Melville Shyer

Biography

Melville (Buddy) Shyer was one of Hollywood's pioneer filmmakers. A "founding father" of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), Shyer had a career in the motion picture industry that spanned over 50 years and included work with such filmmaking icons as Mack Sennett and D.W. Griffith. The Dixie native with a sweet Southern drawl was born on September 28, 1895, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After graduating from The McCallie School in Chattanooga, Shyer journeyed to New York, where he became associated with fellow Tennessean Lem F. Kennedy in the direction of motion pictures. Beginning with two-reelers, Shyer worked as a producer, director, writer and actor alongside Kennedy with Universal Pictures for five years. He left Universal when he was offered the opportunity to join the staff of master director and innovator D.W. Griffith. Following two years of working closely with "the Shakespeare of the screen", Shyer moved west to Hollywood, where in 1929 he became Head of Production for the independent studio Chesterfield Pictures. In that capacity he spearheaded 37 of that company's productions. Upon completing those films, Shyer left Chestrfield and helped form Progressive Pictures, one of the first "independent" film companies. Over the next two years he served as producer on several of Progressive's films. Shyer parted ways with Progressive in 1933 when he was offered the opportunity to co-direct films with Dorothy Davenport, also known as Mrs. Wallace Reid, wife of the famed film actor. The duo directed and produced a series of groundbreaking pictures, including Sucker Money (1933) and The Road to Ruin (1934), both of which had highly successful theatrical runs and branded Shyer as an up-and-coming director. He went on to direct a number of films on his own, including, The Murder in the Museum (1934), Mad Youth (1939) and Confessions of a Vice Baron (1943). He also directed Smashing the Vice Trust (1937) and Souls in Pawn (1940), both as "John Melville". As a writer, Shyer penned the screenplays for The Man from Hell (1934) and Green Eyes (1934), both in 1934, and Dead Man's Trail (1952), starring Johnny Mack Brown. Shyer once said of the early days of "talkies", "In those days if you were on a film crew and you didn't know how to write, direct, act, put on your own make-up and use the clapper-board, you were sunk". Prior to his retirement in 1960, Shyer worked for several years for various film companies, including Universal Pictures, Monogram Pictures Corp. and Allied Artists. He died on September 14, 1968, at the age of 72. His son, Charles Shyer, followed in his father's footsteps and is now a screenwriter and director in his own right.