Research in Progress, Feb 14, 2020
Mark Robson Career Summation
Occupational Inheritance: No
Nationality: Montreal, Canada
Social Class:
Race/Ethnicity:
Family:
Formal Education: UCLA; Pacific Coast University School of Law.
Training: Editor (with Robert Wise); Val Lewton
First Film: The Seventh Victim; 1943; aged 30
Breakthrough:
First Oscar Nomination: Peyton Place, 1957; aged 44
Gap between First Film and First Nom: 14
Other Oscars:
Other Oscar Nominations: Inn of Sixth Happiness, 1958; 45
Oscar Awards:
Nominations Span: 1956-1958
Genre (specialties): All genres (began with horror)
Collaborators: Robert Wise
Last Film: Avalanche, 1979 (posthumously)
Contract: Val Lewton
Career Length: 1943-1979; 36 years
Career Output: about 34
Marriage:
Politics:
Death: 64; last film release posthumously
Mark Robson: Two Best Director Oscar Nominations:
Peyton Place (1957); the winner was David Lean for The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958); the winner was Vincente Minnelli for Gigi
Robson was probably nominated due to the commercial popularity of these pictures, which represented the peak of his career.
Mark Robson (December 4, 1913 – June 20, 1978) was a Canadian-born film director, producer, and editor. Robson began his 45-year career in Hollywood as a film editor. He later began working as a director and producer. He directed thirty-four films during his career, including The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1955), Peyton Place (1957), for which he earned his first Oscar nomination, Von Ryan’s Express (1965), and Valley of the Dolls (1967).
Robson died of a heart attack after shooting his final film, Avalanche Express, in 1978. The film was released a year after his death.
Career Shape: Split
Thomson: His talent was superficial, or not very deep;
He was genre director
His films marked by vulgarity and calculated sentimentality.
He began as editor on Welles’ Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.
Like Robert Wise, he began making film for Val Lewton.
Robson’s early films were better than the later ones, which were impersonal.
Career split
He was most prolific in the 1940s and 1950.
Born in Montreal, he attended Roslyn Elementary School and Westmount High School in Montreal.
He later studied at the University of California, Los Angeles and Pacific Coast University School of Law.
Film Editor
Robson then found work in the prop department at 20th Century Fox studios. He eventually went to work at RKO Pictures where he began training as a film editor.
In 1940, he worked as an assistant to Robert Wise on the editing of Citizen Kane, the film debut of Orson Welles. He and Wise also edited Welles’ next movie, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and were part of the drastic cuts of the ending of the film with which Welles disagreed.
He was promoted to editor for The Falcon’s Brother (1942), an RKO B picture.
Both he and Wise benefited tremendously from producer and screenwriter Val Lewton, who was supervising a series of low budget horror films at RKO that would become legendary.
The first one was Cat People (1942), directed by Jacques Tourneur and a tremendous success.
He edited Journey into Fear (1943), made by Orson Welles’ company but the editing was again done without Welles’ involvement.
Robson edited Lewton’s next two films, both directed by Tourneur, I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Leopard Man (1943).
Lewton had been impressed with Robson’s work and promoted him to director for The Seventh Victim (1943).
Lewton liked the result, and so Robson directed The Ghost Ship (1943). Lewton would later give Robert Wise his first directing job, on The Curse of the Cat People (1944).
Lewton wanted to make non-horror films and RKO allowed him to make Youth Runs Wild (1944), a juvenile delinquency story; Robson directed but the film was not a commercial success.
More popular was Isle of the Dead (1945) starring Boris Karloff. Lewton, Karloff and Robson reunited on Bedlam (1946), which lost money at the box office and turned out to be the last horror movie made by Lewton.
Leaving RKO
His success at RKO led to work on major film projects, and in 1949 he was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for his work on the noir drama Champion, produced by Stanley Kramer.
He made another for Kramer, Home of the Brave (1949), one of the first films to deal with the issue of racism.
Goldwyn
That year also saw the release of Roughshod (1949), a Western made for RKO, and My Foolish Heart (1949) a melodrama for producer Sam Goldwyn.
Goldwyn then used Robson for Edge of Doom (1950) and I Want You (1951).
At Universal he made Bright Victory (1951).
Robson brought back his old mentor Val Lewton with fellow protégé Robert Wise in a partnership for film and TV production, only to drop the ailing Lewton without explanation a few months later.
Robson and Wise produced Return to Paradise (1953), starring Gary Cooper.
For Warwick Films, he directed Alan Ladd in Hell Below Zero (1954).
He made a comedy at Columbia, Phffft (1954), then had one of the biggest hits in his career with The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954). This film earned him another DGA nomination.
Warwick Films used him again for A Prize of Gold (1955). He went to MGM to make Trial (1955).
His boxing film, The Harder They Fall (1956), was based on Budd Schulberg’s novel.
Peyton Place
The Little Hut (1957), for MGM was a huge hit.
Even bigger was Peyton Place (1957), for 20th Century Fox. Robson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director.
He was nominated again the following year for directing Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.
DGA Nominations: 4
For these films, he also received his third and fourth Directors Guild of America nominations.
Robson produced and directed From the Terrace (1960), from a best-seller, starring Paul Newman.
He produced The Inspector (1962) and Nine Hours to Rama (1963), the latter of which he also directed.
After completing that film, Robson left Fox after a five-year association.
Robson and Newman reunited on The Prize (1963) for MGM. It was a hit, as was Von Ryan’s Express (1965), starring Frank Sinatra, back at Fox.
He produced and directed Lost Command (1966), a tale of the French Foreign Legion, and directed 1967’s Valley of the Dolls, a film panned by critics, but success at the box office.
He had films that were commercially disappointing: Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1969), Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971), and Limbo (1972).
In 1974, he directed Earthquake, the film that introduced “Sensurround.”
On June 20, 1978, Robson died of a heart attack in London after completing Avalanche Express. The film was released a year after his death.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Mark Robson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1722 Vine Street.
Filmography
Editor
Citizen Kane (1941, assistant editor, uncredited)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, assistant editor, uncredited)
Mail Trouble (1942)
The Falcon’s Brother (1942)
Cat People (1942)
Journey into Fear (1943)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
The Leopard Man (1943)
Director
N: 34
Span: 1943-1979 (36 years)
1940s: 9
The Seventh Victim (1943)
The Ghost Ship (1943)
Youth Runs Wild (1944)
Isle of the Dead (1945)
Bedlam (1946, director and screenwriter)
Champion (1949)
Roughshod (1949)
Home of the Brave (1949)
My Foolish Heart (1949)
1950s: 13
Edge of Doom (1950)
Bright Victory (1951)
I Want You (1951)
Return to Paradise (1953, director and producer)
Hell Below Zero (1954)
Phffft! (1954)
The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1955)
A Prize of Gold (1955)
Trial (1955)
The Harder They Fall (1956)
The Little Hut (1957, director and producer)
Peyton Place (1957)
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
1960s: 8
From the Terrace (1960, director and producer)
The Inspector (1962, director and producer)
Nine Hours to Rama (1963, director and producer)
The Prize (1963)
Von Ryan’s Express (1965)
Lost Command (1966, director and producer)
Valley of the Dolls (1967, director and producer)
Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1969, director and producer)
1970s: 4
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971, director and producer)
Limbo (1972)
Earthquake (1974, director and producer)
Avalanche Express (1979, director and producer)
