Alan Crosland(1894-1936)
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Director Alan Crosland was born in New York City on August 10, 1894, into an upper-middle class
family, which soon moved to East Orange, NJ, where
Alan was reared. His family's finances allowed for him to spend part of
his elementary education in England, where he acquired a curious
Anglo-American accent that he would affect for the rest of his life.
With a restless personality that was complemented by a sharp intellect
and a smooth tongue, Crosland had an uncanny ability to befriend even
the most disagreeable people around him (a talent he would put to good
use in Hollywood). He attended Dartmouth College but left before
graduation, deciding he wanted to become a journalist, and eventually
landed a job with the New York Globe, writing articles and short
stories on the side for movie magazines. From 1912 he began to
moonlight with the nearby Edison Company as an actor and stage manager.
He performed a variety of duties there, eventually directing the
studio's last feature,
The Unbeliever (1918), shortly
before being drafted into the US Army during World War I. He served out the Great War in the
Army Photo Service. After the armistice he signed with a smaller
independent company, Select, one he had briefly worked with prior to
the war, remaining with them on ten more pictures through 1922. During
this period he gained an enviable reputation for effectively
directing some of the most temperamental stars of the day. He was
of the few directors who actually liked
Erich von Stroheim and obtained
effective performances from the notoriously hammy (yet undeniably
talented) Lionel Barrymore.
He signed
with Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan in 1923, where the reviews for
Under the Red Robe (1923)
placed him solidly in the ranks of Hollywood's top directors. He became
the first director a studio wanted when shooting a big-budget, prestigious
historical drama, especially if it starred a difficult actor that might
be inclined to spin costs out of control. With his reputation growing,
Crosland lived life to the hilt, thoroughly enjoying the 1920s
Hollywood lifestyle; he was frequently seen around town looking always
dapper in the latest flashy cars and inside the latest hot spot with a
dazzling starlet.
After a brief stint at Paramount, Crosland signed
with Warner Brothers and was assigned to projects by
Darryl F. Zanuck just when the studio
was in the midst of a make-or-break gamble on sound with its Vitaphone
sound-on-disk system. At that time Warner Brothers was considered almost a "Poverty Row" studio, well below the ranks of MGM, Universal and Paramount.
It had acquired an unenviable reputation in Hollywood as having only
two major stars, one of whom was a German Shepherd named Rin-Tin-Tin
and the other the temperamental, hard-drinking
John Barrymore, who was hauled
out for its few prestige pictures. One of the five combative brothers who ran the studio,
Sam Warner, saw sound as the way to
eliminate the need for theatrical orchestras and establish what he felt
was Warner's rightful place within the film industry. Crosland's
reputation for handling both spectacle and difficult stars made him the
obvious choice to direct the studio's first tentative stab at sound,
Don Juan (1926), which was the first film to
contain synchronized music and sound effects. It was a moderate
success and he was picked for an even more ambitious project,
The Jazz Singer (1927), a
part-talkie, on which the studio's entire fortunes rested. Crosland was
chosen to direct the maudlin story largely on his ability to work with
the notoriously difficult Al Jolson, after
George Jessel (who had starred in
the Broadway production) walked out over a pay dispute. The $500,000
production had only 281 spoken words (mostly incidental to the songs
and ad-libbed by Jolson) but it ignited the public's voracious appetite
for talkies and grossed $3,000,000, a blockbuster in those days.
Hollywood was soon caught up in a war between competing sound
technologies: Warner's Vitaphone and Fox's superior Western Electric
sound-on-film process. Meanwhile, studios faced enormous conversion
costs and uncertainties over their stars' abilities to transition to
sound. By 1928 the silent film had reached the pinnacle of its artistic
achievement and the early talkies, by comparison, appeared crude. While
some studios--most notably MGM (whose parent Loew's faced monumental
costs related to converting its extensive theater network)--adopted a
wait-and-see attitude toward both the public acceptance of sound and
choosing a system, Warner's saw talkies in the form of its Vitaphone
as its salvation. In Crosland's world of 1927-29, it should be
remembered that sound cameras were fixed and muffled, large microphones
had to be cleverly hidden and actors were often justifiably terrified
of how their voices would be received. Unfortunately the Vitaphone
process seriously limited the ability to edit a film, resulting in
stagy long takes, and with its cumbersome electro-mechanical hardware
and fragile records that would often break in transit, it was soon
obvious that Fox's sound-on-film system was vastly superior (Warner's
would quietly admit technological defeat in 1931 and convert).
