George Archainbaud

George Archainbaud (May 7, 1890 – February 20, 1959) was a French-American film and television director.

George Archainbaud
Archainbaud in 1921
Born(1890-05-07)May 7, 1890
Paris, France
DiedFebruary 20, 1959(1959-02-20) (aged 68)
Beverly Hills, California, USA
OccupationFilm and television director
Spouse(s)Katherine Johnson (1921-1959)

Biography

In the beginning of his career he worked on stage as an actor and manager. He came to the United States in January 1914, and started his film career as an assistant director to Emile Chautard at the World Film Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In 1917 he made his own directorial debut As Man Made Her. During the next three and a half decades he directed over one hundred films. After the beginning of the 1950s he moved to television.

While working at RKO Radio Pictures in the beginning of the 1930s, he showed some artistic and skillful eye with many of his films. The finest examples include Thirteen Women (1932), a story of ethnic discrimination and revenge, with Myrna Loy as a half-caste Hindu; The Lost Squadron (1932), a memorable thriller about Hollywood stunt flyers, who risk their lives under the direction of monstrous Erich von Stroheim; Penguin Pool Murder (1932) and Murder on the Blackboard (1934), the first two films of the RKO trilogy starring Edna May Oliver as Miss Hildegarde Withers, a teacher and amateur investigator created by American writer Stuart Palmer; and later in his career the RKO drama Hunt the Man Down (1950), a film noir starring Gig Young which seems more concerned in showing the post-war transformation of seven characters since 1938, than the investigation to solve a murder case.

Although Archainbaud directed films of all genres, he is nowadays mainly linked with westerns. In fact, it was not until the last decade of his directorial career until he specialized in them. With the producer Harry Sherman he made several Hopalong Cassidy oaters. Later he was also one of the principal directors of Gene Autry's Flying A Productions, at which he made several episodes for such weekly television series as Buffalo Bill, Jr., Annie Oakley and The Adventures of Champion (TV series).

At the time of his death in 1959, Archainbaud had taken a position as director of the new Rory Calhoun western series, The Texan, a highly fictionalized account of the gunfighter Bill Longley, who was hanged in 1874. Calhoun's Longley, however, is a kindly person who travels through the Old West with a willingness to help the downtrodden in struggles with the lawless element. The Texan, a Desilu program which aired for two seasons on CBS, had more than a dozen directors, including Erle C. Kenton and Edward Ludwig.[1]

In 1921 he married actress Katherine Johnston (1890 – 1969), whose last film was The Flapper (1920). He died in 1959 and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale).[2]

Partial filmography

References
  1. Billy Hathorn, "Roy Bean, Temple Houston, Bill Longley, Ranald Mackenzie, Buffalo Bill, Jr., and the Texas Rangers: Depictions of West Texans in Series Television, 1955 to 1967", West Texas Historical Review, Vol. 89 (2013), p. 111
  2. Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2. McFarland & Company (2016) ISBN 0786479922
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