By Janet Bergstrom, Professor at UCLA.
Frank Borzage (pronounced borZAYgee) was born on April 23, 1894 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Italian-Austrian and Swiss immigrant parents, the fourth of fourteen children (six died in early childhood). He died in Los Angeles on June 19, 1962 at the age of 68. Between 1915 and 1959, he directed over 100 films. Stagestruck as a boy watching a local company perform, Borzage worked in the mines for a few months to get money for drama school, then struck out on his own, acting with travelling players around the west between stretches of miserable poverty In Los Angeles around 1911, he found work as an extra at Universal. Then, unexpectedly, Thomas Ince made him a leading man in fast-made two-reelers. In 1915 Borzage began acting for the American Film Company (The Flying A) in Santa Barbara, soon moving into directing short westerns as well. By the end of 1917, when he turned fully to directing, he had appeared in nearly 100 films and directed 21. Later on, his brother Lew became his assistant director from at least 1919 to the end. Family members appear in bit parts. His brother Danny became an indispensable member of John Ford's stock company, setting the mood with his accordion.
In 1925 when Borzage came to Fox from MGM, the Los Angeles Times noted that he had made 'some of the finest pictures ever filmed’, ranging from Humoresque to Norma Talmadge's The Lady and Secret's. Lazybones, his first film for Fox, scripted by Frances Marion, featured western star Buck Jones cast against type in a delicate small-town melodrama, playing the kind of soulful, introspective character the director would become known for. Lazybones still plays wonderfully, especially Jones' understated portrayal of deep, unspoken emotions. Borzage's next five films for Fox are inaccessible or presumed lost.
Then came 7th Heaven (1927), the film that launched Borzage's reputation as a world-class director. His visual style had changed markedly, showing the influence of famed German import F.W. Murnau, whose production of Sunrise for William Fox dominated the studio from the fall of 1926 through the beginning of 1927. 7th Heaven was scheduled before Sunrise, but was postponed until after Murnau finished shooting: both films starred Janet Gaynor. Everyone at Fox watched as Murnau worked with his technical people - architect/art director Rochus Gliese, cinematographers Charles Rosher and Karl Struss - merging set design, camera work and acting to find unique solutions for artistic ends scene by scene. William Fox allowed his best directors — Borzage, John Ford, Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks — to follow the dark, moody undercurrent of the German expressionist heritage, strong on atmosphere and heightened technical and artistic ambition. Borzage and his technical team - art director Harry Oliver and cinematographer Ernest Palmer — filtered these ideas through their own to create some of the most memorable films of the late 1920s: 7th Heaven, Street Angel (1928), The River (1929) and Lucky Star (1929; Oliver without Palmer, but a similar look).
The upheaval caused by the 'tidal wave' toward talking pictures affected The River and Lucky Star. Both were planned as silent films with Movietone music and effects soundtracks. But by 1929 'talking' seemed essential for financial success. The last reel of The River and half of Lucky Star were re-shot with dialogue written by Broadway experts, recorded by Movietone experts. For Lucky Star, Borzage persevered to manage his dialogue sections. The only prints known to survive are the silent versions (The River is incomplete), which were intended for US theaters not yet equipped for sound projection and for foreign distribution.
Handsome, soft-spoken and warm, Frank Borzage seemed like the melancholy, introspective protagonists he excelled in portraying. Some of the unforgettable films in his later career include Man's Castle (1933), Desire (1936), History is Made at Night (1937), Three Comrades (1938), The Mortal Storm (1940) and Moonrise (1948). Film historian John Belton termed Borzage the poet of the working class, rightly emphasizing the director's fidelity to his origins as well as an irreducible aspect of his best films in which a private unshakable bond takes hold of two people, an unstated, almost other-worldly romanticism that transcends their physical circumstances. A phrase from an inter-title in Street Angel evokes that intensity: 'souls made great by love and adversity'.
Copy taken from the BFI's ‘Frank Borzage Volume 1’ DVD booklet.
Also in the Jottings: A Farewell to Arms (1932), The Shining Hour (1938), Strange Cargo (1940).