Technology issues aside, the Vitaphone propelled Warner Brothers
solidly into the ranks of the A-list studios and, infused with cash,
it acquired Fox's First National theatrical network by 1930,
a crucial business move that greatly expanded the studio's distribution
capabilities and enabled it to ride out huge losses it would incur from
1931-34. It was during this all-too-brief transition period
that Alan Crosland was the most experienced sound director in town. He
directed another part-talkie hit,
Glorious Betsy (1928), starring
Dolores Costello, a return to his
favored costume spectacle.
By mid-1929 it became apparent that a movie
could not solely depend on the novelty of sound; hits required
production values and a degree of action, an uncomfortable situation
given the restrictions of the equipment. At this point Crosland
stumbled badly. A primitive attempt at color didn't help
On with the Show! (1929), a
creaky musical starring a badly miscast
Betty Compson and
Arthur Lake, a textbook example of
claustrophobic filmmaking and Crosland's first real flop. He tripped again
with Captain Thunder (1930), one
of his worst films. His next two assignments delved into the opera genre
with dismal box office returns. His personal life became rocky, with his
first marriage to Juanita Fletcher failing in 1930. He hastily wed
actress Natalie Moorhead, a union that
would last less than five years. Although he would direct more than 20
features--some of them moderately successful--after his career
triumph with "The Jazz Singer," Crosland fell from the ranks of A-list
directors and settled into directing B-level pictures.
Early in the morning of July 10, 1936, he was driving on Sunset Boulevard when his car hit
some road debris and he swerved off the road, flipping twice in a
construction zone. He was rushed to the hospital with multiple broken
bones and a suspected skull fracture. Within four days he contracted
pneumonia and his condition was downgraded by his doctor. He died on
July 16, 1936, just shy of his 42nd birthday. His last film, The Case of the Black Cat (1936), was completed by William C. McGann.
Crosland was survived by his son (with Juanita Fletcher),
Alan Crosland Jr., who became a very
successful television director in the 1960s-'70s.
family, which soon moved to East Orange, NJ, where
Alan was reared. His family's finances allowed for him to spend part of
his elementary education in England, where he acquired a curious
Anglo-American accent that he would affect for the rest of his life.
With a restless personality that was complemented by a sharp intellect
and a smooth tongue, Crosland had an uncanny ability to befriend even
the most disagreeable people around him (a talent he would put to good
use in Hollywood). He attended Dartmouth College but left before
graduation, deciding he wanted to become a journalist, and eventually
landed a job with the New York Globe, writing articles and short
stories on the side for movie magazines. From 1912 he began to
moonlight with the nearby Edison Company as an actor and stage manager.
He performed a variety of duties there, eventually directing the
studio's last feature,
The Unbeliever (1918), shortly
before being drafted into the US Army during World War I. He served out the Great War in the
Army Photo Service. After the armistice he signed with a smaller
independent company, Select, one he had briefly worked with prior to
the war, remaining with them on ten more pictures through 1922. During
this period he gained an enviable reputation for effectively
directing some of the most temperamental stars of the day. He was
of the few directors who actually liked
Erich von Stroheim and obtained
effective performances from the notoriously hammy (yet undeniably
talented) Lionel Barrymore.
He signed
with Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan in 1923, where the reviews for
Under the Red Robe (1923)
placed him solidly in the ranks of Hollywood's top directors. He became
the first director a studio wanted when shooting a big-budget, prestigious
historical drama, especially if it starred a difficult actor that might
be inclined to spin costs out of control. With his reputation growing,
Crosland lived life to the hilt, thoroughly enjoying the 1920s
Hollywood lifestyle; he was frequently seen around town looking always
dapper in the latest flashy cars and inside the latest hot spot with a
dazzling starlet.
After a brief stint at Paramount, Crosland signed
with Warner Brothers and was assigned to projects by
Darryl F. Zanuck just when the studio
was in the midst of a make-or-break gamble on sound with its Vitaphone
sound-on-disk system. At that time Warner Brothers was considered almost a "Poverty Row" studio, well below the ranks of MGM, Universal and Paramount.
