Dudley Bowles Murphy (July 10, 1897 – February 22, 1968) was an American film director.

Early life

Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in

Winchester, Massachusetts Winchester is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located 8.2 miles (13.2 km) north of downtown Boston as part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. It is also one of the wealthiest municipalities in Massachusetts. The populatio ...

, to the artists Caroline Hutchinson (Bowles) Murphy (1868-1923) and Hermann Dudley Murphy (1867-1945), both accomplished

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

landscape painters. After first finding work as a journalist, Dudley Murphy began making films in the early 1920s.The Film Encyclopedia, First Edition, Thomas Y. Crowell, Pub., 1979

Career

In his first

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

, '' Soul of the Cypress'' (1921), a variation on the

Orpheus Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: ; french: Orphée) is a Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet in ancient Greek religion. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with Jaso ...

myth, the film's protagonist falls in love with a dryad (a wood nymph whose soul dwells in an ancient tree) and throws himself into the sea to become immortal and spend eternity with her. Murphy's then-wife Chase Harringdine played the dryad. Murphy followed this with ''

Danse Macabre The ''Danse Macabre'' (; ) (from the French language), also called the Dance of Death, is an artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death. The ''Danse Macabre'' consists of the dead, or a personification o ...

'' (1922) featuring

Adolph Bolm Adolph Rudolphovich Bolm (russian: Адольф Рудольфович Больм; September 25, 1884 – April 16, 1951) was a Russian-born American ballet dancer and choreographer, of German descent. Biography Bolm graduated from the Russi ...

Olin Howland Olin Ross Howland (February 10, 1886 – September 20, 1959) was an American film and theatre actor. Life and career Howland was born in Denver, Colorado, to Joby A. Howland, one of the youngest enlisted participants in the Civil War, a ...

, and Ruth Page. Both of these early films are in the DVD collection '' Unseen Cinema'' issued in October 2005. Murphy's eighth film, ''

Ballet mécanique ''Ballet Mécanique'' (1923–24) is a Dadaist post-Cubist art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from Man Ray).Chilvers, Ian & Gla ...

'', which he co-directed with the French artist

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

, premiered on 24 September 1924 at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International Exposition for New Theater Technique) in Vienna. Considered one of the masterpieces of early experimental filmmaking, ''Ballet mécanique'' also included creative input from

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each ...

and

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

, and was presented at the exposition by Frederick Kiesler. The film was scheduled to be screened with

George Antheil George Johann Carl Antheil (; July 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author, and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the modern sounds – musical, industrial, and mechanical – of t ...

's masterpiece of the same name. However, the music ran close to 30 minutes while the film was 17 minutes long. In 2000, Paul Lehrman produced a married print of the film.Paul Lehrman's website devoted to the film and music ''Ballet Mecanique
/ref> In her book ''Dudley Murphy: Hollywood Wild Card'', film historian Susan Delson argues persuasively that Murphy was the film's driving force but that Léger was more successful at promoting the film as his own creation. ''Ballet mécanique'', with the

music originally written for the film, was included in the DVD collection '' Unseen Cinema'' released in October 2005. In addition to ''Ballet mécanique'', Murphy is best remembered for ''

St. Louis Blues The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the s ...

'' (1929) with

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...

and Jimmy Mordecai, ''

Black and Tan A black and tan is a beer cocktail made by layering a pale beer (usually pale ale) and a dark beer (usually stout). In Ireland, the drink is called a half and half because in Ireland the term "''black and tan''" is considered to be offensive. ...

'' (1929) with

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was bas ...

and His Orchestra, ''Confessions of a Co-Ed'' (1931), ''

The Sport Parade ''The Sport Parade'' is a 1932 American pre-Code film directed by Dudley Murphy and starring Joel McCrea, Marian Marsh, William Gargan, Robert Benchley, and Richard "Skeets" Gallagher. It was released by RKO Radio Pictures. Benchley also co-wro ...

'' (1932) with

Joel McCrea Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he beca ...

, and ''

The Emperor Jones ''The Emperor Jones'' is a 1920 tragic play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill that tells the tale of Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assured African American and a former Pullman porter, who kills another black man in a dice game, is jailed, ...

'' (1933), starring

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional American football, football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplish ...

. In 1932, Murphy helped introduce the Mexican artist

David Alfaro Siqueiros David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...

to prominent people in the Los Angeles community. To show his gratitude, Siqueiros painted a mural on a wall in Murphy's Pacific Palisades home. The only intact mural by Siqueiros in the United States, '' Portrait of Mexico Today'' was donated anonymously to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in 1999. From the late 1940s through the 1960s Murphy and his fourth wife, Virginia, owned and operated Holiday House, an exclusive Malibu hotel designed by

Richard Neutra Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. He ...

and favored by the Hollywood elite.

Selected filmography

Features * '' High Speed Lee'' (1923) * '' Alex the Great'' (1928) * '' Stocks and Blondes'' (1928) * '' What a Widow!'' (1930) (uncredited) * ''

Confessions of a Co-Ed Confessions are acknowledgements of facts by those who would have otherwise preferred to keep those facts hidden. Confessions may also refer to: Film, television, and radio * ''Confessions'' (1925 film), a British silent film * ''Confessions'' ...

'' (1931) (co-directed with David Burton) * ''

'' (1932) * ''

'' (1933) * '' The Night Is Young'' (1935) * '' Don't Gamble with Love'' (1936) * '' ...One Third of a Nation...'' (1939) * '' Main Street Lawyer'' (1939) * ''Toast of Love'' (1943) * '' Alma de bronce'' (1944) Shorts * '' The Soul of the Cypress'' (1921) * ''

'' (1922) * ''Ballet mécanique'' (1924) (uncredited) * '' The Burglar'' (1929) * ''

'' (1929) * ''Black and Tan Fantasy'' (1929) * ''He Was Her Man'' (1931) * ''Lesson in Golf'' (1932) * ''Abercrombie Had a Zombie'' (1941) * ''Alabamy Bound'' (1941) * ''Yes, Indeed!'' (1941) * ''Merry-Go-Roundup'' (1941) * ''Lazybones'' (1941) * ''I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire'' (1941) * ''Easy Street'' (1941) (uncredited)

References

Bibliography

* James Donald, "Jazz Modernism and Film Art: Dudley Murphy and ''Ballet mécanique'' in

Modernism/modernity ''Modernism/modernity'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1994 by Lawrence Rainey and Robert von Hallberg. History It covers methodological, archival, and theoretical approaches to modernist studies in the long modern ...

16:1
January 2009
, pages 25–49 *

External links

*
''Unseen Cinema'' official website Dudley Murphy
kneeling down behind

Peggy Wood Mary Margaret Wood (February 9, 1892 – March 18, 1978) was an American actress of stage, film, and television. She is best remembered for her performance as the title character in the CBS television series ''Mama'' (1949–1957), for which sh ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, Dudley 1897 births 1968 deaths American film directors Articles containing video clips