions. He next went to work for Lubin; it was the first time he was hired by a company for his directing capabilities. His debut effort for them was The Mysterious Hand in 1913; the film starred Henry King who would go on to be a very prolific director in his own rite. At Lubin, he would turn out dozens of short films; it would take until the mid-teens, when he would go to work for Balboa, for him to direct a feature. One of his first features has turned out to be pertinent to what we are currently living through right now: Beulah (1915), a film in which a young doctor has to deal with, among many other things, an epidemic. One of his films from his Balboa days that is known to have survived is Comrade John, a copy of which has been preserved at Cinematheque Francais. His most well known studio contract, though, came at Fox; and, he started off there with a bang, so to speak. In 1916 he directed Theda Bara in The Eternal Sappho opposite James Cooley (like so many of Fox's films from the silent era, it is a lost); he would become one of that studio's most prolific directors in 1916 and 1917. The last film that he made for them was The Moral Law (1918). He next landed at National later in 1918: And A Still Small Voice, a gambling melodrama, was his first picture there. His best remembered film in this two year was The Confession (1920), based an a Hal Reid play and sporting a plot that would be reused in several different guises in many films to come (even Hitchcock's similarly titled I Confess). He next turned to making films with Selig, but in the early 1920's he began suffering from a debilitating eye complaint and he largely went back to directing shorts for a time. He made just three features between 1920 and 1925. Some of his shorts, though, featured very famous players, including: Lewis Stone and Wallace Beery were frequent leads, not to mention the presence of his second wife, actress Margaret Landis. With his permanent return to feature film directing in 1925 with Heartless Husbands, he made just six more films, all but one of them in the 1920's. His last silent film was Fire and Steel, released in July of 1927. He made just one talking picture, released in October of 1932, The Face on the Barroom Floor was a poverty row crime film: it was partially written, or more properly adapted by Bracken, from a story by Aubrey M. Kennedy (it was Kennedy's production company that was responsible for the making of the film as well). Bracken then retired to work in radio and write mystery novels (Bracken had been writing since the teens, and written film scenarios for his own direction as far back as 1916). He died in Los Angeles on the 1st. of November of 1952 at the age of 73 (I need to point out that 10 August 1879 appears to be his correct birthday--the 1880 year, even though it appears on his grave marker, is a mistake). And speaking of his grave marker, he is buried at Welwood Murray Cemetery at Palm Springs, California.
Find A Grave entry
[please excuse the lack of proper editing, allergy eye has a hold of me again]
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