A Little on Lewis Milestone

September 30 was the birthday of screen director Lewis Milestone (Lieb Milstein, 1895-1980).

This could just be my own anecdotal experience, but it seems to me that Milestone’s name is almost invariably, almost exclusively, mentioned in connection with his Oscar winning 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front. The thing is, Milestone directed many other classics and near classics, though his name is rarely foregrounded when they are discussed, and his body of work is not generally celebrated as whole. His other films include New York Nights (1929), the 1931 version of The Front Page, Rain (1931), Hallelujah I’m a Bum (1933), Anything Goes (1936), two Steinbeck adaptations: Of Mice and Men (1939) and The Red Pony (1949), A Walk in the Sun (1945, which I swear was an influence on Saving Private Ryan); The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), the 1952 version of Les Miserables,Pork Chop Hill (1959, one of the few battle movies about the Korean Conflict), the original Ocean’s 11 (1960), and the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty (which Brando sort of took over). And dozens of others. Many are war films, which may be a turn off to some, but on the other hand, he won his Oscar for a war film.

Born and raised in a Jewish household in Kishinev, Moldova, Milestone arrived in the U.S. at the age of 18 without a nickel in his pocket. Within a few months he obtained a job as a theatrical photographer. His photography skills were put to good use in the army signal corps during World War One, where he also learned to shoot and edit film. An old army buddy got him his first Hollywood editing job, which then led up the ladder to scenario writing, and finally directing movies himself.

Milestone also has a couple of connections to silent comedy. He made three movies with Marie Prevost, who had started out with Mack Sennett and Keystone. Those films were Seven Sinners (1925), The Caveman (1926), and The Racket (1928). He also wrote her 1925 comedy Bobbed Hair. Milestone also did some gagwriting for Hal Roach and Harold Lloyd early in his career. He directed most of Lloyd’s The Kid Brother (1927), but left the job and went uncredited over a contract dispute. Later, Roach would employ him on Of Mice and Men, at a time when he was attempting to move on from his rep as a comedy producer.

Most of Milestone’s early silent films were comedies. There was also The New Klondike (1926) starring Thomas Meighan, written by Ring Lardner; Fine Manners (1926) with Gloria Swanson (he walked off this one too); Two Arabian Nights (1928, which beat out Chaplin’s The Circus for a Comedy Oscar, a now-defunct category); and The Garden of Eden (1928) with Corinne Griffith.

In later years, Milestone directed TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Have Gun – Will Travel. He is often criticized for his “impersonal” style of direction, mostly by the auteurist critics. Some of his films have been called bad. He definitely ran out of steam towards the end, which is not so unusual. His last film was PT 109 (1963) but he was replaced after a few weeks of shooting with Leslie H. Martinson, who got the screen credit. Ill health yanked Milestone out of the game by the mid ’60s.

For more on silent comedyplease see Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube — now also available on audiobook.