Alfred Santell

Biography

American director, billed early in his career as' Al' Santell. A former architect (graduate of Los Angeles University) he began in the movie industry in 1914 as a general factotum at the Lubinville Studio in Philadelphia before working his way up the ladder to director/scenarist in which capacity he handled one- and two-reel short comedy subjects for Mack Sennett, Hal Roach and at Kalem. Following a brief spell in the army (1918-19) he advanced to supervising manager at Universal and was given his own comedy series (the "Alfred Santell Comedies") which starred a trained chimp named Joe Martin! By 1923, he had progressed to feature film direction and signed a lengthy contract with First National. A renowned light comedy specialist, Santell made an assured transition to sound. In the course of the next 15 years he turned out a string of solid second features -- as well as the occasional "A"-grade release -- for 20th Century-Fox (1929-33), RKO (1934-35), Paramount (1936-42) and United Artists (1943-44). One of his best talkies was an early entry into the "Dr. Kildare" cycle (that was before MGM picked up the option and made millions from the franchise !). This was Internes Can't Take Money (1937), a slickly made box-office hit with Joel McCrea as the good doc and Barbara Stanwyck as an ex-convict mother. The New York Times critic described Santell's direction as "a blend of [Alfred Hitchcock] suspense and American verve". Other noteworthy highlights in his career include an early version of The Sea Wolf (1930) (starring Jane Keithley who later became Mrs. Santell), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1932), Winterset (1936) (based on the play by Maxwell Anderson), Aloma of the South Seas (1941) and the biopic Jack London (1943). Santell retired in 1946 after directing a couple of B-movies for Republic.