Frank Tuttle
American dilm director and writer

Frank Tuttle

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American dilm director and writer
Gender:
Male
Places:
United States of America
Is:
Film directorScreenwriterActor
Work field:
Film, TV, Stage & Radio
Birth:
6 August 1892(New York City, New York, USA)
Death:
6 January 1963(Hollywood, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, USA)
Star sign:
Leo
Education:
Yale University
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Biography

Introduction

Frank Wright Tuttle (August 6, 1892 – January 6, 1963) was a Hollywood film director and writer who directed films from 1922 (The Cradle Buster) to 1959 (Island of Lost Women).

Biography

“Frank Tuttle was a director of some skill who showed occasional flashes of talent, but for the greater part of his career he buried himself in irredeemable studio assignments...a long string of routine films, mainly for Paramount Pictures, leaves the impression that Tuttle was a hack with no personal style and no particular skill at grabbing the more interesting assignments...Tuttle, in fact, never lost his youthful zeal and even after years of racing through projects like Waikiki Wedding (1937) and College Holiday (1936) still maintained hopes of creating something not merely artistic but ‘meaningful,’ rather like the fictional director in Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels (1941) ... But Tuttle had neither the talent nor the clout to achieve his aims [and] he soon returned to the practically anonymous production of studio potboilers.”—Film historian Richard Koszarski in Hollywood Directors: 1914-1940 (1976)

Frank Tuttle was educated at Yale University, where he edited campus humor magazine The Yale Record.

After graduation, he worked in New York City in the advertising department of the Metropolitan Music Bureau. He later moved to Hollywood, where he became a film director for Paramount. His films are largely in the comedy and film noir genres.

In 1947, his career ground to a temporary halt with the onset of the first of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on Communist infiltration of the movie industry. Tuttle had joined the American Communist Party in 1937 in reaction to Hitler's rise to power. Unable to find work in the United States, he moved to France, where he made Gunman in the Streets (1950) starring Simone Signoret and Dane Clark. In 1951, after a decade as a member of the Communist Party, Tuttle gave 36 names to the HUAC.

Death

Tuttle died in Hollywood, California, on January 6, 1963, aged 70. He was survived by his three daughters.

Selected filmography