Joseph H. Lewis (April 6, 1907 – August 30, 2000) was an American B-movie film director whose stylish flourishes came to be appreciated by

auteur theory An auteur (; , 'author') is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control is so unbounded but personal that the director is likened to the "author" of the film, which thus manifests the director's unique ...

-espousing film critics in the years following his retirement in 1966. In a 30-year directorial career, he helmed numerous low-budget westerns, action pictures, musicals, adventures, and thrillers. Today he is remembered for mysteries and film noir stories: '' My Name Is Julia Ross'' (1945) and '' So Dark the Night'' (1946) as well as his most highly regarded features, 1950's ''

Gun Crazy ''Gun Crazy'' (also known as ''Deadly Is the Female'') is a 1950 American crime film noir starring Peggy Cummins and John Dall in a story about the crime-spree of a gun-toting husband and wife. It was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and produced ...

'', which spotlighted a desperate young couple ( Peggy Cummins and

John Dall John Dall (born John Dall Thompson; May 26, 1920 – January 15, 1971) was an American actor. Primarily a stage actor, he is best remembered today for two film roles: the cool-minded intellectual killer in Alfred Hitchcock's ''Rope'' (1948), an ...

) who embark on a deadly crime spree, and the 1955 film noir ''

The Big Combo ''The Big Combo'' is a 1955 American film noir crime film directed by Joseph H. Lewis, written by Philip Yordan and photographed by cinematographer John Alton, with music by David Raksin. The film stars Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte and Brian Don ...

'', with its stunning cinematography by

John Alton John Alton (October 5, 1901 – June 2, 1996), born Johann Jacob Altmann, in Sopron, Kingdom of Hungary, was an American cinematographer of Hungarian-German origin. Alton photographed some of the most famous films noir of the classic period and wo ...

Life and career

Born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Ernestine (née Miriamson) and Leopold Lewis. His father was an optometrist. He grew up on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

of New York City and attended

DeWitt Clinton High School , motto_translation = Without Work Nothing Is Accomplished , image = DeWitt Clinton High School front entrance IMG 7441 HLG.jpg , seal_image = File:Clinton News.JPG , seal_size = 124px , ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

and when his brother, Ben, moved to Hollywood in 1927, he decided to follow with the hope of becoming an actor. Ben found him a job as camera assistant and, subsequently, young Joseph became an assistant film editor just as the film industry was converting to sound. He began his directorial career (1937–40) by turning out low-budget

B-Westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

starring Bob Baker,

Charles Starrett Charles Robert Starrett (March 28, 1903 – March 22, 1986) was an American actor, best known for his starring role in the ''Durango Kid'' westerns. Starrett still holds the record for starring in the longest series of theatrical features: ...

, and Bill Elliott. Film editors referred to Lewis as "Wagon-Wheel Joe," because of his tendency to use wagon wheels in the foreground to create interesting visual compositions. Lewis was equally comfortable working in different genres: horror (

Bela Lugosi Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...

, ''

The Invisible Ghost ''Invisible Ghost'' is a 1941 American horror film directed by Joseph H. Lewis, produced by Sam Katzman and starring Bela Lugosi. Plot The home of Charles Kessler is beset by a series of unsolved murders. Kessler, who lives with his daughter and ...

''), comedy (

The East Side Kids The East Side Kids were characters in a series of 22 films released by Monogram Pictures from 1940 through 1945. Many of them were originally part of The Dead End Kids and The Little Tough Guys, and several of them later became members of The ...

, ''

That Gang of Mine ''That Gang of Mine'' is a 1940 film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and starring Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan. It is the third film in the ''East Side Kids'' series. Plot Old horseman Ben brings his beloved thoroughbred Bluenight to New York from Ken ...

''), detective mystery (

Tom Conway Tom Conway (born Thomas Charles Sanders, 15 September 1904 – 22 April 1967) was a British film, television, and radio actor remembered for playing private detectives (including The Falcon, Sherlock Holmes, Bulldog Drummond, and The Saint) ...

, ''

The Falcon in San Francisco ''The Falcon in San Francisco'' is a 1945 American crime and mystery film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and stars Tom Conway, Rita Corday and Edward Brophy, who played the recurring role of "Goldie" Locke. The film was the 11th in The Falcon serie ...

''), costume adventure (

Larry Parks Samuel Lawrence Klausman Parks (December 13, 1914 – April 13, 1975) was an American stage and film actor. His career arced from bit player and supporting roles to top billing, before it was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been ...

, '' The Swordsman''), and musicals (

Benny Fields Benny Fields, occasionally billed as "Bennie Fields" (born Benjamin Geisenfeld; June 14, 1894 – August 16, 1959), was a popular singer of the early 20th century, best known as one-half of the Blossom Seeley-Benny Fields vaudeville team. ...

, '' Minstrel Man''). Lewis's creative compositions for ''Minstrel Man'' won him the assignment of staging the musical sequences for ''

The Jolson Story ''The Jolson Story'' is a 1946 American musical biography film which purports to tell the life story of singer Al Jolson. It stars Larry Parks as Jolson, Evelyn Keyes as Julie Benson (approximating Jolson's wife, Ruby Keeler), William Demares ...

''. Today, Lewis is primarily known for his work in film noir during the 1940s and early 1950s. ''Gun Crazy'' is a dark romance about gun-obsession, notable for its use of location photography and, for film students and buffs, a particularly arresting shot which lasts for ten minutes, as the audience suddenly becomes a passenger in the getaway car following a bank robbery committed by the young leads. Toward the end of Lewis's career, he worked in television, directing mostly westerns: ''

The Rifleman ''The Rifleman'' is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show ...

'', '' Bonanza'', '' The Big Valley'', '' Gunsmoke'', and the pilot for '' Branded''. He also directed the 1961

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

crime adventure-drama series '' The Investigators''. Lewis suffered a major heart attack at the age of 46, but continued working until his 59th birthday in April 1966, at the end of the 1965–66 TV season. He later lectured at film schools and fan gatherings as well as at retrospectives such as the

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022. History First held on 30 August 1974, t ...

, along with European venues in France, Germany and other locations. In 1997 he became the recipient of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Lifetime Achievement Award. Nearly five months after his 93rd birthday, Lewis died at his home in Los Angeles County's seaside community of

Marina del Rey Marina del Rey (Spanish language, Spanish for "Marina of the King") is an unincorporated area, unincorporated seaside community in Los Angeles County, California, with an eponymous harbor that is a major boating and water recreation destination ...

. Active until the end, he made his final public appearance five weeks earlier to introduce a screening of ''Gun Crazy'' at the

University of California at Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

. He was married to Buena Vista Lewis; they had one daughter, Candy Lewis Sangster.

Selected filmography

References

External links

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Life and career

Selected filmography

References

External links

Further reading