It had acquired an unenviable reputation in Hollywood as having only
two major stars, one of whom was a German Shepherd named Rin-Tin-Tin
and the other the temperamental, hard-drinking
John Barrymore, who was hauled
out for its few prestige pictures. One of the five combative brothers who ran the studio,
Sam Warner, saw sound as the way to
eliminate the need for theatrical orchestras and establish what he felt
was Warner's rightful place within the film industry. Crosland's
reputation for handling both spectacle and difficult stars made him the
obvious choice to direct the studio's first tentative stab at sound,
Don Juan (1926), which was the first film to
contain synchronized music and sound effects. It was a moderate
success and he was picked for an even more ambitious project,
The Jazz Singer (1927), a
part-talkie, on which the studio's entire fortunes rested. Crosland was
chosen to direct the maudlin story largely on his ability to work with
the notoriously difficult Al Jolson, after
George Jessel (who had starred in
the Broadway production) walked out over a pay dispute. The $500,000
production had only 281 spoken words (mostly incidental to the songs
and ad-libbed by Jolson) but it ignited the public's voracious appetite
for talkies and grossed $3,000,000, a blockbuster in those days.
Hollywood was soon caught up in a war between competing sound
technologies: Warner's Vitaphone and Fox's superior Western Electric
sound-on-film process. Meanwhile, studios faced enormous conversion
costs and uncertainties over their stars' abilities to transition to
sound. By 1928 the silent film had reached the pinnacle of its artistic
achievement and the early talkies, by comparison, appeared crude. While
some studios--most notably MGM (whose parent Loew's faced monumental
costs related to converting its extensive theater network)--adopted a
wait-and-see attitude toward both the public acceptance of sound and
choosing a system, Warner's saw talkies in the form of its Vitaphone
as its salvation. In Crosland's world of 1927-29, it should be
remembered that sound cameras were fixed and muffled, large microphones
had to be cleverly hidden and actors were often justifiably terrified
of how their voices would be received. Unfortunately the Vitaphone
process seriously limited the ability to edit a film, resulting in
stagy long takes, and with its cumbersome electro-mechanical hardware
and fragile records that would often break in transit, it was soon
obvious that Fox's sound-on-film system was vastly superior (Warner's
would quietly admit technological defeat in 1931 and convert).
Technology issues aside, the Vitaphone propelled Warner Brothers
solidly into the ranks of the A-list studios and, infused with cash,
it acquired Fox's First National theatrical network by 1930,
a crucial business move that greatly expanded the studio's distribution
capabilities and enabled it to ride out huge losses it would incur from
1931-34. It was during this all-too-brief transition period
that Alan Crosland was the most experienced sound director in town. He
directed another part-talkie hit,
Glorious Betsy (1928), starring
Dolores Costello, a return to his
favored costume spectacle.
By mid-1929 it became apparent that a movie
could not solely depend on the novelty of sound; hits required
production values and a degree of action, an uncomfortable situation
given the restrictions of the equipment. At this point Crosland
stumbled badly. A primitive attempt at color didn't help
On with the Show! (1929), a
creaky musical starring a badly miscast
Betty Compson and
Arthur Lake, a textbook example of
claustrophobic filmmaking and Crosland's first real flop. He tripped again
with Captain Thunder (1930), one
of his worst films. His next two assignments delved into the opera genre
with dismal box office returns. His personal life became rocky, with his
first marriage to Juanita Fletcher failing in 1930. He hastily wed
actress Natalie Moorhead, a union that
would last less than five years. Although he would direct more than 20
features--some of them moderately successful--after his career
triumph with "The Jazz Singer," Crosland fell from the ranks of A-list
directors and settled into directing B-level pictures.
Early in the morning of July 10, 1936, he was driving on Sunset Boulevard when his car hit
some road debris and he swerved off the road, flipping twice in a
construction zone. He was rushed to the hospital with multiple broken
bones and a suspected skull fracture. Within four days he contracted
pneumonia and his condition was downgraded by his doctor. He died on
July 16, 1936, just shy of his 42nd birthday. His last film, The Case of the Black Cat (1936), was completed by William C. McGann.
Crosland was survived by his son (with Juanita Fletcher),
Alan Crosland Jr., who became a very
successful television director in the 1960s-'70s.