Walter Futter

Walter Futter (January 2, 1900 – March 3, 1958) was a film producer and director in the United States. After an initial career cutting and editing films, Futter began writing and producing his own shorts and movies, often using footage he acquired. He had success with ''Africa Speaks!'', a popular movie, which combined Paul L. Hoefler's footage filmed in the field, staged scenes filmed in Los Angeles, and narration by Lowell Thomas. He produced more than 250 short films, including series of shorts entitled ''Walter Futter's Traveloques'' and ''Walter Futter's Curiosities''. Hoot Gibson starred in a number of his western films. Another of his more than 50 longer films was ''Jericho'', also called ''Dark Sands''.

Early life

Walter Futter was born January 2, 1900, in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, both born in Germany, were William and Elizabeth Futter. He had an older brother, Frederick. Futter attended University of Omaha.

Career

Futter moved to Hollywood, California and worked as a film cutter at Goldwyn Studios. He then worked for Cosmopolitan Productions as an editor in the 1920s. He worked on '' Janice Meredith'' and ''The Great White Way'' in 1924. By 1926, he established the Futter Production Company and began producing films as well as buying and selling films. His brother, Fred, joined him in creating a stock footage library called "Wafilms". They bought up bankrupt stock and film made by amateurs and the venture proved successful, earning them the nickname "the junk-men of filmdom". Futter headed the firm Diversion Pictures, which had a library of 8mm and 16mm film and a reversible processing laboratory. Beginning in 1925, he created more than 250 short films.

Futter made about 50 movies over the course of his career, including ''Africa Speaks!'' (1930) and '' India Speaks'' (1933). Futter partnered with Paul L. Hoefler of the Colorado African Expedition to create ''Africa Speaks!'', a documentary film using footage from a 14 month expedition across Africa that covered 14,000 miles. It captured scenes and sounds of wildlife and religious rites and cultural practices of various peoples, like the Maasai and Iti tribes. Among the many animals captured in the documentary, Hoefler filmed lions hunting for food. Futter was writer, director, and editor of the film. In 1932, he released ''India Speaks'', starring world traveler and adventurer Richard Halliburton in which many of the scenes were shot at Yosemite and Griffith Park in California.

Also in the early 1930s, he worked on two series of shorts, ''Walter Futter's Traveloques'' and ''Walter Futter's Curiosities'', showing unusual incidents that have occurred around the world.

With Fenn Kimball, he produced '' Hong Kong Nights'' (1935). He produced the westerns ''The Riding Avenger'', ''Frontier Justice'', ''Lucky Terror'', ''Feud of the West'', ''Swifty'', and ''Cavalcade of the West'', all released in 1936 and starring Hoot Gibson. Paul Robeson, Wallace Ford, and Henry Wilcoxon starred in his film ''Dark Sands'', also called ''Jericho'' (1937), which was made in Britain. He also produced ''Fighting For the Fatherland'', ''The Black Doll'' (1938), ''White Sails'' (1939), and ''Monsieur Fabre'' (1951), a biographical film about Jean-Henri Fabre.

Personal life

Futter married actress Adele Lacey in December 1937. She died in Mexico City on July 3, 1953. He married actress Betty Bartley in 1955. The following year, Bartley gave birth to a baby who lived only eight hours. Their marriage ended in 1956, and they began divorce proceedings in 1957. He died on March 3, 1958, in New York, while the couple was still separated.

Notes

See also

*Goona-goona epic
*Exploitation films

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Futter, Walter
1900 births
1958 deaths
Mass media people from Omaha, Nebraska
Film producers from Nebraska
American people of German descent
20th-century American writers
Film directors from Nebraska