Malcolm St. Clair (May 17, 1897 – June 1, 1952) was a Hollywood film director, writer, producer and actor.
St. Clair's film career spanned the silent and sound era during the Hollywood Golden Age. His work is characterized by a “dynamic visual style” evident in all the genres he treated.Dwyer, 1996 p 1, p. 2: “...the peak of his career in 1926...” And p. 5: On Keaton
The zenith of St. Clair's filmmaking occurred during the silent film era, demonstrating his flexibility in wielding the medium as a director of comedies. His films included slapstick for Sennett, outrageous gag routines with Keaton and sophisticated comic-romances for Paramount.
His performance as a director declined with the advent of sound, suffering from the increased censorship, and his difficulty adapting to a less mobile camera and studio editing of his work. His later films were often limited to B movie “family” comedies, such as the Jones Family series, Lum and Abner and the later Laurel and Hardy features.Dwyer, 1996 p. 2: “...his career as a ‘B’ director in the 1930s at 20th Century Fox...” And p. 160-161
Most of St. Clair's silent films are lost or have limited access in archives.Dwyer, 1996 p. 2: “many films are lost, and some, surviving only on delicate nitrate stock, are unavailable for viewing.” And p. 160
Career Mack Sennett and Triangle studios: 1915-1921
Malcolm St. Clair worked for a comedy movie producer Mack Sennett and Triangle-Keystone studio for five years “a period in which he established most of his basic film vocabulary he was to use throughout his entire career.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 7: With Sennett for “five years, from 1915 to 1921...”
At age 17, St. Clair was hired by the Los Angeles Express to draw sports caricatures.Dwyer, 1996 p. 7: “...the 17-year-old St. Clair had been drawing sport caricatures for the Los Angeles Express.” A former associate at the Express, Lige Conley, was performing as a Keystone Kop for Mack Sennett, and introduced St. Clair to actor Owen Moore who co-starred with Mabel Normand. Moore convinced producer Sennett that St. Clair, whose only demonstrable skill was drawing, would excel as a “gag” writer for the studio.Dwyer, 1996 p. 8
Sennett, on this specious recommendation, engaged St. Clair, and was quickly disabused: the teen—“thin and spindly”—St. Clair was provided a bit part as a Keystone Kop.Dwyer, 1996 p. 2, p. 8, both pages report 6’3” Thus began his acting apprenticeship, performing often dangerous stunt work in the summer of 1915 during the filming of My Valet (1915), earning $3 per day. His fellow comedians included veteran actors Charlie Chaplin, Eddie Cline and Al St. John.Dwyer, 1996 p. 9-10 St. Clair left the Keystone Kops in early 1916 under the auspices of Mabel Normand, joining the company of players who performed comic roles at Triangle studios. St. Clair appeared in 13 of these Sennett films, nine of which he was credited.Dwyer, 1996 pp. 177-241: Filmography.
His first credited film was Dollars and Sense (1916), in which he was cast as “the Englishman.” His final role at Triangle was as “The Crown Prince" in Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919) and its associated release The Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties in Why Beaches Are Popular(1919), in which represents a post-World War I comic “Teutonic heavy.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 11: See here for kindness Normand towards St. Clair and career support And p. 13: On credited, uncredited roles. And p. 177-183: Filmography Between 1919 and 1921 St. Clair graduated to directing and made about two dozen 2-reel comedies for Sennett, inventing some of the characteristic gag routines.
His first directing credit was Rip & Stitch Tailors (1919).Dwyer, 1996 pp. xiii-xviii: List of Film Titles, chronological
Keaton-St. Clair collaborations: 1921-1922 Near the end of his employment by Sennett, St. Clair co-directed two pictures with comic actor and filmmaker Buster Keaton: The Goat (1921) and The Blacksmith (1922). Keaton's approach to cinematic comedy integrated the “gag” scenes with the thematic elements of the story. St. Clair adopted Keaton's methods in his future films: “the humor in his work stems from well-constructed gags which are connected to each other and/or to the central plot line, a comic style refined while working with Buster Keaton.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 5
Warner Bros. 1924-1925
The 25-year-old Mal St. Clair directed The Telephone Girl in a flurry of activity in late 1923 and early 1924. St. Clair signed in December 1923 with FBO to direct the series to begin filming in February 1924. Warner Bros. studios, which had been impressed with his Fighting Blood series for FBO, enlisted St. Clair to make his first feature film, George Washington, Jr., which he shot in the month of January 1924, then returned to FBO to complete his contract for The Telephone Girl.Dwyer, 1996 p. 85-86
Biographer Ruth Anne Dwyer notes that St. Clair's love of boxing is “reflected in the remarkable number of films he made about the sport: seventeen.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 4
Photographer Lee Garmes acted as cameraman on both the Fighting Blood and The Telephone Girl series and later followed St. Clair to Warner Bros. and then Paramount Pictures where he would win Academy Awards for his cinematography.Dwyer, 1996 p. 72
After completing a Rin Tin Tin feature Find Your Man and the crime drama On Thin Ice, both 1924, Warner Bros. terminated St. Clair despite the box office successes of the pictures.Dwyer, 1996 p. 94: Mosley's Daryll Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Last Tycoon (1984). See footnote no. 5, p. 95 in Dwyer.
