William K. Howard
1899 - 1954Howard began his work in Hollywood as an assistant director on the 1920 release The Adorable Savage. The following year, he received his first directing credits, for Get Your Man, Play Square and What Love Will Do. He wrote The One-Man Trail that same year.
Some of his better known works as a director are The Thundering Herd, Surrender, Transatlantic, Sherlock Holmes, This Side of Heaven, Fire Over England, When the Lights Go on Again and A Guy Could Change.
His film The Power and the Glory, directed by Howard from a screenplay by Preston Sturges, was neglected for decades but in recent years has received significant reappraisal due to recognition that this movie was a major influence on the structure of Citizen Kane.
Howard has a "Star" on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Red Dice
William K. Howard
Rod La Rocque, Marguerite De La Motte
This unusual melodrama with comic touches was based on Octavus Roy Cohen's novel The Iron Chance. Alan Beckwith (Rod La Rocque) is a war hero who is very much down on his luck. He makes a deal with big-time bootlegger Andrew North (Gustave von Seyffertitz) -- if North will give him a large sum of money, Beckwith will kill himself at the end of a year's time. He is to marry a girl of North's choosing and take out an insurance policy naming her as beneficiary; North will collect from the widow. The plot thickens when Beckwith and Beverly (Marguerite De La Motte), the girl North has him marry, actually fall in love. Beverly's brother, Johnny (Ray Hallor), teams up with Beckwith to steal one of North's cargos of rum. North and his men catch them and things look bad until revenue officers -- called on by Beverly -- show up. The North gang is rounded up and Beckwith looks forward to a long life with his wife.
Red Dice
Love, Live & Laugh
William K. Howard
George Jessel, Lila Lee
Any movie that starts Jewish entertainer George Jessel as an Italian accordionist named Luigi can't be all bad. In love with the beautiful Margharita (Lila Lee), Luigi lands a job in the music store owned by the girl's uncle. Ultimately, however, our hero does the Pagliacci act when Margharita evinces a preference for handsome Pasquale (David Rollins). The film's best scene takes place in a nursery full of talented tots, a sequence that undoubtedly reminded Jessel of his days with Gus Edwards' "Schoolroom" act. Exercising his droit du seigneur, Georgie Jessel sings the title tune.
Love, Live & Laugh
Gigolo
William K. Howard
Rod La Rocque, Jobyna Ralston
The heir to a family business travels to Paris to try to stop his youth-obsessed mother from squandering the family fortune with her new husband, who's married her for her money. After he returns from service in World War I, he finds his mother, now broke and abandoned by her gigolo husband....
Gigolo
Johnny Come Lately
William K. Howard
James Cagney, Grace George
Cagney is a human dynamo as a drifter who helps save ailing Grace George from losing her newspaper. The pace is fast, and audiences of all ages will be pleased. The supporting cast, have all the small-town characterizations down pat -- with Margaret Hamilton a standout. Cagney himself, had genuine affection for this film, and listed it among his top five movie-making experiences at a retrospective the year before he died.
Johnny Come Lately
Volcano
William K. Howard
Bebe Daniels, Ricardo Cortez
Zabette de Chauvalons leaves a convent in Brussels to join her father on the island of Martinique, escorted by Père Bénédict. In St. Pierre she finds that her father has died; his widow, who rules the island's French society, believes Zabette to be the child of a beautiful quadroon with whom Zabette's father left for France; when Zabette is sent to the mulatto quarter, Stéphane Séquineau is present and takes an interest in her. Destitute, Zabette is forced to auction off her Paris fashions, and though Quembo, a cunning quadroon, is the highest bidder, Stéphane outbids him at the last minute and professes his love, which she accepts, believing herself to be une fille de couleur; however, his older brother, Maurice, insinuating that a mixed marriage would ruin him, persuades her to desist.
Volcano
The Princess Comes Across
William K. Howard
Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray
A Swedish princess boards an ocean liner in Europe en route to an acting career in America, and finds herself getting inconveniently attached to a bandleader returning home. To complicate matters, a blackmailer on board apparently knows she is not who she claims to be - and he has his sights set on other passengers with secrets of their own. In the meantime an escaped killer has stowed away under someone else's identity, and is killing again to cover his tracks; five international police detectives on board are heading the investigation to find him. When evidence points to the princess and bandleader, they must find the killer themselves - before he finds them.
The Princess Comes Across
The Power and the Glory
William K. Howard
Spencer Tracy, Colleen Moore
A man's life is retold just after his funeral. Beginning as a track walker, Tom Garner rose through all sorts of railroad jobs to head the company. In the meantime he lost touch with his family. When he saw what was happening it was already too late.
The Power and the Glory
Fire Over England
William K. Howard
Flora Robson, Raymond Massey
The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.
Fire Over England
The First Year
William K. Howard
Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell
Grace Livingston is leading a happy life in her small town, with her mother and father, being courted by two men, the steady but predictable Tommy Tucker and the more ambitious, flashy, and worldly Dick Loring, who seems closer to Grace in his desire for travel and adventure.
The First Year
