Joseph H. Lewis (April 6, 1907 – August 30, 2000) was an American

B-movie A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feat ...

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 Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American '' ...

stories: ''

My Name Is Julia Ross ''My Name Is Julia Ross'' is a 1945 American gothic film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and starring Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, and George Macready. Its plot follows a young woman in England who is hired as a live-in secretary for an ailing ...

'' (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 Peggy Cummins (born Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller; 18 December 1925 – 29 December 2017) was an Irish actress, born in Wales, who is best known for her performance in Joseph H. Lewis's ''Gun Crazy'' (1950), playing a trigger-happy '' femme f ...

and John Dall) 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 Bri ...

'', 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 The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

immigrants, Ernestine (née Miriamson) and Leopold Lewis. His father was an

optometrist Optometry is a specialized health care profession that involves examining the eyes and related structures for defects or abnormalities. Optometrists are health care professionals who typically provide comprehensive primary eye care. In the Un ...

. 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 we ...

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 ...

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 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 William Clyde Elliott (born October 8, 1955), also known as Awesome Bill from Dawsonville, Million Dollar Bill, or Wild Bill is an American former professional stock car racing driver. He competes full time in the Camping World Superstar Racin ...

. 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''), 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''), 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, '' 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 sho ...

'', ''

Bonanza ''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 13, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 432 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running western, the second-longest-running western series on ...

'', ''

The Big Valley ''The Big Valley'' is an American Western drama television series that originally aired from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969 on ABC. The series is set on the fictional Barkley Ranch in Stockton, California, from 1884 to 1888. The one-hour ...

'', ''

Gunsmoke ''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centers on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central chara ...

'', and the pilot for '' Branded''. He also directed the 1961 CBS 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 The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) is an American film critic organization founded in 1975. Background Its membership comprises film critics from Los Angeles-based print and electronic media. In December of each year, the organiza ...

Lifetime Achievement Award. Nearly five months after his 93rd birthday, Lewis died at his home in

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...

's seaside community of

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

. 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