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Frank Borzage |
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Director / Producer |
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1893 - 1962 |
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Born April 23, Salt
Lake City, Utah, USA |
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Key
Production Country: USA |
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Key Genres:
Drama, Romance, Romantic Drama, Melodrama |
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Key
Collaborators: Cedric Gibbons (Production
Designer), Margaret Sullavan (Leading Player),
Joseph
L. Mankiewicz (Producer), Franz Waxman (Composer), Joan
Crawford (Leading Player), Robert Young
(Leading Player), William Fox (Producer), George Folsey
(Cinematographer), Alan Mowbray (Character Player), Harry Oliver
(Production Designer) |
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Highly
Recommended: A
Farewell to Arms (1932), Man's Castle (1933), Three
Comrades (1938), Moonrise (1948)# |
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Recommended:
Seventh
Heaven (1927)*, Lucky Star (1929), Little
Man, What Now (1934), Desire (1936), Mannequin
(1937), History is Made at Night (1937), The Shining Hour (1938),
Strange Cargo (1940) |
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Worth a Look: Lazybones (1925), The River (1929),
Bad Girl (1931), No Greater Glory (1934), The Mortal Storm (1940), His
Butler's Sister (1943)**, I've Always Loved You (1946) |
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Approach with Caution: Seven Sweethearts (1942),
Stage Door Canteen (1943), The Spanish Main (1945) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; #
Listed in TSPDT's
250 Quintessential Noir Films
section;
**
Listed in TSPDT's
Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own
section. |
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Links: [
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ] [
Village Voice Article (2006) ] [
San Francisco Chronicle Article (2006) ] [
Slant Magazine Article (2006)
] |
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Books:
[
Frank
Borzage: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic ] [
Souls
Made Great Through Love and Adversity: The Film Work of Frank Borzage ] |
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"By the
mid-1920s, Borzage was one of the most successful Hollywood
directors - as witness the fact that he won the newly created
Oscar for direction twice in its first five years - for Seventh
Heaven and Bad Girl. War, and the consequent taste
for realism, destroyed the world he had created and after The
Mortal Storm, only one other film - Moonrise -
properly revealed his talent. As a result, he is now badly
neglected." -
David
Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)
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"Frank
Borzage was that rarity of rarities, an uncompromising
romanticist... Borzage never needed dream worlds for his
suspension of disbelief. He plunged into the real worlds of
poverty and oppression, the world of Roosevelt and Hitler, the
New Deal and the New Order, to impart an aura to his characters,
not merely through soft focus and a fluid camera, but through a
genuine concern with the wondrous inner life of lovers in the
midst of adversity."
-
Andrew
Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"Crucial
to his films' incandescent romanticism were his fluid use of the
camera, floating through unoccupied spaces to suggest mysterious
invisible forces existing beyond the material realm, and a focus
on luminous faces; his attention to actresses, especially Janet
Gaynor and Margaret Sullavan, made unusually palpable the
strength of their undying love." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999) |
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"Borzage's top films are laden with romance and expressive
camera work and lighting." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include The Pitch o’ Chance (1915), Nugget Jim’s
Pardner (1916), The Pilgrim (1916), Street Angel (1928), They Had to See
Paris (1929), Liliom (1930), Song O' My Heart (1930), After Tomorrow
(1932), Young America (1932), Secrets (1933), Flirtation Walk (1934),
Living on Velvet (1935), Shipmates Forever (1935), Stranded (1935),
Hearts Divided (1936), Big City (1937), The Green Light (1937), Disputed
Passage (1939), Flight Command (1940), Smilin' Through (1941), The
Vanishing Virginia (1942), Till We Meet Again (1944), Magnificent Doll
(1946), China Doll (1958), and The Big Fisherman(1959). |
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