Millard Webb — Directors I Have Met (1924) 🇬🇧

September 07, 2023

He started his career by playing child parts on the stage and later he graduated to the screen where he played leading roles with a number of well-known stars.

by Elizabeth Lonergan

But he had always had a desire to direct, and when a chance for him to go on to the producing side came along, he took it at once. He was assistant director for the film “Not Guilty,” amongst others, and he also helped S. A. Franklin direct “Oliver Twist” and “Ishmael” for Fox. And now he is a fully-fledged director for Warner Brothers, signed on for a long term contract.

When I first met Millard Webb he was directing Monte Blue in a scene from “Her Marriage Vow,” and, watching him, I was able to understand why everyone who knows him thinks this young director has a future before him. His wit and humour and a contagiously happy disposition are his main characteristics, and they make him a general favourite with everyone in the studio, from prop boy to star. But what most struck me about him was his wonderful patience. Not once have I ever seen him lose his temper, though he has sometimes had to go over a scene an exasperating number of times before he can get what he wants out of the actors. The splendid training he has had in practically every department of the film business has stood him in good stead, and has given him a technical knowledge rivalled by very few of his fellow directors.

He once said to me:

“Do you know I have often blessed those old acting days of mine, before I took up the producing side of the business. You’ve no idea what a difference it makes to be able to feel that you yourself can do what you are telling an actor to do.” He laughed, a joyful sort of laugh that is not the least of his attractions to those who work with him. “There are times,” he said, “when I have been so carried away by the emotions that I am trying to get others to portray that I have found myself unconsciously acting with the actor or actress that I am directing.

The Marriage Vow was Millard Webb’s first picture. He wrote the scenario himself — incidentally his accomplishments number scenario and short story writing — and the picture when it was shown in Los Angeles created more of a stir than the first effort of Monta Bell, another young director who has just found his feet in the movie industry.

Webb was born in Kentucky and educated there and in California. His family live in Chicago now. He is a widower, and has a little daughter, “Girlie” by name, who adores her father, and is herself adored in return. The baby is kept strictly away from the movie atmosphere of the director’s life, and he makes it his proud boast that she has never been inside a studio.

He told me that he is a great believer in music on the set when he is directing.

“It seems to give the artistes the emotional stimulus they need,” he said.

“After all, it is a difficult task for any man to come into a studio, feeling normally cheerful and immediately get right into the heart of a tragic role. He must have an atmosphere created about him to help him lose sight of himself, and get him into an appropriate frame of mind.”

Millard Webb has been asked to go to Germany to direct a picture and when he crosses the “pond” he hopes to be able to find time for a trip to England, for he is a great admirer of all things British.

M. W.