Lewis Milestone

Lewis Milestone (born Leib Milstein (Russian: Лейб Мильштейн); September 30, 1895 – September 25, 1980) was a Moldovan-American film director. He is known for directing ''Two Arabian Knights'' (1927) and '' All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1930), both of which received Academy Awards for Best Director. He also directed ''The Front Page'' (1931 – nomination), ''The General Died at Dawn'' (1936), ''Of Mice and Men'' (1939), ''Ocean's 11'' (1960), and received the directing credit for ''Mutiny on the Bounty'' (1962), though Marlon Brando largely appropriated his responsibilities during its production.

Early life

Milestone was born Lev (or Leib) Milstein near the Russian Empire's Black Sea port of Odessa, Ukraine, into a wealthy and distinguished family of Jewish heritage.

In 1900, when Milestone was five, his father moved his household to the provincial town of Kishinev, capital of Bessarabia of the Russian Empire (now Chișinău, Moldova). Milestone's primary education at Jewish schools reflected his parents' liberal social and political orientation, and included a study of several languages. Milestone's early love of theater and his desire to follow the dramatic arts was discouraged by his family, who dispatched their son to Mittweida, Saxony to study engineering.

Neglecting his classes to attend local theater productions, Milestone failed his coursework. Intent on pursuing a theatrical career, he purchased a one-way transatlantic ticket to the United States, arriving in Hoboken, New Jersey on 14 November 1913, shortly after his eighteenth birthday.

Struggling to support himself in New York City, Milestone worked odd jobs—"janitor, door-to-door salesman, lace-machine operator"—before finding a position as portrait and theater photographer in 1915. He enlisted in the Signal Corps in 1917 shortly after America's entry into World War I. Stationed in New York City and Washington, D. C., he was assigned to its photography unit and trained in aerial photography, assisted on training films and edited documentary combat footage. His cohorts at the Signal Corps included future Hollywood directors Josef von Sternberg and Victor Fleming.

In February 1919, Milestone was discharged from the army and immediately obtained his US citizenship, legally changing his surname from Milstein to Milestone. An acquaintance from the Signal Corps, Jesse D. Hampton, now an independent film producer, secured Milestone an entry level position in Hollywood as an assistant editor.

Hollywood apprenticeship 1919–1924

Milestone arrived in Hollywood in the same financial straits as he had in Hoboken, New Jersey as a Russian émigré in 1913. He recalled in later years that in order to sustain himself until his studio job commenced, he worked briefly as a card dealer at an oil field gambling joint.

Despite a number of mundane assignments from Hampton—at $20 per week—Milestone's trajectory from assistant editor toward director proceeded steadily. In 1920 he was tapped to serve as general assistant to director Henry King at Pathé Exchange.His first credited work was as assistant on King's 1920 Dice of Destiny.

During the next six years Milestone "took on jobs in any capacity available" with the Hollywood film industry, working as editor for director-producer Thomas Ince, as general assistant and co-author on film scripts by William A. Seiter and as a gag-writer for comedian Harold Lloyd. In 1923 he followed Seiter to Warner Brothers studios as assistant director on Little Church Around the Corner (1923), assuming most of the filmmaking tasks on the production. Milestone's reputation as an effective "film doctor" skilled at salvaging movies was such that Warners began offering his services to other studios at inflated rates.

Director: Silent era, 1925–1929

By 1925, Milestone was writing numerous screen treatments for films at Universal and Warners studios, among them ''The Mad Whirl'', '' Dangerous Innocence'', ''The Teaser'' and ''Bobbed Hair''. The same year, Milestone approached Jack Warner with a proposition: he would provide the producer with a story ''gratis'' if he was allowed to direct it. Warner agreed to sponsor his directorial debut, ''Seven Sinners'' (1925).

'' Seven Sinners'' (1925): One of three films Milestone directed with Marie Prevost, and a former comedienne with Mack Sennett. Jack Warner appointed Darryl F. Zanuck as screenwriter. A "semi-sophisticated" comedy incorporating elements of slapstick, ''Seven Sinners'' proved sufficiently successful with critics and the public to warrant Milestone, now 29-years-old, additional directing assignments.

'' The Caveman'' (1926): Milestone delivered his second Prevost comedy ''The Caveman'' quickly and efficiently, earning him praise for its "adroit direction". During production, Milestone broke his contract with the studio over his exploitation as a "film doctor": Warners sued for damages and won, forcing Milestone to file for bankruptcy. ''The Caveman'' would be his last film for Warners until ''Edge of Darkness'' in 1943. Undeterred, Milestone was quickly acquired by Paramount Pictures.

