William K. Howard

William K. Howard (born June 16, 1899, St. Marys, Ohio, U.S.—died February 21, 1954, Los Angeles, California) was an American director who made some 50 films, notably The Power and the Glory (1933), a drama known for its narrative structure, and the historical epic Fire over England (1937).

Early work

Following his graduation from the Ohio State University, Howard managed movie theatres and sold film stock. After serving in World War I, he made his way to Hollywood, where he briefly worked as an assistant director before helming (with George W. Hill) Get Your Man in 1921. His first solo credit came later that year with Play Square, a crime drama. Howard’s subsequent silent movies included westerns (The Thundering Herd [1925], White Gold [1927]), adventures (Volcano [1926], The River Pirate [1928]), and romantic melodramas (Gigolo [1926], Bachelor Brides [1926]). Heavily influenced by German Expressionism, especially the films of F.W. Murnau, Howard was well regarded for his visual style and his ability to conjure exciting action scenes with the limited special effects then available.

Sound era

Many of Howard’s early sound pictures are relatively obscure, including The Valiant (1929), with Paul Muni, and the Edmund Lowe films Scotland Yard (1930), Transatlantic (1931), and All Women Are Bad (1931; also called Don’t Bet on Women). In 1932, however, he had modest hits with The First Year, in which newlyweds Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell struggle through hard times, and Sherlock Holmes, starring Clive Brook as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective and Ernest Torrence as the diabolical Professor Moriarty. That year also saw the release of The Trial of Vivienne Ware, which earned praise for its innovative camera work.

In 1933 Howard directed The Power and the Glory, a searing account of the rise and fall of a powerful railroad tycoon (Spencer Tracy). The groundbreaking film, which was written by Preston Sturges, employed a multiple-flashback structure that is believed to have influenced Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz when they scripted Citizen Kane (1941). The Power and the Glory also featured the work of cinematographer James Wong Howe, who collaborated with Howard on several productions.

Few of Howard’s subsequent pictures were that ambitious. In 1934 he made Evelyn Prentice, a mystery starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, and The Cat and the Fiddle, a sprightly adaptation of the Jerome Kern–Otto A. Harbach Broadway musical. Vanessa: Her Love Story (1935) was a contrived romance between Helen Hayes and Robert Montgomery. Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935) was a solid gangster yarn featuring Sylvia Sidney as a woman who unwittingly falls in love with a murderous gangster (Alan Baxter). The Princess Comes Across (1936) found Carole Lombard posing as a princess while being romanced by a bandleader (Fred MacMurray) aboard an ocean liner.

Later films

Howard moved to England to make Fire over England (1937), a historical epic set in the 16th century. The acclaimed costume drama starred Laurence Olivier as a British naval officer who spies on Spain’s Philip II (Raymond Massey) for Elizabeth I (Flora Robson); in one of her early screen roles, Vivien Leigh played a lady-in-waiting. In 1939 Howard made the hard-hitting Depression drama Back Door to Heaven (1939), which featured Jimmy Lydon as a teenager growing up in poverty who turns to a life of crime. Howard was fired from Knute Rockne–All American (1940), and Lloyd Bacon completed the classic biopic. Howard’s last credits were mostly modest B-film crime dramas, including Money and the Woman (1940) and Bullets for O’Hara (1941). In 1943 he directed James Cagney in Johnny Come Lately, but it was largely ignored by moviegoers. Howard retired in 1946 after having made the little-seen drama A Guy Could Change.