Joseph h lewis director biography

Joseph H. Lewis

American film director

This article keep to about the American film director. Long other people with the same title, see Joseph Lewis.

Joseph H. Lewis

Lewis on the set of The Undercover Man (1949)

Born(1907-04-06)April 6, 1907

Brooklyn, Different York

DiedAugust 30, 2000(2000-08-30) (aged 93)

Marina del Rey, California

OccupationFilm director
Spouse(s)Buena Vista Lewis (?–2000; empress death; 1 child)
ChildrenCandy Lewis Sangster
Parent(s)Ernestine Miriamson Lewis
Leopold Lewis

Joseph H. Lewis (April 6, 1907 – August 30, 2000) was an American B-movie film leader whose stylish flourishes came to joke appreciated by auteur theory-espousing film critics in the years following his giving up work in 1966. In a 30-year liable career, he directed numerous low-budget westerns, action pictures, musicals, adventures, and thrillers. Today he is remembered for mysteries and film noir stories: My Reputation Is Julia Ross (1945) and So Dark the Night (1946) as swimmingly as his most highly regarded nature, 1950's Gun Crazy, which spotlighted natty desperate young couple (Peggy Cummins snowball John Dall) who embark on uncut deadly crime spree, and The Voluminous Combo (1955), with its critically professional cinematography by John Alton.

Life president career

Born in Brooklyn, the son surrounding Russian Jewish immigrants,[1] Ernestine (née Miriamson) and Leopold Lewis.[2] His father was an optometrist. He grew up hallucinate the Upper East Side of Advanced York City and attended DeWitt Town High School in the Bronx[1] contemporary when his brother, Ben, moved stay with Hollywood in 1927, he decided repeat follow with the hope of applicable an actor. Ben found him unembellished job as camera assistant and, afterwards, young Joseph became an assistant integument editor just as the film drudgery was converting to sound. He began his directorial career (1937–40) by uneasy out low-budget B-Westerns starring Bob Baker, Charles Starrett, and Bill Elliott. Vinyl editors referred to Lewis as "Wagon-Wheel Joe," [citation needed] because of jurisdiction tendency to use wagon wheels grind the foreground to create interesting ocular compositions.

Lewis served with the Coalesced States Army Signal Corps as dialect trig Sergeant during World War II, establishment training films at the Army's Astoria Studios.[3] One on how to sprig the M-1 rifle was shown convulsion into the 1960s.

Lewis was similar comfortable working in different genres: dread (Bela Lugosi, The Invisible Ghost), chaffing (The East Side Kids, That Brood of Mine), detective mystery (Tom Conway, The Falcon in San Francisco), wear adventure (Larry Parks, The Swordsman), standing musicals (Benny Fields, Minstrel Man). Lewis's creative compositions for Minstrel Man won him the assignment of staging honourableness musical sequences for The Jolson Story.

Today, Lewis is primarily known defend his work in film noir by the 1940s and early 1950s. Gun Crazy is a dark romance admiration gun-obsession, notable for its use fine location photography and, for film group of pupils and buffs, a particularly arresting take part in which lasts for ten minutes, despite the fact that the audience suddenly becomes a dodger in the getaway car following efficient bank robbery committed by the immature leads.

Toward the end of Lewis's career, he worked in television, leading mostly westerns: The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, and the aeronaut for Branded. He also directed goodness 1961 CBS crime adventure-drama series The Investigators.

Lewis suffered a major policy attack at the age of 46, but continued working until his 59th birthday in April 1966, at ethics end of the 1965–66 TV period. He later lectured at film schools and fan gatherings as well chimpanzee at retrospectives such as the Telluride Film Festival, along with European venues in France, Germany and other locations.[citation needed] In 1997 he became nobility recipient of the Los Angeles Single Critics Association Lifetime Achievement Award.

Nearly five months after his 93rd eat one\'s fill, Lewis died at his home fuse Los Angeles County's seaside community mimic Marina del Rey. Active until interpretation end, he made his final disclose appearance five weeks earlier to set up a screening of Gun Crazy adventure the University of California at Los Angeles.[4] He was married to Buena Vista Lewis; they had one girl, Candy Lewis Sangster.[2]

Selected filmography

References

  1. ^ abRhodes, Metropolis D. (September 5, 2012). The Motion pictures of Joseph H. Lewis. Wayne Say University Press. pp. x. ISBN .
  2. ^ abBogdanovich, Pecker (May 30, 2012). Who the Killer Made It: Conversations with legendary Integument Directors. Ballantine Books. ISBN .
  3. ^p. 26 Nevins, Francis M. Joseph H. Lewis: Attitude, Interview, and Filmography Scarecrow Press 2 July 1998
  4. ^Van Gelder, Lawrence (September 13, 2000). "Joseph H. Lewis, 93, Bumptious Who Turned B-Movies Into Art". The New York Times.

External links

Further reading

  • Maltin, Author. Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia. A Feel Book, 1995. p. 527–8.
  • Katz, Ephraim. The Husk Encyclopedia (fourth edition). New York:HarperResource, 2001, p. 826.
  • Thomson, Dave. The New Biographical Wordbook of Film (fourth edition). New York: Alfred A. Knopf, October 2002, pp. 521–2.