TOP 5
Early Days Productions: Underrated Directors 1930 - 1960 Last updated 08/13/2010
Victor Fleming (1889-1949) (sometimes "Vic Fleming") was an Academy Award-winning American film director. Many of Fleming's silent films were action movies, often starring Douglas Fairbanks, or Westerns, and with his robust attitude and love of outdoor sports he became known as a "man's director". But he also proved an effective director of women. Under his direction, Vivien Leigh won the Best Actress Oscar, Hattie McDaniel won for Best Supporting Actress, and Ingrid Bergman was nominated. (In fact, nine actors who appeared in films directed by Fleming were Oscar-nominated.) Among his films are: "Red Dust" (1932), "Treasure Island" (1934), "Captains Courageous" (1937), "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) (co-director), and "Gone with the Wind" (1939). Edited from Wikipedia.
Michael Curtiz (1886-1962 ) was born Manó Kertész Kaminer to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary (then Austria-Hungary). He directed at least 50 films in Europe and a further hundred in the United States. Curtiz received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director: before "Casablanca" won in 1943, he was nominated for "Yankee Doodle Dandy" in 1942, and for "Angels with Dirty Faces" and "Four Daughters" in 1938. "Captain Blood" came second as a write-in nomination in 1936. Among his best known films are: "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), "Angels with Dirty Faces" (1938), "Casablanca" (1942), "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942), and "White Christmas" (1954). Edited from Wikipedia.
Robert Stevenson (1905-1986) was an English film writer and director. Born in Buxton, Derbyshire, he moved to California in the 1940s and ended up directing 19 films for The Walt Disney Company in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, Stevenson is best remembered for directing the Julie Andrews musical "Mary Poppins", for which Andrews won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Stevenson received a nomination for Best Director Oscar. His other films include: "King Solomon's Mines" (1937), "Jane Eyre (1944)", "Old Yeller" (1957), "The Love Bug" (1969), and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). Edited from Wikipedia.
Norman Zenos McLeod (1898-1964) was an American film director, cartoonist and writer. Not only overlooked by critics but also by much of his casts, somehow McLeod managed to make an impressive amount of comedy classics including: "Monkey Business" (1931) with the Marx Brothers, "Horse Feathers" (1932) also with the Marx Brothers, "It's a Gift" (1934) with W.C. Fields, "Topper" (1937) with Cary Grant, "Road to Rio" (1947) with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, "The Paleface" (1947) with Bob Hope, and the Danny Kaye comedy "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947). Edited from Wikipedia.
Tay Garnett (1894-1977) was an American film director and writer. Born in Los Angeles, California, Garnett served as a naval aviator in World War I and entered films as a screenwriter in 1920. He was a gagwriter for Mack Sennett and Hal Roach, then joined Pathe and began to direct films in 1928. Among his films are "One Way Passage" (1932), "China Seas" (1935), "Eternally Yours" (1939), "Seven Sinners" (1940), "Cheers for Miss Bishop" (1941), "The Cross of Lorraine" (1943), and "Bataan" (1943). He is best known as the director of the 1946 thriller ,"The Postman Always Rings Twice" with John Garfield and Lana Turner, and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1949) with Bing Crosby and Rhonda Fleming. Edited from Wikipedia.