Columbia pictures After his dismissal from the “budget conscious” Warner Bros. studios, St. Clair was engaged by Columbia Pictures - at that time considered a “Poverty Row” studio - to direct After Business Hours (1925).Dwyer, 1996 p. 94 A “society drama,” this lost film was well received by reviewers. After Business Hours first appeared in a 71-minute version, the picture was re-released after editing to 56 minutes. The shorter version was profitable, and its “artistic and financial success” garnered the attention of Paramount Picture executives.Dwyer, 1996 p. 94, And p. 85: See epigraph attributed to Jack Warner: “I don't want it good. I want it Tuesday.”
St. Clair was noted for providing a relaxed and supportive production unit, which contributed to his popularity among actors and technicians. A measure of “clowning” and “high jinks” as well as intramural baseball games “stimulated the cheerful atmosphere necessary to the comic mood of his films.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 122
Paramount Pictures: 1926-1929
St. Clair's 1925 After Business Hours, filmed for Columbia Pictures was both a financial and critical success. In 1925 Paramount executives placed the 28-year-old filmmaker under contract.Dwyer, 1996 p. 94: “After Business Hours (1925) artistic and financial success prompted Paramount to seek the talents of the young director, who, by 1925, and at the age of 28, had 46 films to his directing credit.”
St. Clair's tenure at Paramount would be “the most important phase of his career.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 4: St. Clair's work at Paramount in the 1920s “the most important phase of his career.” Film historian Ruth Anne Dwyer observes:
St. Clair and Louise Brooks contretemps St. Clair directed a number of screen stars of the silent era while under contract to Paramount among them Pola Negri, Florence Vidor, Esther Ralston, Tom Moore, Adolphe Menjou, Clara Bow and Louise Brooks. In a 1989 interview with biographer Barry Paris, Brooks denounced St. Clair, who had directed her in three Paramount feature films, alleged that he was an incompetent and a drunkard. Ruth Anne Dwyer, in her research for a 1996 biography on St. Clair, could find no corroboration for Brooks’ claims, concluding that her “unpleasant assessment of St. Clair's directing technique [was] highly inaccurate.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 3-4: Louise Brooks’ “unpleasant assessment of St. Clair's directing technique...highly inaccurate...” Dwyer adds that her own account “should correct any misconceptions caused by Brooks’ assertions.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 3-4: Dwyer's account “should correct any misconceptions caused by Brooks’ assertions.”
Despite professional friction, the director and the actress maintained a friendly relationship. In John Kobal's book of interviews, People Will Talk, Brooks described St. Clair as "a charming man, a lovely man." Around the time of the filming of The Show Off, St. Clair drew two caricatures of Brooks, both of which were published in magazines and newspapers.
Transition to sound St. Clair struggled to adapt to sound technology with the establishment of the new technology in 1930 in the United States. St. Clair's performance as a director declined, suffering from the increased censorship, and his difficulty adapting to a less mobile camera and studio editing of his work. He made a handful of pictures during the early 1930s at various studios, including MGM, (Montana Moon, Remote Control), Paramount (Dangerous Nan McGrew), Universal (The Boudoir Diplomat), Fox (Olsen's Night Out), and RKO (Goldie Gets Along).
20th Century Fox St. Clair joined 20th Century-Fox in 1936 and served with the studio for 12 years.Dwyer, 1996 p. 5-6: On his 12 years at 20th Century Fox He directed an assortment of comedies and dramas, including the Jones Family series of domestic comedies and a Milton Berle feature. He also accepted freelance assignments, including two Lum and Abner features. Mal St. Clair is perhaps best known in his late career as the director of four Laurel and Hardy comedies, released by Fox between June 1943 and May 1945.Scott MacGillivray, Laurel & Hardy: From the Forties Forward, Second Edition, iUniverse, 2009, p. 160.
Fox closed its B unit in December 1944, leaving St. Clair inactive until 1948, when he directed two low-budget features for Fox release. In 1950, he wanted to direct Buster Keaton in a television series, but ill health prevented him from directing again.
Malcolm St. Clair died on June 1, 1952, at age 55.
Camera technique and style St. Clair was noted for using an array of “signature” camera shots as cinematic devices with which to tell a story, among these the “back shot” and “hand and foot shot.”Dwyer, 1996 p. 107 In addition, highly compressed sequences of facial close-ups in reaction to one another or an event are widely identified as characteristic of St. Clair's story-telling method.Dwyer, 1996 p. 107: Reviewers were “familiar” with this device to which “they referred in their assessment of [St. Clair's] work.’ and p. 110: See section on “rapidly spaced close-ups.
”Back shot” device A camera shot notable in St. Clair's oeuvre, this cinematic technique presents an actor engaged in some action, but facing away from the audience or perhaps another character in the frame and, as such, concealing the subject's true behavior or condition. The subject is then suddenly revealed, disabusing the audience of their momentary misapprehension. Film historian Ruth Anne Dwyer explains that the function of these shots serve to “fool” the observer and was “a recognizable St. Clair ‘signature.’”
Dwyer offers as an example from Canary Murder Case (1929) in which ‘Canary’ Odell (Louise Brooks) is viewed through a keyhole, seated with her back to the camera, a lighted cigarette visible in her hand: evidently alive, she has actually just been murdered.Dwyer, 1996 p. 108
”Hand and Foot” shots The purpose of these “hand and foot” shots is to reveal the emotional state of a character, as well as to advance the narrative.Dwyer, 1996 p. 109: “...disclose an emotional state of mind...relay important narrative information.”