Tay Garnett

Tay Garnett (born June 13, 1894, Los Angeles, California, U.S.—died October 3, 1977, Los Angeles) was an American director who, during a career that spanned more than four decades, worked in a variety of genres but was best known for the film-noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

Early work

Garnett sold cartoons and stories to pulp magazines before serving in World War I as a pilot in the U.S. Navy. After the war, he broke into Hollywood as a gag writer for Hal Roach and Mack Sennett. He later contributed to the screenplays for such movies as The Strong Man (1926), directed by Frank Capra; Getting Gertie’s Garter (1927); and Skyscraper (1928). In 1928 Garnett directed his first feature-length film, Celebrity. After several forgettable movies, he found success with Her Man (1930) and the gangster epic Bad Company (1931), both of which starred Ricardo Cortez and Helen Twelvetrees. The popular One Way Passage (1932), set on an ocean liner, featured William Powell as a convict sentenced to death who falls in love with a fatally ill woman (played by Kay Francis). Destination Unknown (1933) also went to sea, but its story about a troubled rum-running schooner was less successful.

In1933 Garnett helmed S.O.S. Iceberg, a well-received adventure drama that starred Rod La Rocque as a scientist who leads a mission to Greenland; Leni Riefenstahl was featured in a supporting role. The director earned further acclaim for China Seas (1935), a lively tale about piracy that starred Clark Gable and Jean Harlow; Wallace Beery supplied the villainy. That box-office hit was followed by She Couldn’t Take It (1935), a screwball crime comedy with George Raft and Joan Bennett. Garnett’s last credit from 1935 was the adventure drama Professional Soldier, which centres on a young king (Freddie Bartholomew) who is kidnapped by a mercenary (Victor McLaglen).

Garnett returned to screwball comedies with the popular Love Is News (1937), in which an heiress (Loretta Young) outwits an obnoxious reporter (Tyrone Power). After Slave Ship (1937), a costume drama about a mutiny on the high seas, the director made Stand-In (1937), an entertaining satire of Hollywood; Leslie Howard played a humourless accountant sent to save a floundering movie studio whose chief assets appear to be a hotheaded producer (Humphrey Bogart) and an attractive stand-in (Joan Blondell). In the musical comedy Joy of Living (1938), Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., played a wealthy shipowner who teaches a repressed musical star (Irene Dunne) how to enjoy life. Trade Winds (1938) follows a detective (Fredric March) as he chases a murder suspect (Joan Bennett) from San Francisco to Asia; the drama featured extensive stock footage Garnett had shot during a vacation. Less successful was Eternally Yours (1939), which starred David Niven as a work-obsessed magician who tries to win back his wife (Young) after she divorces him; Garnett cast himself as an airplane pilot.

Films of the 1940s

Garnett began the decade with Seven Sinners (1940), the first of several films to feature John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich, who played, respectively, a navy officer and Bijou, the café singer who loves him. Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941) was a departure for Garnett; the sentimental piece centres on a schoolteacher (Martha Scott) who devotes herself to her students to make up for the emptiness of her personal life. He turned to World War II for Bataan (1943), a superior drama that featured a top-notch cast headlined by Robert Taylor, Thomas Mitchell, Desi Arnaz, and Robert Walker. The Cross of Lorraine (1943) also illuminated the horrors of war; Peter Lorre played a sadistic Nazi, and Gene Kelly was a tortured American prisoner of war. Garnett then made two films with Greer Garson: Mrs. Parkington (1944), an adaptation of Louis Bromfield’s novel, and The Valley of Decision (1945), a socially conscious melodrama set in 1870s Pittsburgh. In the latter movie, the actress portrayed a housemaid who falls in love with the son (Gregory Peck) of her employer, a steel magnate who owns the mill where her father suffered a serious injury that left him crippled.

In 1946 Garnett directed his most noteworthy film, The Postman Always Rings Twice, an adaptation of James M. Cain’s crime novel. John Garfield was perfectly cast as Frank, the drifter who cannot say no to his employer’s seductive wife, even when it means committing murder, and Lana Turner gave the performance of her career as the glamorous Cora. The movie was an enormous hit and became a defining example of film noir.

Garnett also had box-office success with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949), an adaptation of Mark Twain’s novel that starred Bing Crosby.

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Later work

Garnett’s subsequent films, however, were largely forgettable. The modest sports drama The Fireball (1950) featured Mickey Rooney as an orphan who becomes a roller-derby champion; the film was arguably best remembered for Marilyn Monroe, who had a minor role. While Cause for Alarm! (1951) was a solid thriller, Soldiers Three (1951) was a disappointing remake of Gunga Din (1939). The Korean War drama One Minute to Zero (1952) also failed to attract moviegoers, despite the presence of Robert Mitchum. The Black Knight (1954), however, was a serviceable entry in the then-popular medieval adventure genre.

After directing the India sequence of the documentary Seven Wonders of the World (1956), Garnett focused largely on television, helming episodes of such series as The Loretta Young Show, Rawhide, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Death Valley Days. His few film credits during this time included The Night Fighters (1960), a tale about the Irish Republican Army starring Mitchum and Richard Harris; Cattle King (1963); and The Delta Factor (1970), a low-budget adaptation of a spy novel by Mickey Spillane. After Challenge to Be Free and Timber Tramps (both 1975), Garnett retired from directing.