Herbert Brenon

Herbert Brenon (born Alexander Herbert Reginald St. John Brenon; 13 January 1880 – 21 June 1958) was an Irish-born U.S. film director, actor and screenwriter during the era of silent films through 1940.
Brenon was among the early filmmakers who, before the rise of corporate film production, was a genuine "auteur", controlling virtually all creative and technical components in crafting his pictures.
The quality of Brenon's artistic output rivaled that of film pioneer D. W. Griffith.
Brenon was among the first directors to achieve celebrity status among moviegoers for his often spectacular cinematic inventions. Among his most notable films are Neptune's Daughter (1914), Peter Pan (1925), A Kiss for Cinderella (1925), and the original film version of Beau Geste (1926).
Early life
Brenon was born at 25 Crosthwaite Park, in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire), Dublin to Edward St. John Brenon, a journalist, poet, and politician and his wife, Frances (Harris).
In 1882, the family moved to London, where Herbert was educated at St Paul's School and at King's College London. In 1896, at age 16, Brenon emigrated to the United States and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1918.
Film career
In his late teens, Brenon served as an office boy for the theatrical agent Joseph Vivian and as a call boy at Daly's Theatre on Broadway. While still in his twenties, and before becoming a film director, he performed in vaudeville and operated a small-town nickelodeon establishment.
Brenon married Helen Violette Oberg (1885-1955) on 18 February 1904 while they were both working vaudeville circuits. Their son, Herbert Cyril Brenon, was born in 1906.
IMP: 1909–1914
At the age of 29, Brenon advanced to screenwriting and film editing for the Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP), later to become Universal Studios. In 1911, he directed his first film, the one-reeler, All For Her (1912), starring George Ober. In 1913, he directed another short silent film, Kathleen Mavourneen, starring Jane Fearnley as the eponymous heroine.
Brenon acted in many of the films he directed for IMP, including the studio's first three-reel production Leah the Forsaken (1909), starring Leah Baird.
Brenon took his IMP production unit to Europe in 1913, and made a number of films in England, France and Germany. The most "spectacular" of these was his adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe, starring celebrity aviator Claude Graham-White as Ivanhoe and filmed at Chepstow Castle. The journal Illustrated Films Monthly bestowed fulsome praise on the production, declaring that "Ivanhoe, as a film, will prove epoch-making in the history of cinematography in [Great Britain] and over the whole world'." Brenon proceeded to continental Europe to film Absinthe (1914) in France and several films in Germany, starring William E. Shay.
Neptune's Daughter (1914): Brenon’s final and most spectacular film for IMP studios was his 1914 Neptune’s Daughter. This Annette Kellerman vehicle, at seven-reels in length and filmed in Bermuda, established both director and actress among the earliest silent film celebrities.
Brenon left IMP In 1914 to create his own short-lived production company, Tiffany Film Corporation.
Fox: 1915–1916
The following year, Brenon and Kellerman contracted with William Fox’s production company. There, Brenon directed actress Theda Bara in The Two Orphans (1915) and The Kreutzer Sonata (1915). Both Brenon and Bara would have a major impact in elevating the stature of the Fox Company.
A Daughter of the Gods (1915): In the summer of 1915, Brenon and leading lady from their IMP collaborations, Kellerman, travelled to Jamaica to make the “elaborate” and “spectacular” A Daughter of the Gods (1916). His extravagant expenditures filming the picture led to immense cost overruns, outraging producer William Fox. That, and Brenon's emerging celebrity status among movie critics led Fox to seize the footage and edit it himself, excising Brenon from the screen credits. Film historian Richard Koszarski describes the clash between producer and director.:
After his failed litigation with Fox, Brenon continued to direct films for various studios, then moved to Paramount where he made some of his finest pictures.
Paramount Pictures: 1923–1926
Brenon reached the apogee of his creative powers while at Paramount during the late silent period, emerging as "a craftsman of the highest order" and for his renowned cinematic style.
Two films most characteristic of “the Brenon style” were his adaption of two J. M. Barrie fantasies, the highly theatrical renditions of Peter Pan (1924), starring Betty Bronson and A Kiss for Cinderella (1925). Brenon enlisted the talents of James Wong Howe and J. Roy Hunt to achieve outstanding cinematography and lighting effects. Biographer Charles Higham provides these critiques of the films:
Film historian Richard Koszarski offers this appraisal of A Kiss for Cinderella:
Perhaps Brenon's most highly successful commercial effort at Paramount was Beau Geste (1926), with actor Ronald Colman.
Richard Koszarski observes approvingly that Beau Geste is “notable for its intelligence and controlled sentiment ... especially strong in the richness of the performances.”
