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Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk (1908-1999) was one of 10, but rose above
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| Directing in the early 60s. |
EDWARD DMYTRYK'S 53 MOVIES reflect the spectrum of the American experience. He tackled prejudice and mass psychology, explored psychopathic crime, human rights issues in wartime, and the Western myth. Through his films, one can see how Americans thought, how we reacted to social and moral issues, and how being such a diverse people has strengthened us as a nation. Dmytryk traveled many dark roads in his own life, and he showed us those labyrinthian paths in his movies.
Dmytryk died on July 1 at age 90. His early years were unusual, and in some ways determined the course of his life. He was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, on Sept. 4, 1908, to Ukrainian immigrant farmers, and his parents took him back to the Ukraine for visits often, once for a year. At age 5, however, his mother died and his father moved Edward and his three brothers to San Francisco. The elder Dmytryk remarried, but the family finances required the brothers find work at an early age.
One of Edward's odd jobs in 1923 was as a messenger for Famous Players-Lasky, (re-established as Paramount Pictures) and his movie career began. He remained at Paramount as a cutter until 1939, when his directorial career started taking off. In his autobiography, It's a Hell of a Life But Not a Bad Living (1979), he said his work in the cutting room determined his success as a director, and that the editing process "has some bearing on every other facet of the art."
He directed a series of low-budget movies at Paramount and RKO, one of which, Hitler's Children (1943), created a sensation. The popular film explored how Nazi ideology destroyed the teenagers of Germany. He followed this with Tender Comrade (1944) and Murder, My Sweet (1944), one of the earliest film noir masterpieces.
During the '40s, the team of Dmytryk, Adrian Scott and John Paxton, based at RKO, were the wunderkinds of the film noir genre. The two films with Dick Powell, Murder My Sweet, and Cornered (1945), revolutionized film noir. Crossfire (1947), with Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum and Robert Young, used film noir to analyze the dark side of prejudice in America. It was not only a stunning noir but also the first film on anti-semitism. Dmytryk was nominated for an Academy Award in 1948, as were Scott and Paxton. Ironically, the film lost to the drawing room anti-semitism movie Gentleman's Agreement, and its director, Elia Kazan.
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| Left to right: Dmytryk, DP David Secker and Prod. Stanley Walker in Leeds, England on Norwood Motion Pictures' A Prayer for the Dying. |
In 1946 Dmytryk cast a gorgeous young actress named Jean Porter in Till the End of Time. They married and, true to the movie's title, the couple stayed together for the next 51 years. "He was really a good man," she said. "He wanted to help mankind; he wanted to help the world. He was a very sensitive for the dying. People don't know that." Crossfire would ultimately be the climax of Dmytryk's first Hollywood career phase. In 1947 Sam Wood gave testimony at the House Un-American Activities Committee that Dmytryk and other members of the Screen Directors Guild had attempted to sway the Guild to favor Communist interests. An earlier movie directed, produced and written by Dmytryk, Scott and Paxton in England, So Well Remembered (1947) had incurred the wrath of Howard Hughes, the new head of RKO, because he sensed left-wing sympathies. That same year he was investigated by the HUAAC and found guilty of Communist party affiliations. Forever after known as one of "The Hollywood Ten," he returned to England and made The Hidden Room and Give Us This Day in 1949, but decided to return to the States in 1951, where he spent six months in jail. Subsequently he gave testimony in the second round of House hearings which helped incriminate several former colleagues. He was then removed from the blacklist and resumed his Hollywood career, though many critics believe his later work lacked the original approach he had been known for.
According to his wife, Jean, "Eddie" had indeed briefly been a member of the American Communist Party, but withdrew years before HUAAC." He never thought the Committee had any right to ask about his private beliefs." Jean says that Dmytryk recanted before the committee because he did come to believe there was a Communist conspiracy, although the only names he confirmed for the FBI were from a list already in their possession.
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| Jean and Edward Dmytryk at their Encino home in 1998. |
In 1952 the producer Stanley Kramer hired him to direct movies for his company. The Sniper, a return to film noir, was a prophetic film about a serial killer motivated by psychosexual dysfunction. The success of that thriller led to The Caine Mutiny (1954), which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. For many years he received letters from naval commanders praising the lean and authenticity of The Caine Mutiny as the greatest naval story ever made. However, the Academy did not nominate him in the directorial category.
For more than 15 years, Dmytryk taught filmmaking at the University of Texas at Austin and then at the University of Southern California. "The students had never been taught by a director like Eddie," Jean said. "He enjoyed teaching, and in particular it always pleased him to know that they were learning how to make films real without showing the ‘reality.’ " Dmytryk was fascinated by "everything in the world. He told his students you have to know about everything before you can be a good director," Jean said. With his students he made his last movie, He is My Brother, in 1976.
During the '50s and '60s, he directed adaptations of other best-selling novels, including The End of the Affair, The Young Lions, Raintree County, A Walk on the Wild Side, The Carpetbaggers and Where Love Has Gone. Jean said Dmytryk would often get letters from authors praising his adaptation from book to film. Jean's favorite film of her husband's was his adaptation from an Irwin Shaw novel, the World War 11 drama The Young Lions (1958). "It showed the war for what it was," she said. Dmytryk assembled a cast that was a Who's Who list of '50s acting talent: Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Dean Martin, Maximillian Schell, Mai Britt, and Barbara Rush.
During the '50s Dmytryk also created two offbeat psychological westerns which were minor masterworks: Broken Lance (1954) and Warlock (1959), which are still praised by fans of the genre.
His friend, director Delbert Mann (Separate Tables), says "I was very fond of Eddie. I think he was quite an outstanding director. The tragedy, of course, is what happened to him during the McCarthy days, which was tragic for everyone in the business, particularly for him. I thoroughly believe his point of view, as I believe Elia Kazan's point of view. Kazan does say he was a believer and a member of the [Communist] Party. But he learned better. He realized that he had been wrong and he acted upon that premise. A lot of that went into Eddie's thinking when he did his testifying. Eddie made some wonderful pictures, and his film noir technique was new and spectacular. It's just tragic that his career was so cut off in mid-stream as it was. I know that in later years he did good work in teaching and in coaching and working with young people, and that was very much to his credit." MM
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by marine on 11/20/07 at 11:55 am
Naval commanders have their secrets i’m sure of that but on the exterior they look like really experimented tough men.
This story was published in the September/October 1999 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Cinema Loses the 'Father of Film Noir' / Edward Dmytryk (1908-1999) was one of 10, but rose above
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