Howard Higgin
1891 - 1938Howard Higgin (February 15, 1891 - December 16, 1938) was an American writer and director of motion pictures in the 1920s and 1930s.
Higgin's first directing job was a 1922 comedy for legendary Wallace Reid, Rent Free. His later films include High Voltage and Skyscraper, and he worked with Wallace Beery, Clark Gable (as writer/director of Gable's screen breakthrough role as the unshaven villain in The Painted Desert), Carole Lombard, Bette Davis (in Hell's House), Pat O'Brien, Alan Hale, Sr., Blanche Sweet, Basil Rathbone, Robert Armstrong and Mae Clarke, among many others.
Higgins' movie career spanned 38 years, having begun working on film crews in 1919. He died in Los Angeles at age 47.
The Great Deception
Howard Higgin
Aileen Pringle, Ben Lyon
Cyril Mansfield, a handsome young Englishman, is associated with the German Secret Service as a spy in England but is loyal to British intelligence, of which he is a member. He is loved by Lois, an American whose favor is sought by Rizzio, also a double agent, who suspects Cyril's disloyalty to Germany. With the intention of conveying false information to the Imperial German Government, Cyril, accompanied by his faithful mechanic, Handy, and by Lois, escapes to Germany, though Lois is herself abducted by Rizzio and brought to headquarters in a U-boat. Innocently, she betrays Cyril, and they are both sentenced to death. On a pretense of aiding Cyril, Rizzio urges Lois to accompany him on a diplomatic mission, but Cyril and Handy overcome their captors; and Lois and Cyril escape to England in his aircraft.
The Great Deception
The Leatherneck
Howard Higgin
William Boyd, Alan Hale
A film about male bonding. At the end of WW I, two Americans befriend a simple minded German and win him over into becoming an American. All three are still peacetime officers in the US Marines when an unscrupulous character steals Boyd's girl and his two buddies go off to rescue her. When they don't come back, Boyd goes after them to rescue all. This is all done in flashback from a court martial trial for desertion.
The Leatherneck
Battle of Greed
Howard Higgin
Tom Keene, Gwynne Shipman
When silver is found in Virginia City, Lawyer John Storm leads a group from Indiana west. He soon has to defend them all in court against a company that is after their claims. Fighting a crooked Judge, he gets a mis-trial by telling how much each of the jurors was bribed. Then he gets the Governor to appoint a new Judge. But just as the retrial opens, the Judge learns his daughter has been kidnaped.
Battle of Greed
Skyscraper
Howard Higgin
William Boyd, Alan Hale
Blondy and Swede are gruff best friends who build skyscrapers. Blondy gets sweet on a girl he saves from a falling beam, Sally, but when he is injured in an accident and temporarily crippled, he rejects her. Swede tries every desperate measure to get Blondy to fight back, to try to walk, even masquerading as stealing Sally away from him.
Skyscraper
The Painted Desert
Howard Higgin
William Boyd, Helen Twelvetrees
Western pardners Jeff and Cash find a baby boy in an otherwise deserted emigrants' camp, and clash over which is to be "father." They are still bitterly feuding years later when they own adjacent ranches. Bill, the foundling whom Cash has raised to young manhood, wants to end the feud and extends an olive branch toward Jeff, who now has a lovely daughter. But during a mining venture, the bitterness escalates. Is Bill to be set against his own adoptive father?
The Painted Desert
Sal of Singapore
Howard Higgin
Phyllis Haver, Alan Hale
SAL OF SINGAPORE was nominated for an Oscar for achievement in Writing during the second year of the Academy Awards. The film, being a part-talkie, nearly disappared from view. However, a preservation print does exist at UCLA, although it is unavailable for public viewing, awaiting restoration.
Sal of Singapore