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Irving Pichel was an American actor and film director who worked in Hollywood from 1920 to 1954. He was known for his anti-Nazi and pro-British films, such as The Pied Piper, Hudson's Bay, and The Moon Is Down.
Irving Pichel (1891-1954) was an American filmmaker who worked in various genres and roles. He directed Destination Moon (1950), Dracula's Daughter (1936) and The Most Dangerous Game (1932), among others.
- January 1, 1
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- January 1, 1
- Hollywood, California, USA
Irving Pichel was born on June 24, 1891 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Destination Moon (1950), Dracula's Daughter (1936) and Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). He was married to Violette Wilson. He died on July 13, 1954 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- June 24, 1891
- July 13, 1954
- Overview
- Acting
- Directing
Irving Pichel, (born June 24, 1891, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died July 13, 1954, Los Angeles, California), American film actor and director who found success on both sides of the camera, appearing in numerous character roles and helming a diverse range of movies.
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After graduating from Harvard University in 1914, Pichel began acting onstage, and he eventually moved to Los Angeles to study at the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1928 the theatre staged the first production of Eugene O’Neill’s Lazarus Laughed, and Pichel earned acclaim for his performance in the title role. Two years later he signed with Paramount as an...
Almost as soon as his screen acting career commenced, Pichel also began to direct at RKO. His debut was the classic The Most Dangerous Game (1932), which he codirected with Ernest B. Schoedsack. This intense thriller starred Joel McCrea as a shipwreck survivor who is hunted by a killer on a remote island. Before Dawn (1933) was next, followed by the imaginative She (1935), directed with Lansing C. Holden. Pichel spent the next few years at Republic working on such B-films as Larceny on the Air and The Duke Comes Back (both 1937) before moving to Twentieth Century-Fox, where more prestigious work awaited him. Earthbound and The Man I Married (both 1940) were his first two releases, the latter an effective Nazi-peril yarn with Joan Bennett, Francis Lederer, and Otto Kruger. Hudson’s Bay (1941) was an elaborate historical adventure with Paul Muni and Gene Tierney, but Dance Hall (1941) was a Carole Landis musical with lesser production values.
In 1942 Pichel directed The Pied Piper, a top-notch thriller that starred Monty Woolley (in an Academy Award-nominated performance) and, as the Nazi commandant, Otto Preminger; the film also received an Oscar nomination for best picture. Life Begins at Eight-thirty (1942) featured Woolley again, this time as an alcoholic who ruins his daughter’s life. The Moon Is Down (1943) was a solid adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel about Norway’s resistance to Nazi invaders; the film also marked Natalie Wood’s debut (though she was uncredited), and Pichel was widely recognized as discovering the actress. Happy Land (1943) starred Don Ameche in a sentimental yarn about a home-front tragedy during World War II, whereas And Now Tomorrow (1944) was sentiment sans patriotism, with Alan Ladd and Loretta Young playing would-be lovers whom society keeps apart.
Pichel returned to flag-waving with A Medal for Benny (1945); it was a variation on Preston Sturges’s Hail the Conquering Hero (1944), without the frenzy and with Dorothy Lamour. Colonel Effingham’s Raid (1946) was not as memorable, but Charles Coburn gave a typically solid performance as a former soldier at loggerheads with the citizenry of a small town. Pichel continued his string of home-front dramas with Tomorrow Is Forever (1946), in which Orson Welles portrayed a presumed-dead soldier returning home to find that his wife (played by Claudette Colbert) has remarried. That plot had recently been played for laughs by Garson Kanin in My Favorite Wife, but Pichel exacted sufficient emotion from it, and the film featured Wood in her first credited role.
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O.S.S. was a better-than-average espionage yarn, whereas The Bride Wore Boots (both 1946) was a formulaic romantic comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck. The 1946 melodrama Temptation featured Merle Oberon as a wealthy socialite deciding whether to remain faithful to her husband (George Brent). In 1947 Pichel ventured into film noir with They Won’t Believe Me, a superior entry into the genre that made many wish that Pichel had worked in film noir more often. The movie featured a notable cast that included Susan Hayward, Jane Greer, and Robert Young, and it was highlighted by a wonderfully ironic ending. Something in the Wind (1947), with Deanna Durbin as a disc jockey, was pleasing, although the same cannot be said of The Miracle of the Bells (1948), despite the presence of Frank Sinatra, Fred MacMurray, Alida Valli, and Lee J. Cobb. Pichel rebounded with the delightful Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948). William Powell was cast as a married man who lands a comely mermaid (Ann Blyth) while fishing, complicating his life. (Ron Howard’s 1984 comedy Splash is clearly indebted to Pichel’s film.)
- Michael Barson
Irving Pichel was a versatile performer who starred in Dracula's Daughter and other films. He also directed war and sci-fi movies, but was blacklisted by Hollywood and left the US.
Irving Pichel was an American actor and director who appeared in movies such as The Most Dangerous Game and Destination Moon. He was born in Pittsburgh in 1891 and died in Hollywood in 1954.
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Irving Pichel (June 24, 1891 – July 13, 1954) was an American actor and film director. He married Violette Wilson, daughter of Jackson Stitt Wilson, a Methodist minister and Socialist mayor of Berkeley, California.
