Gordon Douglas Brickner (December 15, 1907 – September 29, 1993) was an American film director and actor, who directed many different genres of films over the course of a five-decade career in motion pictures.
Early life
Brickner was born in New York City. He began his career as a child actor, appearing in some films directed by Maurice Costello. He also worked at MGM as a book-keeper.
Career
Hal Roach and Our Gang
As a teenager, Douglas got a job at the Hal Roach Studios, working in the office and appearing in bit parts in various Hal Roach films. He made walk-on appearances in at least three Our Gang shorts: Teacher's Pet (1930), Big Ears (1931) and Birthday Blues (1932).
By 1934, Douglas was assistant to director Gus Meins and served as assistant director on Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's 1934 film Babes in Toyland and on the Our Gang comedies made between 1934 and mid-1936.
Beginning with Bored of Education in 1936, Our Gang moved from two-reel (20-minute) comedies to one-reel (10-minute) comedies, and Douglas became the senior director of the series. Bored of Education won the 1936 Academy Award for Live Action Short Film, and was the only Our Gang entry ever honored with the award.
Douglas remained with the Our Gang series as director for two years. His Our Gang shorts, featuring Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Porky, Buckwheat, Waldo, Butch and Woim, are the most familiar in the series’ 22-year canon. In addition to Bored of Education, the twenty Hal Roach Our Gang shorts Douglas directed include entries such as Pay as You Exit (1936), Rushin' Ballet (1937), Our Gang Follies of 1938 (1937), and Three Men in a Tub (1938). He also co-directed, with Fred Newmeyer, the 1936 Our Gang feature-film General Spanky.
Roach sold the Our Gang unit to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in May 1938. Douglas directed two MGM Our Gangs that year on loan from Roach, The Little Ranger and Aladdin's Lantern, before deciding that he could not get used to the more industrialized atmosphere at the larger studio. The first of these was The Great Missouri Raid (1951). He was meant to make a second film for Paramount but they released him so Cagney could use him again on Only the Valiant (1951) a Western with Gregory Peck.
Douglas went on to establish himself as one of Warners' leading directors of the 1950s, working in all genres: I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951); Come Fill the Cup (1951), produced by Cagney starring James Cagney; The Iron Mistress (1952) a biopic of Jim Bowie starring Alan Ladd; Mara Maru (1952), an adventure story with Errol Flynn; So This Is Love (1953), a musical biopic of Grace Moore; The Charge at Feather River (1954), a 3D Western; She's Back on Broadway (1953), a musical; Them! (1954), a science fiction film about giant ants; Young at Heart (1955), with Doris Day and Frank Sinatra; Sincerely Yours (1955) with Liberace; The McConnell Story (1955), a biopic of Joseph C. McConnell with Alan Ladd; Santiago (1956) with Ladd; Bombers B-52 (1957) and The Big Land (1957), a Western with Ladd.
His three low-budget westerns starring Clint Walker – Fort Dobbs (1958), Yellowstone Kelly (1959) and Gold of the Seven Saints (1961, from a screenplay by Leigh Brackett originally commissioned by Howard Hawks) – have been compared to Budd Boetticher's contemporary minimalist westerns with Randolph Scott.
Douglas directed The Fiend Who Walked the West (1958) at 20th Century Fox and Up Periscope (1959) for Warners, and had hits with Claudelle Inglish (1961) and The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961).
Freelance director
Douglas directed Elvis Presley in the comedy Follow That Dream (1962) made for Mirisch Productions and did Bob Hope's Call Me Bwana (1963) for Eon Productions.
He did a Western at Fox Rio Conchos (1964) then made the heist comedy Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) for Frank Sinatra's company, starring Sinatra.
Douglas made two films starring Carroll Baker, Harlow (1965) and Sylvia (1965).
20th Century Fox
For 20th Century Fox Douglas directed Jerry Lewis in the science fiction spoof Way...Way Out (1966), did the remake of Stagecoach (1966) and made In Like Flint (1967) with James Coburn.
Douglas made Tony Rome (1967) with Sinatra at Fox, and the Western Chuka (1967) for star-producer Rod Taylor at Paramount. There were two more with Sinatra at Fox, The Detective (1968) and a sequel to Tony Rome, Lady in Cement (1968).
Later career
After the Western Barquero (1970), Douglas did Skullduggery (1970) and directed Sidney Poitier's They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) for the Mirisches. He did some uncredited directing on Skin Game (1971).
Slaughter's Big Rip-Off (1973) was a blaxploitation film and Nevada Smith (1975).
Douglas returned to Warner Bros. for his final film, 1977's Viva Knievel!, in which the stuntman Evel Knievel played himself in a fanciful biography.
Reportedly, Douglas was the only person to ever direct both Elvis and Sinatra on film.
Attempting to explain his prodigious directorial output, Douglas told Bertrand Tavernier, "I have a large family to feed, and it's only occasionally that I find a story that interests me".