The Little Giant

A former journalist, Roy Del Ruth entered films in 1915 as a screenwriter and gagman for Mack Sennett. Turning to directing two years later, he made two-reel comedies with such top comedians as Billy Bevan and Harry Langdon. He began directing features in the mid-‘20s, but found his niche with Warner Bros. in the early 1930s. Del Ruth was one of the directors who turned out the kind of gritty, tightly made urban and crime dramas for which Warners became famous. He left the studio and went to MGM, where he specialized in the kind of splashy, lavish musicals that made MGM’s reputation. Del Ruth was the stereotypical studio director—with the resources and backing of a major studio he was at the top of his form and capable of turning out solid, enjoyable, technically excellent films, but once he left the environment of a major studio and struck out on his own, his fortunes waned. After leaving MGM he made a few musicals and weak comedies (he was also responsible for what is generally considered the worst sports biography, and one of the worst biographies, ever made – the godawful The Babe Ruth Story (1948)), a cheap sci-fi opus that was picked up, but not made, by 20th Century Fox (The Alligator People (1959)) and an overheated drama for starlet Terry Moore, Why Must I Die? (1960), that was nothing more than a ripoff of the classic Susan Hayward film, I Want to Live! (1958). —IMDb