GORDON M. DOUGLAS DIRECTED IT ALL !
A Tribute to Gordon DOUGLAS organized by the French Cinematheque during the first 5 weeks of the year, enabled cinephiles to discover the many periods and talents of this extraordinary American film director.
Born
*Gordon Douglas Brickner*, he began acting as a child at age three,
for the Hal Roach Studio, and after graduating, he appeared in Florenz
Ziegfeld's Glorifying the American Girl (1929) and later made his way
up to codirecting some Laurel and Hardy films. That experience,
coupled with his ten-minute *Our Gang* comedies led to an Oscar when
he was 27 in 1936, for Live Action short. When Roach sold out to MGM,
Douglas directed two MGM *Our Gangs* and disliking the big outfit
structure, went back to work for Hal Roach.
In Hollywood in 1930s, he went through all the ropes, working as casting 
director, prop man, gag man, screenwriter, assistant editor and assistant
director, until he finally broke through as director. One of his first assignments was the Douglas- directed 19 Our Gangs and four features for Roach, including
Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea (1940) and The Devil with Hitler (1942).
The
1940's saw Douglas working for RKO, a dozen 'B' low-budget pictures,
including First Yank into Tokyo (1945), the story of an American
soldier, who undertakes plastic surgery to make him pass off as a
Japanese in
order to save an American scientist in a War Camp, with a formula for
the Atomic Bomb. 
COLDWAR PARANOIA : 
THEM
!
In the 1950's, Douglas made the same number of films at Warner
Bros. One of the best known was the red-scare I Was a Communist for the
FBI (1951), starring Frank Lovejoy as a true-life repentant Slovenian
ex-Commie who turns his shirt under the caption: ' . . . I learned
every dirty trick
in the book and had to use them - because I was a Communist - but - I Was a
Communist
for the FBI'. In a period of similar hyper anti-Communist studio
features,such as 'I Married a Communist', the picture managed to
receive an Oscar nomination as the year's Best Documentary Feature.
During his 15 year contract with Warner's, Gordon Douglas made 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 !, a prophetical science-fiction portrayal of giant ants as a
mutation of the Atomic Bomb invading Los Angeles and menacing
humanity. This could now be taken as one of the first environmental
films portraying the consequences, still unknown of manipulating nature.
Although some of his films may now be considered 'turkies', they
procured considerable enjoyment for post-war audiences in the 1950s and
1960s, hungry for distraction after experiencing World War II.
Later
films dealt with less traditional themes such as in The Detective, where
Frank Sinatra plays a tough cop investigating murder in wealthy
homosexual circles.
While at Warner Bros, Douglas
ekked some superb performances in dramas from James Cagney, Gig Young,
James Gleason, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, John Garfield and other
top-notch actors.This period began his association with Frank Sinatra 
for several police-detective genre movies including Robin and the 7
Hoods (1964), Tony Rome (1967), The Detective (1968) and Lady in Cement
(1968), with Raquel Welch.
Gordon Douglas also directed such stars as Bob Hope, Elvis Presley, Alan
Ladd and Gregory Peck. By the late seventies, his last movies were
action pics starring the likes of Sydney Poitier, James Coburn as FLINT
and a comedy starring Elvis Presley in "Follow That Dream".
Flint! Gordon Douglas & James Coborn: Flint! Gordon Douglas & James Coborn
Follow that Dream: Elvis Presley
Although little is known of his personal life, it seems he found the time to get married three times and raise two kids.
Gordon Douglas died in 1993, aged 85, of cancer, after a tremendously fruitful career in Hollywood for our enjoyment, thanks to the Cinematheque Francaise`s retro of this great artist.