''The New Klondike'' (1926): A sports-themed drama based on a Ring Lardner story was filmed on location in Florida. Despite a "lukewarm" response from critics, Paramount was enthusiastic regarding Milestone's prospects, showcasing him with other young studio talent in the promotional ''Fascinating Youth'' (1926). A subsequent contretemps with screen star Gloria Swanson on the set of ''Fine Manners'' (1926) led to Milestone walking off the project. Director Richard Rosson received credit when he completed the picture.

''Two Arabian Knights'' (1927): Considered Milestones most outstanding work during the silent era, ''Two Arabian Knights'' was inspired by the Anderson– Stallings stage play '' What Price Glory?'' (1924), and director Raoul Walsh's 1924 screen adaption. The first film in a four-year contract with Howard Hughes' The Caddo Company—and his only film of 1927— it garnered Milestone an Academy Award for best comedy direction in 1927, prevailing over Charlie Chaplin's '' The Circus'' (1927). Set during World War I, doughboys William Boyd and Louis Wolheim, and love-object Mary Astor form a comic triangle.

''The Garden of Eden'' (1927): Made under a Caddo releasing agreement with Universal Pictures, ''The Garden of Eden'', "a variation on the Cinderella story...of acidic sophistication", was adapted by screenwriter Hans Kraly and resembles, in both script and visual production, the works of Ernst Lubitsch. The project benefited from the lavish sets designed by William Cameron Menzies and the cinematography of John Arnold. The film stars the popular Corinne Griffith. Milestone's cinematic rendering of ''Two Arabian Knights'' and ''The Garden of Eden'' established him as a skilled practitioner of "rough and sophisticated" comedy.

'' The Racket'' (1928): Wary of being stereotyped as a comedy director, Milestone shifted to an emerging genre popularized by director Josef von Sternberg in his gangland fantasy ''Underworld'' (1927). ''The Racket'', a "taut and realistic" depiction of a mobster-controlled police department distinguished Milestone as an able practitioner of the genre, but its reception was blunted by a flood of less superior gangster films released in the late 1920s. Nonetheless ''The Racket'' was nominated for Best Picture at the 1928 Academy Awards.

Early sound era: 1929–1936

''New York Nights'' (1929): Segue to sound

Milestone's first foray into sound productions, ''New York Nights'' proved inauspicious. A vehicle for silent screen icon Norma Talmadge (spouse to producer Joseph Schenck), Milestone attempted to accommodate United Artists' desire to blend "show-biz" and gangster genres in an adaption of "the justly forgotten" Broadway production entitled ''Tin Pan Alley''. Film historian Joseph Millichap appraises Milestone's effort:

Millichap adds that "the film is not worth considering as Milestone's first sound work."

Chef-d'œuvre: ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1930)

Milestone's anti-war picture'' All Quiet on the Western Front'' is widely recognized as his directorial masterpiece and ranks as one of the most compelling dramatizations of soldiers in combat during The Great War. Adapted from Erich Maria Remarque's classic 1929 novel, Milestone conveyed cinematically the "grim realism and anti-war themes" that characterize the literary work. Universal studio's head of production Carl Laemmle Jr., purchased the film rights so as to capitalize on the international success of Remarque's book.

''All Quiet on the Western Front'' presents the war from the perspective of a unit of patriotic young German soldiers who become disillusioned at the horrors of trench warfare. Actor Lew Ayres portrays the naive and sensitive youth Paul Baumer.

In collaboration with screenwriters Maxwell Anderson, Del Andrews and George Abbott, Milestone (uncredited) crafted a scenario and script that "reproduces the terse, tough dialogue" of Remarque's novel, so as to "expose war for what it is, and not glorify it." Originally conceived as a silent film, Milestone filmed both a silent and a talkie version, shooting them together in sequence.

The most outstanding technical innovation of ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' is the success to which Milestone integrated the rudimentary sound technology of the early talkies with the advanced visual effects developed during the late silent era. Applying post-synchronization of the sound recordings, Milestone was at liberty to "shoot the way we've always shot...it was that simple. All the tracking shots were done with a silent camera." In one of the film's most disturbing sequences, Milestone uses tracking shots and sound effects to graphically show the devastating effects of artillery and machine guns on advancing troops.

