The Growth of Alfred E. Green

I find myself awestruck by that it is possible to have directed so many well-known Hollywood movies, many regarded as “classics” or semi-classics, while remaining as anonymous as Alfred E. Green (1889-1960). A number of Green’s pictures are particularly cherished by show biz buffs, and are among the ones we have written about on Travalanche. Of particular interest to our readers, I should think, are things like The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939), The Jolson Story(1946), The Fabulous Dorseys (1947), Copacabana (1947), The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), The Eddie Cantor Story (1953), and the Phil Silvers musical Top Banana (1954).

Green had well over 100 screen credits, and his career in Hollywood went back almost to the beginning. He was a local kid who started out acting in westerns as “Al Green” around 1910, just as the town was establishing itself as the movie capitol. In 1914 he became Colin Campbell’s assistant director on The Spoilers, which was followed by The Garden of Allah (1916). He also worked under Marshall Neilan on the Mary Pickford pictures M’Liss (1918) and Daddy Long Legs (1919). While working at Selig Polyscope in the early years he met actress Vivian Reed (1894-1989), who had played Princess Ozma and other roles in L. Frank Baum’s silent Oz films. The two married in 1918.

In 1921 Pickford hired him to co-direct her in Little Lord Fauntleroy and Through the Back Door with her brother Jack Pickford, who at the time was recovering from the loss of his wife Olive Thomas. By then, Green had also been directing shorts on his own and from this point he rapidly moved into the ranks of the top Hollywood directors. Some of his noteworthy pictures in include The Ghost Breaker (1922) with Wallace Reid (later remade as The Ghost Breakers with Bob Hope and Scared Stiff with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis); In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter (1924); the 1925 version of Sally with Colleen Moore; Ella Cinders (1926) also with Moore; James Gleason’sIs Zat So? (1927); Disraeli (1929) with George Arliss; Sweet Kitty Belairs (1930) with Claudia Dell; and Baby Face (1933) with Barbara Stanwyck, among much else.

Albert Zugsmith was Green’s producer on many of his later pictures. He was quoted in an interview as saying in his last years, Green suffered from crippling arthritis. Yet he continued to work very nearly to the end. From 1954 to 1958 he directed strictly for television, including nearly 50 episodes of the show The Millionaire.

All three of Green’s sons went on to become assistant directors. One of them, Hilton A. Green, worked closely with Alfred Hitchcock on several of his last pictures, and later became a producer himself.

For more on show biz history, please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,and for more on silent film read  Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.