Malcolm St. Clair(1897-1952)
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
The son of a famous architect, California-born and -educated Mal
St.Clair worked as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Express before his
first movie job as an extra and gagman at Keystone in 1915. After
service in World War I, he returned to the film business, this time as
a director alternating between Fox and
Mack Sennett. He proved to have a talent
for slapstick farce, as well as for elegant domestic comedy, but could
also handle action films. Moreover, when the occasion demanded, he was
able to keep a tight reign on some of Hollywood's more temperamental
movie queens: Pola Negri in
A Woman of the World (1925),
Clara Bow in
The Fleet's In (1928),
Joan Crawford in
Montana Moon (1930), and others.
His most fruitful collaborations were with
Harold Lloyd and
Buster Keaton in the 1920s. One of his
best films with Keaton was
The Goat (1921), a break-neck farce
based on mistaken identity. He also produced the hit social comedies
Are Parents People? (1925)
and
The Grand Duchess and the Waiter (1926).
Of the latter, Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times (2/9/26) commented
that "dull moments" were "conspicuous by their absence". Mal directed
an early version of
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1928),
but no copies of this film are known to have survived. One of his
notable non-comedic efforts was the Philo Vance mystery
The Canary Murder Case (1929),
which starred William Powell,
Jean Arthur and
Lupe Velez, and which won critical plaudits
for the director. The New York Times commented (March 11,1929) "his
flashes of the canary swinging on a trapeze in a theatre are so
excellent that they bring to mind the photographic feats in Variety".
St. Clair's career began to falter with the advent of sound, but was
somewhat reinvigorated with the all-star
Hollywood Cavalcade (1939),
for which he directed the Keystone Kops
chase sequences. Between 1943 and 1945 he presided over four
Stan Laurel and
Oliver Hardy features when the team left
Roach and MGM for 20th Century-Fox, but the studio's attempt to revive
the great slapstick comedies of the 1920s was spectacularly
unsuccessful. After that his output declined somewhat, except for a few
minor films he made for Sol M. Wurtzel's
B-unit.
At 6'3" (some accounts say 6'7"), St. Clair had the distinction of
being known as "the tallest director in Hollywood".
St.Clair worked as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Express before his
first movie job as an extra and gagman at Keystone in 1915. After
service in World War I, he returned to the film business, this time as
a director alternating between Fox and
Mack Sennett. He proved to have a talent
for slapstick farce, as well as for elegant domestic comedy, but could
also handle action films. Moreover, when the occasion demanded, he was
able to keep a tight reign on some of Hollywood's more temperamental
movie queens: Pola Negri in
A Woman of the World (1925),
Clara Bow in
The Fleet's In (1928),
Joan Crawford in
Montana Moon (1930), and others.
His most fruitful collaborations were with
Harold Lloyd and
Buster Keaton in the 1920s. One of his
best films with Keaton was
The Goat (1921), a break-neck farce
based on mistaken identity. He also produced the hit social comedies
Are Parents People? (1925)
and
The Grand Duchess and the Waiter (1926).
Of the latter, Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times (2/9/26) commented
that "dull moments" were "conspicuous by their absence". Mal directed
an early version of
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1928),
but no copies of this film are known to have survived. One of his
notable non-comedic efforts was the Philo Vance mystery
The Canary Murder Case (1929),
which starred William Powell,
Jean Arthur and
Lupe Velez, and which won critical plaudits
for the director. The New York Times commented (March 11,1929) "his
flashes of the canary swinging on a trapeze in a theatre are so
excellent that they bring to mind the photographic feats in Variety".
St. Clair's career began to falter with the advent of sound, but was
somewhat reinvigorated with the all-star
Hollywood Cavalcade (1939),
for which he directed the Keystone Kops
chase sequences. Between 1943 and 1945 he presided over four
Stan Laurel and
Oliver Hardy features when the team left
Roach and MGM for 20th Century-Fox, but the studio's attempt to revive
the great slapstick comedies of the 1920s was spectacularly
unsuccessful. After that his output declined somewhat, except for a few
minor films he made for Sol M. Wurtzel's
B-unit.
At 6'3" (some accounts say 6'7"), St. Clair had the distinction of
being known as "the tallest director in Hollywood".