Borzage, Frank

▪ American film director and producer

born April 23, 1893, Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.

died June 19, 1962, Los Angeles, Calif.

      American motion-picture director and producer noted for his romantic transcendentalism and luminous filmmaking.

      The son of a master stonemason, Borzage began his association with acting at age 13. He went to Hollywood in 1912 to work as a film actor. His directorial debut occurred in 1915 or 1916, and he acted in all of the 15 films that he directed in 1916. He is believed to have directed more than 50 silent films, but few—Lazybones (1925) among them—have survived.

      Borzage's first popular success was Seventh Heaven (1927), the earliest of his powerful melodramas. It was released both as a silent film and with a score and sound effects; it won him an award as best director of 1927/28 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Borzage followed up with a number of remarkable films, including Street Angel (1928), A Farewell to Arms (1933), and Three Comrades (1938). In 1946 he signed a contract with Republic Pictures Corporation, known for their production of low-budget movies. During his three years at Republic, Borzage made his last exceptional, though not popularly successful, motion picture, Moonrise (1949). It is an extraordinarily lighted, stylish, and moody crime melodrama of redemption through love.

      Noted for his interest in character development, Borzage was an unstudied, natural director, and many critics consider him, at his best, to be equal to his more famous contemporaries John Ford and Howard Hawks.

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