Lewis Milestone (born Leib Mendelevich Milstein; ; September 30, 1895 – September 25, 1980) was a Russian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer active during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Early life
Leib (or Lev) Milstein was born in Kishinev, the capital of Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire (present-day Chișinău, Moldova), into a wealthy, distinguished family of Jewish heritage. Milstein received his primary education at Jewish schools, reflecting his parents' liberal social and political orientation, and including a study of several languages. Milstein's family discouraged his early love of theater and his desire to follow the dramatic arts and dispatched him to Mittweida, Saxony, to study engineering.
After neglecting his classes to attend local theater productions, Milstein failed his coursework. He was intent on pursuing a theatrical career and bought a one-way ticket to the United States. Milstein arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey, on November 14, 1913, shortly after his eighteenth birthday.
Milstein, who found difficulty supporting himself in New York City, worked as a janitor, door-to-door salesman, and lace-machine operator before finding a position as a portrait-and-theater photographer in 1915. In 1917, shortly after the US entered World War I, he enlisted in the Army Signal Corps. Milstein was stationed in New York City and Washington, D.C., and was assigned to the corps' photography unit, where he trained in aerial photography, assisted on training films, and edited documentary combat footage. His cohorts in the Signal Corps included future Hollywood directors Josef von Sternberg and Victor Fleming. In February 1919, Milstein was discharged from the army, immediately obtained US citizenship, and legally changed his surname to Milestone. An acquaintance from the Signal Corps, Jesse D. Hampton, now an independent film producer, secured Milestone an entry-level position as an assistant editor in Hollywood.
Hollywood apprenticeship 1919–1924
When Milestone arrived in Hollywood, he was still in financial difficulties. He later said to sustain himself until his studio job commenced, he briefly worked as a card dealer at a Los Angeles City Oil Field gambling venue.
Milestone accepted mundane assignments from Hampton at $20 per week, and progressed from assistant editor toward director. In 1920, he was chosen as general assistant to director Henry King at Pathé Exchange. Milestone's first credited work was as an assistant on King's film Dice of Destiny.
During the next six years, Milestone "took on jobs in any capacity available" in the Hollywood film industry, working as editor for director-producer Thomas Ince, as general assistant and co-author on film scripts by William A. Seiter, and as a gag writer for comedian Harold Lloyd. In 1923, Milestone followed Seiter to Warner Brothers studios as assistant director on Little Church Around the Corner (1923), completing most of the film-making tasks on the production. Milestone's reputation as an effective "film doctor" who was skilled at salvaging movies led Warner to begin offering Milestone's services to other studios at inflated rates.
Director: Silent era, 1925–1929
By 1925, Milestone was writing screen treatments for films at Universal and Warner studios, among them The Mad Whirl, Dangerous Innocence, The Teaser, and Bobbed Hair. The same year, Milestone approached Jack L. Warner with a proposal: Milestone would provide the producer with a story free of charge if he was allowed to direct it. Warner agreed to sponsor Milestone's directorial debut, Seven Sinners (1925).
Seven Sinners is one of three films Milestone directed with Marie Prevost, Mack Sennett, and a former female comedian. Jack Warner appointed Darryl F. Zanuck as a screenwriter. The film is a "semi-sophisticated" comedy incorporating elements of slapstick, and was sufficiently successful with critics and the public to allow Milestone, now 29 years old, additional directing assignments.
Milestone's second Prevost comedy was The Caveman (1926), which quickly earned him praise for its "adroit direction". During production, Milestone broke his contract with the studio over his exploitation as a "film doctor": Warners sued for damages and won, forcing Milestone to file for bankruptcy. The Caveman was his last film for Warner Bros. until Edge of Darkness (1943). Undeterred, Paramount Pictures quickly acquired Milestone.
The New Klondike (1926), a sports-themed drama based on a Ring Lardner story, was filmed on location in Florida. Despite a "lukewarm" response from critics, Paramount was enthusiastic regarding Milestone's prospects, showcasing him with other young studio talent in the promotional film Fascinating Youth (1926). An argument with screen star Gloria Swanson on the set of Fine Manners (1926) led Milestone to walk off the project, leaving director Richard Rosson to complete it.
Two Arabian Knights (1927), which is considered Milestone's most outstanding work during the silent era, was inspired by the Anderson–Stallings stage play What Price Glory? (1924), and director Raoul Walsh's 1924 screen adaptation of it. It was the first film in a four-year contract with Howard Hughes' The Caddo Company and is Milestone's only film of 1927. The film garnered Milestone an Academy Award for best comedy direction in 1927, prevailing over Charlie Chaplin's The Circus (1928). During World War I, doughboys William Boyd and Louis Wolheim, and love-object Mary Astor form a comic triangle.
The Garden of Eden (1928) was made under a Caddo releasing agreement with Universal Pictures. The film was "a variation on the Cinderella story... of acidic sophistication", and was adapted by screenwriter Hans Kraly; it resembles, in both script and visual production, the works of Ernst Lubitsch. The project benefited from the lavish sets William Cameron Menzies designed and the cinematography of John Arnold. The film stars Corinne Griffith. Milestone's cinematic rendering of Two Arabian Knights and The Garden of Eden established him as a skilled practitioner of "rough and sophisticated" comedy.
Milestone was wary of being stereotyped as a comedy director, and he shifted to an emerging genre director, Josef von Sternberg, popularized with his gangland fantasy Underworld (1927). The Racket, a "taut and realistic" depiction of a mobster-controlled police department, distinguished Milestone as a capable director of the genre, but its reception was lessened by a flood of inferior gangster films in the late 1920s. The Racket was nominated for Best Picture at the 1928 Academy Awards.
Early sound era: 1929–1936
thumb|Milestone during the filming of [[All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film)|All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930]]
New York Nights (1929)
Milestone's first sound production New York Nights proved inauspicious. The film was a vehicle for silent screen icon Norma Talmadge—whose spouse was producer Joseph Schenck. Milestone attempted to accommodate United Artists' desire to blend the "show-biz" and gangster genres in an adaptation of "the justly forgotten" Broadway production Tin Pan Alley. According to Chanham, New York Nights "gave little indication of Milestone's ability in adapting to sound techniques". According to film historian Joseph Millichap: