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62-431: King Wallis Vidor ( / ˈ v iː d ɔːr / VEE -dor ; February 8, 1894 – November 1, 1982) was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, humane, and sympathetic depiction of contemporary social issues. Considered an auteur director, Vidor approached multiple genres and allowed

124-574: A Boy Scout edition in the 1930s. In 1940, Kodak released the Six-20 Flash Brownie, Kodak's first internally synchronized flash camera, using General Electric bulbs. In 1957, Kodak produced the Brownie Starflash, Kodak's first camera with a built-in flash. The Brownie 127 was popular, selling in the millions between 1952 and 1967. It was a bakelite camera with a simple meniscus lens and a curved film plane to compensate for

186-489: A New York-based film exhibitor First National . In a bid to compete with the increasingly dominant Hollywood studios, First National advanced Vidor funding to build a small film production facility in Santa Monica, California , dubbed Vidor Village . King Vidor issued a founding statement entitled "Creed and Pledge" that set forth moral anodynes for film-making, inspired by his Christian Science sympathies. I believe in

248-435: A chauffeur). As a low-level office clerk at Universal , he was fired for trying to present his own scripts under the pseudonym "Charles K. Wallis", but soon was rehired by the studio as a writer of shorts . Beginning in 1915, Vidor served as screenwriter and director on a series of shorts about the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents by social reformer Judge Willis Brown . Written and produced by Brown, Vidor filmed ten of

310-657: A few films stand out. Wild Oranges (1924), from a story by Joseph Hergesheimer , is notable as a harbinger of his best work in the sound era. The natural features of the coastal regions of Georgia are endowed with sinister and homicidal potential, where a fugitive arrives to terrorize rural residents. As such, the film exhibits Vidor's trademark use of nature to symbolize aspects of the human conflict. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's cast of rising movie stars included soon-to-be matinee idol John Gilbert . Vidor directed him in His Hour (1924), based on an Elinor Glyn "febrile romance", and

372-443: A film documentarian. His first movie was based on footage taken of a local hurricane (not to be confused with the 1900 Galveston hurricane). He sold footage from a Houston army parade to a newsreel outfit (titled The Grand Military Parade ) and made his first fictional movie, a semi-docucomedy concerning a local automobile race, In Tow (1913). Vidor, in a partnership with vaudevillian and movie entrepreneur Edward Sedgwick formed

434-408: A fundamental effect on Vidor's attitude toward film-making." Under pressure "as the studio system began to harden into place", the 26-year-old Vidor began to craft his films to conform to prevailing standards of the period. His 1920 film The Family Honor exemplifies this shift towards romantic comedies and away from the ideals that had informed The Jack Knife Man . Vidor's The Sky Pilot (1921)

496-417: A romantic attachment between director and star. The final product proved cinematically "lifeless". Pleased with Peg o' My Heart box-office receipts, Mayer matched Vidor and Taylor again, resulting in a second feature film success, Happiness (1923) also written by Manners, with Taylor playing a charming Pollyanna -like character. The film would mark Vidor's final collaboration with the couple. Next, Vidor

558-720: A standard motif in Vidor films. Impressed with this Vidor sequence, producer Thomas H. Ince helped to finance the picture. In 1922, Vidor produced and directed films that served as vehicles for his spouse, Florence Vidor, notable only for their "artificiality". These works conformed to the comedies of manners and romantic melodramas that were typical of his contemporary, Cecil B. DeMille at Famous Players–Lasky studios. Later, Vidor admitted to being overawed by DeMille's talents. Florence Vidor, in her later career, frequently starred in DeMille productions. Vidor's next picture, Conquering

620-410: A three-year romance on the set of The Sky Pilot that became "a Hollywood legend". The couple would resume their relationship after 40 years (in 1963), remaining close until Vidor's death in 1982. Love Never Dies (1921) is a "rural love story" with a spectacular disaster scene depicting a locomotive and box cars derailing and plunging into a river below. The dramatic presentation of rivers served as

682-495: Is an art geared toward popular culture, a film's immediate influence, the director, is viewed as the artist, whereas an earlier contributor, like the screenwriter, is viewed as an apprentice. James Agee , a leading film critic of the 1940s, said that "the best films are personal ones, made by forceful directors". Meanwhile, the French film critics André Bazin and Roger Leenhardt described that directors, vitalizing films, depict

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744-459: Is one of the few films from Vidor's output of that period to survive. Gilbert, as the Russian nobleman Prince Gritzko, was so ardently performed as co-star Aileen Pringle 's seducer that one scene was deleted. Vidor's typically "routine" movies of this period include Wine of Youth (1924) and Proud Flesh (1925) emphasize the "time-honored virtues" of familial and matrimonial loyalty, even among

806-403: Is treated as artwork while the auteur, as its creator, is the original copyright holder. Under European Union law , largely by influence of auteur theory, a film director is considered the film's author or one of its authors. The references of auteur theory are occasionally applied to musicians, musical performers, and music producers. From the 1960s, record producer Phil Spector is considered

868-435: Is ultimately rewarded with the affection of a hard-nosed but soft-hearted widow, played by Lillian Leighton. Redolent with the precepts of the "Creed and Pledge", the film's "relentless realism" did not please the executives at First National. They demanded entertainment that would garner a mass share of box-office receipts so as to fill their theaters. As film critic and biographer John Baxter observed: "[t]his experience had

930-612: The Peacock Military Academy , located in San Antonio, Texas. As a boy, Vidor engaged in photographing and developing portraits of his relatives with a Box Brownie camera . At the age of sixteen Vidor dropped out of a private high school in Maryland and returned to Galveston to work as a nickelodeon ticket taker and projectionist. As an 18-year-old amateur newsreel cameraman Vidor began to acquire skills as

992-522: The snapshot to the masses by addressing the cost factor which had meant that amateur photography remained beyond the means of many people; the Pocket Kodak, for example, would cost most families in Britain nearly a whole month's wages. The Brownie was a basic cardboard box camera with a simple convex-concave lens that took 2 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch square pictures on No. 117 roll film . It

1054-454: The 1940s for amateur photographers suggesting an expensive camera was unnecessary for quality photography, Picture Post photographer Bert Hardy used a Brownie camera to stage a carefully posed snapshot of 17-year-old Pat Stewart, a Tiller Girls dancer, with her friend, Wendy Clarke, sitting on railings of North Pier, Blackpool , for the cover of Picture Post . The cameras continued to be popular, and spawned many varieties, such as

1116-481: The 20-film series, a project in which Vidor declared he had "deeply believed". A single reel from Bud's Recruit is known to survive, the earliest extant footage from Vidor's film directing career. In 1918, at the age of 24, Vidor directed his first Hollywood feature, The Turn in the Road (1919), a film presentation of a Christian Science evangelical tract sponsored by a group of doctors and dentists affiliated as

1178-473: The Brownie could produce very good results under the right conditions. As they were ubiquitous, many iconic shots were taken on Brownies; on 15 April 1912, Bernice Palmer used a Kodak Brownie 2A, Model A to photograph the iceberg that sank RMS Titanic as well as survivors hauled aboard RMS Carpathia , the ship on which Palmer was travelling. They were also taken to war by soldiers but by World War I

1240-557: The English term. Via auteur theory, critical and public scrutiny of films shifted from their stars to the overall creation. In the 1960s and the 1970s, a new generation of directors, revitalizing filmmaking by wielding greater control, manifested the New Hollywood era, when studios granted directors more leeway to take risks. Yet in the 1980s, upon high-profile failures like Heaven's Gate , studios reasserted control, muting

1302-723: The Hollywood studio system, directed his own 1960 film The Bellboy . Lewis's influence on it spanned business and creative roles, including writing, directing, lighting, editing, and art direction. French film critics, publishing in Cahiers du Cinéma and in Positif , praised Lewis's results. For his mise-en-scene and camerawork, Lewis was likened to Howard Hawks , Alfred Hitchcock , and Satyajit Ray . In particular, Jean-Luc Godard credited Lewis's "personal genius" for making him "the only one in Hollywood doing something different,

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1364-625: The Hotex Motion Picture Company in 1914 ("HO" for Houston, "TEX" for Texas) to produce low-budget one- or two-reelers. The enterprise garnered a national press release in Moving Picture World announcing its formation. Only still photos survive from these comedy-adventures, for which Hotex failed to collect any royalties. In 1915, newlyweds Vidor and actress Florence Arto Vidor along with business partner Sedgwick, moved to California in search of employment in

1426-549: The Magnificent , both released in 1926. In La Bohème , a film of "great and enduring merit", leading lady Lillian Gish exerted considerable control over the film's production. Bardelys the Magnificent, a picaresque swashbuckler mimicked the films of Douglas Fairbanks . Vidor would spoof the movie on his own Show People (1928) with comedienne Marion Davies . Auteur American actor Jerry Lewis directed his own 1960 film The Bellboy via sweeping control, and

1488-551: The May 1935 issue of Esquire magazine. In an interview with the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in 1980 Vidor recalled the horrors of the hurricane's effects: All the wooden structures of the town were flattened ... [t]he streets were piled high with dead people, and I took the first tugboat out. On the boat I went up into the bow and saw that the bay was filled with dead bodies, horses, animals, people, everything. Near

1550-677: The Sun (1946). His dramatic depictions of the American western landscape endow nature with a sinister force where his characters struggle for survival and redemption. Vidor's earlier films tend to identify with the common people in a collective struggle, whereas his later works place individualists at the center of his narratives. He was considered an "actors' director": many of his players received Academy Award nominations or awards, among them Wallace Beery , Robert Donat , Barbara Stanwyck , Jennifer Jones , Anne Shirley , and Lillian Gish . Vidor

1612-583: The United States. Giese argues women in the US are rarely allowed to direct unless they are already celebrities, and that they are rarely afforded proper budgets. She cites women as making up less than 5% of American feature film directors , while the Hollywood Reporter stated that only about 7% of directors were women among the 250 highest-grossing films in 2016. In some law references, a film

1674-476: The Woman , was an unabashed imitation of DeMille's outstanding drama Male and Female (1919), starring Gloria Swanson . Vidor followed up with Woman, Wake Up and The Real Adventure (both 1922) and each depicting a female struggling successfully to assert herself in a male dominated world. As such, these may be considered as early examples of feminist-oriented cinema, but with entirely conventional endings. By

1736-457: The auteur theory. Pauline Kael , an early critic of auteur theory, debated Andrew Sarris in magazines. Defending a film as a collaboration, her 1971 essay " Raising Kane ", examining Orson Welles 's 1941 film Citizen Kane , finds extensive reliance on co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and on cinematographer Gregg Toland . Richard Corliss and David Kipen argued that a film's success relies more on screenwriting. In 2006, to depict

1798-584: The camera was initially aimed at children. More than 150,000 Brownie cameras were shipped in the first year of production, and cost a mere 5 shillings in the United Kingdom. An improved model, called No. 2 Brownie, came in 1901, which produced larger 3.25-by-2.25-inch (1.44:1 aspect ratio) photos, cost $ 2, and was also a huge success. Initially marketed to children, with Kodak using them to popularise photography, it achieved broader appeal as people realised that, although very simple in design and operation,

1860-703: The deficiencies of the lens. Another model was the Brownie Cresta sold between 1955 and 1958. It used 120 film and had a fixed-focus lens . The last official Brownie camera made was the Brownie II Camera, a 110 cartridge film model produced in Brazil for one year, 1986. The Kodak Brownie Number 2 is a box camera that was manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Company from 1901 to 1935. There were five models, A through F, and it

1922-492: The director had discovered on a Hollywood streetcar. The films Better Times , The Other Half , and Poor Relations , all completed in 1919, also featured future film director David Butler and starred Vidor's then wife Florence Arto Vidor (married in 1915), a rising actor in Hollywood pictures. Vidor ended his association with the Brentwood group in 1920. King Vidor next embarked on a major project in collaboration with

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1984-476: The directors' own worldviews and impressions of the subject matter, as by varying lighting, camerawork, staging, editing, and so on. As the French New Wave in cinema began, French magazine Cahiers du cinéma , founded in 1951, became a hub of discourse about directors' roles in cinema. In a 1954 essay, François Truffaut criticized the prevailing "Cinema of Quality" whereby directors, faithful to

2046-401: The early 1920s favored "literary" texts as the basis for movie screenplays. Parvenu-rich movie executives wished to provide a patina of class or "tone" to an industry often regarded as vulgar and cash-driven. Vidor was content to adapt these "prestigious properties" so securing his reputation as a reliable studio asset. His work during this period did not rise to the level of his later work, but

2108-405: The early 1920s, Florence Vidor had emerged as a major film star in her own right and wished to pursue her career independent of her spouse. The couple divorced in 1926, and shortly thereafter Florence married violinist Jascha Heifetz . Vidor would soon marry model and future film actress Eleanor Boardman . Vidor Village went bankrupt in 1922 and Vidor, now without a studio, offered his services to

2170-507: The emerging Hollywood movie industry, arriving on the West Coast virtually penniless. Based on a screen test arranged by Texas actress Corinne Griffith and shot by Charles Rosher in Hollywood, Florence Vidor procured a contract with Vitagraph Studios , marking the start of her successful movie career. Vidor obtained minor roles acting at Vitagraph and Inceville studios (the spy drama The Intrigue (1916) survives, in which he plays

2232-594: The end of production for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's The Wizard of Oz , Vidor was called in to direct the remaining scenes set in Kansas. His contributions include the cyclone sequence and the musical number, "Over the Rainbow." Vidor was introduced to Mary Baker Eddy 's Christian Science by his mother at a very early age. Vidor would endow his films with the moral precepts of the faith, a "blend of pragmatic self-help and religious mysticism." Vidor attended grade school at

2294-618: The fallacy of its line. So long as I direct pictures, I will make only those founded on the principles of right, and I will endeavor to draw upon the inexhaustible source of good for my stories, my guidance and my inspiration. His "manifesto" was carried in Variety magazine's January 1920 issue. The first production from Vidor Village was his The Jack Knife Man (1920), a bleak and bitter story of an orphaned boy raised by an impoverished yet kindly hermit, performed by former stage actor Fred Turner . The recluse achieves financial success and

2356-456: The famous star looked closer to forty than eighteen. At the first sight of Laurette [Vidor] experienced acute relief. She came toward him smiling, and his camera-minded eye saw at once a face all round and animated, essentially youthful. Pumping her hand he burst out impulsively "For Heaven's sake, let's make a test with your own lovely hair!" The process of adapting the stage version to film was nevertheless fraught with difficulties, complicated by

2418-437: The first auteur among producers of popular music. Author Matthew Bannister named him the first "star" producer. Journalist Richard Williams wrote: Spector created a new concept: the producer as overall director of the creative process, from beginning to end. He took control of everything, he picked the artists, wrote or chose the material, supervised the arrangements, told the singers how to phrase, masterminded all phases of

2480-560: The independent Brentwood Film Corporation. Vidor recalls of his first foray into Hollywood film-making: I wrote a script [The Turn in the Road] and sent it around ... and nine doctors put up $ 1,000 each ... and it was a success. That was the beginning. I didn't have time to go to college. Vidor would make three more films for the Brentwood Corporation, all of which featured as yet unknown comedienne Zasu Pitts , who

2542-458: The late 1960s, performers typically had little input on their own records. Wilson, however, employed the studio like an instrument, as well as a high level of studio control that other artists soon sought. According to The Atlantic ' s Jason Guriel, the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds , produced by Wilson, anticipated later auteurs such as Kanye West , as well as "the rise of

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2604-421: The liberated Jazz Age flappers. King Vidor's tenure as a studio stringer was at an end. His next feature would transform his career and have a resounding impact on the late silent film era: The Big Parade . "One of his least satisfactory silent films ... The Big Parade does not wear well: the portrait of World War I is softened and sentimentalized out of existence, soldiers portrayed as innocents thrust into

2666-592: The maw of battle, the cannons wreathed in scriptwriter's roses ... The scenes on the Western Front look trivial alongside contemporary photographs: the lice, the rats, and roaches, the urine and blood, the disease, fear, and horror of the true events are altogether lost in this version."—Biographer Charles Higham , in The Art of the American Film (1973). In 1925 Vidor directed The Big Parade , among

2728-539: The more compact Vest Pocket Kodak Camera as well as Kodak's Autographic Camera were the most frequently used. Another group of people that became posthumously known for their huge photo archive is the Nicholas II of Russia family, especially its four daughters (known as the OTMA sisters). They even managed to make their Brownie models produce many panoramic 4:1 photos (see Gallery). Having written an article in

2790-652: The most acclaimed films of the silent era, and a tremendous commercial success. The Big Parade , a war romance starring John Gilbert , established Vidor as one of MGM's top studio directors for the next decade. The film would influence contemporary directors G. W. Pabst in Westfront 1918 and Lewis Milestone in All Quiet on the Western Front , both 1930. Producer Irving Thalberg arranged for Vidor to film two more Gilbert vehicles: La Bohème and Bardelys

2852-582: The motion picture that carries a message to humanity. I believe in the picture that will help humanity to free itself from the shackles of fear and suffering that have so long bound it in chains. I will not knowingly produce a picture that contains anything that I do not believe to be absolutely true to human nature, anything that could injure anyone or anything unclean in thought or action. Nor will I deliberately portray anything to cause fright, suggest fear, glorify mischief, condone cruelty or extenuate malice. I will never picture evil or wrong, except to prove

2914-566: The only one who isn't falling in with the established categories, the norms, the principles", "the only one today who's making courageous films". As early as his 1962 essay "Notes on the auteur theory", published in the journal Film Culture , American film critic Andrew Sarris translated the French term la politique des auteurs , by François Truffaut in 1955, into Sarris's term auteur theory . Sarris applied it to Hollywood films, and elaborated in his 1968 book, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 , which helped popularize

2976-415: The producer" and "the modern pop-centric era, which privileges producer over artist and blurs the line between entertainment and art. ... Anytime a band or musician disappears into a studio to contrive an album-length mystery, the ghost of Wilson is hovering near." Brownie (camera) The Brownie was a series of camera models made by Eastman Kodak and first released in 1900. It introduced

3038-532: The reality of the studio system ". In 2013, Maria Giese critiqued the lack of American women who are considered to be within the pantheon of auteur directors. She argues that there is no shortage of non-American women directors that could be considered auteurs, and lists Andrea Arnold , Jane Campion , Liliana Cavani , Claire Denis , Marleen Gorris , Agnieszka Holland , Lynne Ramsay , Agnes Varda, and Lina Wertmuller as being among them, but goes on to say that women are rarely afforded financing for films in

3100-419: The recording process with the most painful attention to detail, and released the result on his own label. Another early pop music auteur was Brian Wilson , mentored by Spector. In 1962, Wilson's band, the Beach Boys , signed to Capitol Records and swiftly became a commercial success, whereby Wilson was an early recording artist who was also an entrepreneurial producer. Before the " progressive pop " of

3162-473: The screenwriter as indeed the main author is termed Schreiber theory . In the 1980s, large failures prompted studios to reassert control. The auteur concept has also been applied to non-film directors, such as record producers and video game designers , such as Hideo Kojima . Even before auteur theory, the director was considered the most important influence on a film. In Germany, an early film theorist, Walter Julius Bloem , explained that since filmmaking

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3224-401: The screenwriter as the film's principal author, Kipen coined the term Schreiber theory . To film historian Georges Sadoul , a film's main "author" can also be an actor, screenwriter, producer, or novel's author, although a film is a collective's work. Film historian Aljean Harmetz , citing classical Hollywood's input by producers and executives, held that auteur theory "collapses against

3286-576: The script, merely adapt a literary novel. Truffaut described such a director as a metteur en scene , a mere "stager" who adds the performers and pictures. To represent the view that directors who express their personality in their work make better films, Truffaut coined the phrase "la politique des auteurs", or "the policy of the authors". He named eight writer-directors, Jean Renoir , Robert Bresson , Jean Cocteau , Jacques Becker , Abel Gance , Max Ophüls , Jacques Tati , and Roger Leenhardt , as examples of these "authors". Jerry Lewis , an actor from

3348-401: The subject matter to determine the style, often pressing the limits of film-making conventions. His most acclaimed and successful film in the silent era was The Big Parade (1925). Vidor's sound films of the 1940s and early 1950s arguably represent his richest output. Among his finest works are Northwest Passage (1940), Comrade X (1940), An American Romance (1944), and Duel in

3410-606: The top executives in the film industry. Film producer Louis B. Mayer engaged Vidor to direct Broadway actress Laurette Taylor in a film version of her famous juvenile role as Peg O'Connell in Peg o' My Heart , written by her husband J. Hartley Manners . Despite viewing screen tests supplied by director D. W. Griffth, Vidor was anxious that the aging Taylor (born 1884) would not be convincing as her 18-year-old stage character on screen. Biographer Marguerite Courtney describes their first encounter: in [her] frowzy wig and dead white makeup,

3472-538: Was a big-budget western-comedy shot on location in the high Sierra Nevada of California. John Bowers stars as the intrepid preacher and Colleen Moore (soon to be famous as the quintessential Hollywood " flapper ") as the girl he loved and rescued from a deadly cattle stampede. The natural landscapes serve as an essential dramatic component in the film, as they would in subsequent Vidor movies. The cost overruns cut into First National profits, and they declined to fund any further Vidor projects. Vidor and Moore would begin

3534-605: Was a member of the jury at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival . Vidor was born into a well-to-do family in Galveston, Texas , the son of Kate (née Wallis) and Charles Shelton Vidor, a lumber importer and mill owner. His grandfather, Károly Charles Vidor, was a refugee of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 , who settled in Galveston in the early 1850s. Vidor's mother, Kate Wallis, of Scotch-English descent,

3596-537: Was a relative of the second wife of noted frontiersman and politician Davy Crockett . The "King" in King Vidor is no sobriquet, but his given name in honor of his mother's favorite brother, King Wallis. At the age of six, Vidor witnessed the devastation of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 . Based on that formative experience, he published a historical memoir of the disaster titled "Southern Storm" for

3658-551: Was conceived and marketed for sales of Kodak roll films. Because of its simple controls and initial price of US$ 1 (equivalent to $ 37 in 2023) along with the low price of Kodak roll film and processing, the Brownie camera surpassed its marketing goal. The Brownie was invented by Frank A. Brownell for the Eastman Kodak Company. Named after the Brownie characters popularised by the Canadian writer Palmer Cox ,

3720-454: Was entrusted to direct Mayer's top female star Clara Kimball Young in The Woman of Bronze , a 1923 melodrama that resembled the formulaic films he had created with Florence Vidor at Vidor Village. Vidor's yeoman service to Louis B. Mayer secured him entrée into Goldwyn Pictures in 1923, a holding soon to be amalgamated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Samuel Goldwyn and other film producers of

3782-701: Was nominated five times by the Academy Awards for Best Director. In 1979, he was awarded an Honorary Academy Award for his "incomparable achievements as a cinematic creator and innovator." Additionally, he won eight national and international film awards during his career, including the Screen Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 1957. In 1962, he was head of the jury at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival . In 1969, he

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3844-438: Was praised for "personal genius". By 1970, the New Hollywood era had emerged with studios granting directors broad leeway. Pauline Kael argued, however, that "auteurs" rely on creativity of others, like cinematographers. Georges Sadoul deemed a film's putative "author" could potentially even be an actor, but a film is indeed collaborative. Aljean Harmetz cited major control even by film executives. David Kipen 's view of

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