Edward L. Cahn (February 12, 1899 – August 25, 1963) was an American

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

and

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

Early life and education

Cahn was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. He went to work at

Universal Pictures Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American filmmaking, film production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered at the 10 Universal Ci ...

in 1917 while still a student at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

Career

He is best known for directing ''

Our Gang ''Our Gang'' (also known as ''The Little Rascals'' or ''Hal Roach's Rascals'') is an American series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by film producer Hal Roach, who also pr ...

'' comedies from 1939 to 1943, and a long line of other

short subject A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film or ...

s and

B-movie A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...

s afterward. He is also known for directing the 1958 film '' It! The Terror from Beyond Space'', the film that inspired the 1979 film '' Alien''. He made a number of films for

American International Pictures American International Pictures, LLC (AIP or American International Productions) is an American film production company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution c ...

.Mark McGee, ''Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures'', McFarland, 1996 p52

Personal life

His brother was

film editor Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film stock, film which increasingly involves the use Digital cinema, of digital ...

Philip Cahn Philip Cahn (1894–1984) was an American film editor who edited more than eighty films and television series. He also directed the 1935 film '' I've Been Around''. Philip Cahn, I. James Wilkinson and Ben Lewis founded ''The Society of Motion Pic ...

, who was the father of film editor Dann Cahn who, in turn, was the father of film editor Daniel T. Cahn.

Selected filmography as director

Source: *'' The Homicide Squad'' (1931) *'' Radio Patrol'' (1932) *'' Law and Order'' (1932) *'' Afraid to Talk'' (1932) *'' Laughter in Hell'' (1933) * ''Emergency Call'' (1933) * ''Confidential'' (1935) *'' Death Drives Through'' (1935) *''Hit and Run Driver'' (1935) *''A Thrill for Thelma'' (1935) *''Foolproof'' (1936) *''The Perfect Set-up'' (1936) *''Behind the Headlines'' (1936) *''Servant of the People: The Story of the Constitution of the United States'' (1937) * ''Bad Guy'' (1937) *''Grid Rules'' (1938) *'' Dad for a Day'' (1939) *''The Giant of Norway'' (1939) *''Angel of Mercy'' (1939) *'' Alfalfa's Double'' (1939) *'' Time Out for Lessons'' (1939) *'' Redhead'' (1941) *'' Main Street After Dark'' (1945) *'' Dangerous Partners'' (1945) * '' Gas House Kids in Hollywood'' (1947) *'' Goodbye, Miss Turlock'' (1948) -- Oscar-winner for Best Short Subject (One-Reel) *'' Experiment Alcatraz'' (1950) (and producer) *'' Destination Murder'' (1950) *'' Creature with the Atom Brain'' (1955) *'' Girls in Prison'' (1956) *''

The She-Creature ''The She-Creature'', or ''The She Creature'', is a 1956 American black-and-white science fiction horror film, released by American International Pictures from a script by Lou Rusoff (brother-in-law of AIP executive Samuel Z. Arkoff). It wa ...

'' (1956) *'' Voodoo Woman'' (1957) *'' Zombies of Mora Tau'' (1957) *''

Invasion of the Saucer Men ''Invasion of the Saucer Men'' (U.K. title: ''Invasion of the Hell Creatures''; working title: ''Spacemen Saturday Night''), is a 1957 black-and-white comic science fiction/ comedy horror film produced by James H. Nicholson for release by Amer ...

'' (1957) *'' Curse of the Faceless Man'' (1958) *'' It! The Terror from Beyond Space'' (1958) *'' Pier 5, Havana'' (1958) *'' The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake'' (1959) * ''

Inside the Mafia ''Inside the Mafia'' is a 1959 film noir crime film based on a true incident. It was based on the Albert Anastasia murder and subsequent Apalachin Meeting. Plot The gangster Augie Martello is riddled with bullets in an assassination attempt org ...

'' (1959) *'' Invisible Invaders'' (1959) *'' A Dog's Best Friend'' (1959) *'' Guns, Girls and Gangsters'' (1959) *'' Vice Raid'' (1959) * ''

Operation Bottleneck ''Operation Bottleneck'' is a 1961 war film. Plot During the Burma Campaign, a detachment of American paratroopers are aided by a group of local women in their mission against the Japanese. Six paratroopers undertake an extremely dangerous miss ...

'' (1961) * ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1962)

Editor

Source: * ''Surrender'' (1927) * ''The Man Who Laughs'' (1928) * ''Broadway'' (1929) (associate editor) * '' The White Hell of Pitz Palu'' (1929) * '' The Last Performance'' (1929) * ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1930)

References

External links

* 1899 births 1963 deaths

Cahn Cahn is a Germanized form of the Jewish surname Cohen, another variant of which is Kahn. People with the surname Cahn * Andrew Cahn (born 1951), British civil servant * Anne Hessing Cahn (c. 1930–2024), German-born American political auth ...

American horror film directors American science fiction film directors {{US-film-director-1890s-stub