Film historian Charles Higham issued this appraisal of Brenon's Beau Geste:
Style and personality
Brenon's reputation as a director who reliably extracted fine performances from "temperamental" actors was widely acknowledged. Indeed, Brenon praised the virtues of “temperament” in an article from Motion Picture Magazine (February 1926) entitled "Must They Have Temperament?":
Richard Koszarski adds that "Pola Negri, Lon Chaney, Nazimova and Norma Talmadge had some of their finest moments in Brenon’s films, (while carrying on uncontrollably elsewhere) ... his directorial success with the widest range of silent stars remains unparalleled."
Brenon, described once as an "Irish curmudgeon" while on the set, was typical of the old-school “auteur” directors of the early film era, but this behavior became anachronistic when corporate studio executives were ascendant in the 1920s.
In a 1978 interview, Louise Brooks recalls Brenon's able direction in her first film appearance The Street of Forgotten Men (1925). She noted, however, a demonstration of the hostility to the domineering director when a sandbag dropped from the rafters by technicians, nearly hit Brenon. Screenwriter and director Edward Bernds had no fond memories of Brenon. In the 1997 book, The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926–1930, he issued these comments on his colleague:
Later years and death
Brenon's film career in the United States faded with the transition to sound films. Biographer Charles Higham observed that "the talkie revolution firmly closed an era for many figures ... Herbert Brenon and James Cruze never made another interesting picture."
Brenon's career revived when he moved to England in the mid-1930s and made a number of pictures at various studios. He completed his last film, The Flying Squad in 1940.
Before his death, Brenon was working on his autobiography. When he collaborated with Mary Brian, who played Wendy in Peter Pan, and asked her to paint her idea of what Never-Neverland looked like and the painting was to be included in the photos of the book. He died before it was completed.
Herbert Brenon died in Los Angeles on 21 June 1958, aged 78. He was interred in a private mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York.
Partial filmography
All of Her (1912)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913)
Ivanhoe (1913)
Kathleen Mavourneen (1913)
Absinthe (1914)
Neptune's Daughter (1914)
The Kreutzer Sonata (1915)
The Heart of Maryland (1915)
The Clemenceau Case (1915)
The Two Orphans (1915)
Sin (1915)
The Soul of Broadway (1915)
A Daughter of the Gods (1916)
The Ruling Passion (1916)
War Brides (1916)
Whom the Gods Destroy (1916)
The Fall of the Romanoffs (1917)
The Lone Wolf (1917)
Empty Pockets (1918)
Victory and Peace (1918)
The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1918)
12.10 (1919)
Beatrice (1919)
The Mysterious Princess (1920)
The Passion Flower (1921)
The Stronger Passion (1921)
Little Sister (1921)
The Wonderful Thing (1921)
Moonshine Valley (1922)
Shackles of Gold (1922)
A Stage Romance (1922)
The Custard Cup (1923)
The Spanish Dancer (1923)
The Breaking Point (1924)
Shadows of Paris (1924)
The Alaskan (1924)
Peter Pan (1924)
The Side Show of Life (1924)
The Street of Forgotten Men (1925)
The Little French Girl (1925)
A Kiss for Cinderella (1925)
The Song and Dance Man (1926)
God Gave Me Twenty Cents (1926)
Dancing Mothers (1926)
The Great Gatsby (1926)
Beau Geste (1926)
The Telephone Girl (1927)
Sorrell and Son (1927)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
The Rescue (1929)
The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1930)
Lummox (1930)
Transgression (1931)
Girl of the Rio (1932)
Wine, Women and Song (1933)
Honours Easy (1935)
Royal Cavalcade (1935)
Someone at the Door (1936)
Living Dangerously (1936)
The Live Wire (1937)
The Dominant Sex (1937)
Spring Handicap (1937)
Housemaster (1938)
Yellow Sands (1938)
Black Eyes (1939)
The Flying Squad (1940)
Footnotes
References
Higham, Charles. 1973. The Art of the American Film: 1900-1971. Doubleday & Company, Inc. New York.
Koszarski, Richard. 1976. Hollywood Directors: 1914-1940. Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 76-9262.
Koszarski, Richard. 2008. Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff. Rutgers University Press.
Robinson, David. 1968. Hollywood in the Twenties. Paperback Library, New York. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-24002
Slide, Anthony. 1970. Early American Cinema. The International Film Guide Series. A. S. Barnes & Co. New York.
External links
Herbert Brenon at Virtual History
1880 births
1958 deaths
Irish film directors
Irish male film actors
Irish male silent film actors
Irish male screenwriters
Fantasy film directors
People educated at St Paul's School, London
Alumni of King's College London
Vaudeville performers
Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York)
People from Dún Laoghaire
20th-century Irish screenwriters
Irish emigrants to the United States
Male actors from County Dublin