The picture met with immense critical and popular approval, earning a Best Picture Oscar and a second Best Director award for Milestone.

''All Quiet on the Western Front'' established Milestone as a genuine talent in the film industry. Howard Hughes rewarded him with a prime property for adaption: Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur 1928 play, ''The Front Page''.

''The Front Page'' (1931)

One of the most sensational and influential pictures of 1931, ''The Front Page'' introduced the Hollywood archetype of the hard-boiled and fast-talking reporter in Milestone's depiction of the backroom denizens of Chicago newspaper tabloids. The film's script retained the "sparkling dialogue ndhard, fast and ruthless pace" that characterized Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's stage production of 1928. ''The Front Page'' set the foundation for a virtual "journalism genre" in the 1930s, imitated by other studios and spawning a number of remakes, among them Howard Hawks' ''His Girl Friday'' (1940) and Billy Wilder's ''The Front Page'' (1974).

The selection of Pat O'Brien to play the hard-bitten reporter "Hildy" Johnson was disappointing to Milestone, whose request to cast James Cagney or Clark Gable in the role was vetoed by producer Howard Hughes, in favor of O'Brien, who had performed in the Chicago stage production ''The Front Page''.

More than a product of Milestone's fidelity to the play's lively and profane dialogue, he endowed the work with an Expressionistic cinematic style. Biographer Joseph Millichap evaluates Milestone's technique:

Both the opening tracking shots of the newspaper's printing plant and the confrontation between Molly Malloy (Mae Clarke) and a phalanx of reporters demonstrate Milestone's mastery of the technique.

''The Front Page'' received a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards and Milestone was listed among "The Ten Best Directors" by a '' Film Daily'' poll of 300 movie critics.

Troubled by film directors declining control within the studio system, Milestone gave his full support to King Vidor's proposal to organize a filmmaker's cooperative. Supporters for a Screen Directors Guild included Frank Borzage, Howard Hawks, Ernst Lubitsch, Rouben Mamoulian and William Wellman, among others. By 1938, the guild was incorporated, representing 600 directors and assistant directors.

Paramount Pictures was experiencing a financial crisis during the mid-Thirties that inhibited their commitments to their European film stylists such as Josef von Sternberg, Ernst Lubitsch and Milestone. Under these conditions, Milestone embarked upon the final phase of his early sound period, a phase that would expose his difficulties in locating compelling literary material, production support and proper casting. The first among these films was ''Rain'' (1932).

''Rain'' (1932): The short story " Miss Thompson" by Somerset Maugham has gone through several adaptive permutations, both for stage and film, before and after Milestone filmed the work in 1932.

Milestone was assigned rising star Joan Crawford by Allied Artists, known for her silent film roles as a flapper, to play the prostitute Sadie Thompson. Her suitability for part has been widely scrutinized, and according to film critic Joseph Millichap "almost every comment on the film says she was miscast." Crawford herself registered disappointment with her interpretation of the role.

Milestone was not encumbered as yet by the Production Code, and his portrayal of the overwrought Puritan missionary Reverend Davidson (Walter Huston) and his rape of Thompson blends violence with sexual and religious symbolism through adroit intercutting.
Termed "slow and stage-bound" and "stiff and stagey", Milestone offered his own assessment of ''Rain'':

'' Hallelujah, I'm a Bum'' (1933): Released during the depths of the Great Depression, ''Hallelujah, I'm a Bum'' was an attempt by United Artists to reintroduce early talkie singer Al Jolson after his three-year hiatus from film roles. Based on a Ben Hecht story, with a score by Rodgers and Hart featuring innovative "rhythmic dialogue" delivered in song-song, its sentimental and romantic theme of a New York City tramp met with indifference or dismay among moviegoers. Film historian George Millichap observed that "the problem of this entertainment fantasy was that it brushed aside just enough reality to confuse its audience. Americans in the winter of 1933 were not in the mood to be advised that the life of a hobo was the road to true happiness, especially by a star earning $25,000 a week." Milestone's miscalculated effort to make a "socially conscious" musical was generally ill-received at its New York opening and Milestone was left struggling to locate a more serious film project.

Attempts by Milestone to make a film about the Russian Revolution (working title: ''Red Square''), based on Stalinist Ilya Ehrenburg's ''The Life and Death of Nikolai Kourbov'' (1923), and an adaption of H. G. Wells