1888-1944
Though George Brackett Seitz is remembered in film history as a prolific director, he is just as famous as writer (principally a playwright) outside of movie circles. Born on this date in Boston, Massachusetts, where he started his writing career for popular culture magazines penning short fictional stories, he is most famous for his work on the fairly famous serial The Perils of Pauline in 1914. He was also involved in another well known serial: The Exploits of Elaine, also dating from 1914; only in this case, he actually appeared in the production, as well as penning some of the episodes--additionally he directed at least one of the episodes, thus making the production both his acting and directing debut. Sietz subsequently became deeply involved in the earliest studio system largely located in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Despite starting as a writer and having more than a dozen screenplays produced into films, he became better known as a director, racking up more than 100 titles during the span of his long career in the industry. The first film that he directed completely on his own came in 1917 with action serial The Fatal Ring, which also starred Pauline star Pearl White (this is one of the "offenders" in the world of film that gave us that tired old stereo-type of silent film...that of being tied to railroad tracks). Perhaps his most famous turn in the director's chair came, ironically, on a film that was lost: Seitz directed The House of Hate in 1918--giving us some of the most enduring stills of an early on-location shoot in the Fort Lee area. [The serial has been recovered in part from Russia from an archived collection belonging to Sergei Eisenstein]. All of his ten acting credits--the latest of which was in 1921 (The Man Who Stole the Moon) came in productions that he also had a hand in directing--very many of them were serials that he also either wrote all or part of. His last confirmed active producer credit came in 1923 on yet another Pearl White serial: Plunder, which he also directed. His directing career, however continued on quite prolifically and unabated for two decades. Some of his films in the late 1920's contained innovations in both colour and/or sound. Court-Martial (1928), for example sported sequences in the so-called "two strip Technicolor" process. Likewise, The Circus Kid (1928) was one of the first films to contain both a talking prologue and sound effects/music throughout the entirety of the film. Despite that he worked on such groundbreaking projects in 1928, he did not make an all talking film until 1930 with Murder on the Roof. Seitz worked all the way up until the time of his death in 1944. His last job in film direction came in 1943 on the romantic comedy Andy Hardy's Blonde; the film was released in January of 1944 (in the later part of his directing career, he specialized in directing a large number of the Andy Hardy pictures of the 1930's and early 1940's). Seitz passed away on July 8 at the age of just 56 in Hollywood. He is buried in the place of his birth at the Jamaica Plain Cemetery. He was the father of George B. Seitz Jr., who also worked as a writer and director in the motion picture industry (in the 1950's). One of the things that I personally find interesting about Seitz's legacy is that his plays, though largely comedic products of their time, have also largely been left unproduced over the years; and there have been zero television productions of his Broadway work. It is unusual to say the least.
