Gordon Douglas(1907-1993)
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Starting out as a child actor, Gordon Douglas was eventually hired by
Hal Roach as a gag writer. His first directorial assignments were for
Roach's "Our Gang" series. Graduating to features, Douglas stayed with
comedies, directing Oliver Hardy in Zenobia (1939) and both Hardy and Stan Laurel in
Saps at Sea (1940). Douglas left Roach for RKO, for which he directed about a
dozen films from 1942-47, mostly routine programmers. He then went
to Columbia for several years, but in 1950 he headed over to Warner
Brothers, where he would stay for the next 15 years and where he would
find his greatest successes. His westerns and crime dramas for Warners
met with critical and financial success, and it was during this period
that he made what is considered one of the classic sci-fi films of the
era: Them! (1954). Although he had his share of clunkers, and has at times
expressed dissatisfaction with his career (he once said, "Don't try to
watch all the films I've directed; it would turn you off movies
forever"), he was responsible for some of the more enjoyable films of
the 1950s and 1960s. One of his most successful films was also one of
Frank Sinatra's best--The Detective (1968), a tough, gritty and controversial (for the
time) crime drama about a homicide cop who gets involved in a murder
case involving wealthy and powerful homosexual men.
