Norman Taurog

Norman Taurog (born February 23, 1899, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died April 7, 1981, Rancho Mirage, California) was an American director of some 80 feature films, many of which were comedies, including a number with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and musicals, nine of which starred Elvis Presley. However, arguably his best-known movie was the drama Boys Town (1938).

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Early comedies and family films

Taurog acted onstage when he was a child and broke into films as a teenager. In 1920 he became a director of two-reel silent comedies, and he eventually helmed more than 100 shorts; early in his career, he often codirected with Larry Semon, a comedian who also starred in the films. Taurog finally broke into features with Lucky Boy (1928), which he codirected with Charles C. Wilson. Taurog made several more movies before he signed with Paramount in 1930. His first film for the studio was Follow the Leader (1930), a gangster comedy with Ed Wynn, Ginger Rogers, and Ethel Merman.

Taurog codirected (with Norman Z. McLeod) the Leon Errol–ZaSu Pitts family comedy Finn and Hattie (1931) before making Skippy (1931), an adaptation of a then-popular comic strip. Jackie Cooper, Taurog’s nephew, starred as a resourceful boy who tries to raise $3 so that his friend Sooky (Robert Coogan) can get his dog out of the pound. A surprise hit, Skippy earned several Academy Award nominations, including outstanding production, and Taurog won for best director over Josef von Sternberg, Lewis Milestone, Wesley Ruggles, and Clarence Brown—one of the great Oscar upsets of the century. The film also demonstrated that Taurog was especially adept at directing children, and his next films centred on child actors.

After Newly Rich, a minor comedy about stage mothers who push their children to become stars, Taurog directed Huckleberry Finn (both 1931), a clunky version of Mark Twain’s classic novel; Junior Durkin and Jackie Coogan, who had played Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, respectively, in John Cromwell’s Tom Sawyer (1930), reprised their roles here. Sooky, Taurog’s fifth feature film of 1931, was a sequel to Skippy; among the issues facing the boys is the death of Sooky’s mother.

Taurog turned to more adult fare with Hold ’Em Jail (1932), a Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey comedy. The musical The Phantom President (1932), which was George M. Cohan’s first sound feature, was a box-office failure, in spite of the work of Claudette Colbert and Jimmy Durante. Taurog contributed to the 1932 anthology If I Had a Million and then directed A Bedtime Story (1933), with Maurice Chevalier as a Parisian playboy who unwillingly adopts a baby (Baby LeRoy).

Musical comedies and Boys Town

Chevalier returned for The Way to Love (1933), a passable musical comedy that was again set in Paris; Ann Dvorak played his love interest. Taurog stayed in that genre for We’re Not Dressing (1934), which was one of his best efforts at Paramount. It starred Bing Crosby as a sailor who takes charge of a group of shipwrecked socialites (Carole Lombard and Merman, among others); George Burns and Gracie Allen appeared as anthropologists. Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934) was yet another screen version of the Alice Hegan Rice story about a poor family led by an optimistic matriarch. Taurog’s film was notable for the appearance of W.C. Fields in an atypical role as the suitor of a spinster (Pitts). College Rhythm (1934), another comedy-musical, centres on the rivalry between former best friends (Jack Oakie and Joe Penner). The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935) was an all-star showcase, with Crosby singing, Burns and Allen joking, and Bill Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers dancing. The film also boasted Merman, Amos ’n’ Andy, and the Vienna Boys Choir. Rhythm on the Range (1936) was Taurog’s last picture for Paramount after seven generally successful years; if not a classic, at least it had the talents of Crosby, Frances Farmer, and Martha Raye to keep it entertaining.

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Taurog then entered a phase during which he worked for a variety of studios. In 1936 he directed Strike Me Pink, an Eddie Cantor vehicle, and Reunion, which showcased the famous Dionne quintuplets. The following year he made Fifty Roads to Town, a screwball comedy featuring Don Ameche and Ann Sothern as snowbound companions, and You Can’t Have Everything, a popular romantic comedy about a playwright (Alice Faye) and producer (Ameche) who fall in love, despite the efforts of his girlfriend (Gypsy Rose Lee) to keep them apart.

Taurog got a second crack at Twain with the David O. Selznick production of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938). It is arguably the best screen version of the classic tale, with stunning cinematography by James Wong Howe and notable production designs by William Cameron Menzies; several other directors, including George Cukor and William A. Wellman, also worked on the film but were uncredited. Mad About Music (1938) was one of Deanna Durbin’s wildly popular comedy-musicals. She played the daughter of an actress (Gail Patrick) who does not know her father. Problems arise at her boarding school when she creates an imaginary father, and her friends demand to meet him.

Taurog subsequently signed with MGM, for which he would work through 1951. His first film there was also his biggest success, the sentimental but effective Boys Town (1938), with Mickey Rooney as a rebellious teenager who needs a firm but loving hand and Spencer Tracy as the caring priest who supplies it. It was based on the true story of Father Edward J. Flanagan, the founder of Nebraska’s Boys Town. The film was nominated for numerous Academy Awards, including outstanding production, and Taurog received his final Oscar nod for best director; Tracy was named best actor for the second year running.

The Girl Downstairs (1938) had Hungarian import Franciska Gaal as a maid who wins the heart of a playboy (Franchot Tone), and Lucky Night (1939) was a comedy with Myrna Loy and Robert Taylor. After working (uncredited) on The Wizard of Oz (1939), Taurog made the biopic Young Tom Edison (1940), with Rooney in an acclaimed performance as the young inventor. His other films from 1940 were Broadway Melody of 1940, which starred Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell, and Little Nellie Kelly, a passable musical (based on a Cohan play) with Judy Garland and George Murphy. Next came Men of Boys Town (1941), a sequel to his earlier hit, with Rooney and Tracy reprising their roles. Although not as critically acclaimed as the original, it was still a success at the box office.

After several middling comedies, Taurog had another hit with A Yank at Eton (1942), which starred Rooney as an American in England who alienates his classmates until another student (Freddie Bartholomew) shows him the ropes. Presenting Lily Mars (1943) was an adaptation of a Booth Tarkington novel about a small-town girl (Judy Garland) who persuades a Broadway producer (Van Heflin) to take her to New York City. Taurog then inherited Girl Crazy (1943) from Busby Berkeley, who was released from the production early on but had already staged the acclaimed “I Got Rhythm” finale. It was the last film to feature Rooney and Garland as the leads, and it is in many ways their best, a credit to both Taurog and the quality of the original 1930 stage hit.

The Hoodlum Saint (1946), Taurog’s first postwar project, offered William Powell as a con man whose fraudulent charity operation becomes genuine; his love interest was played by Esther Williams, who was better known for her water musicals. Taurog switched gears with The Beginning or the End (1947), a compelling docudrama about the development of the atomic bomb, with Brian Donlevy as Leslie Groves and Hume Cronyn as J. Robert Oppenheimer. Big City (1948), however, was a middling melodrama. Margaret O’Brien played a young girl who is adopted by a Protestant minister (Robert Preston), a Jewish cantor (Danny Thomas), and an Irish Catholic policeman (Murphy). The Bride Goes Wild (1948) was another misfire, with June Allyson as an aspiring illustrator who is hired to create the artwork for a book by a popular children’s author (Van Johnson); after meeting the hard-drinking, cynical man, however, she threatens to expose him. More successful was Words and Music (1948), which had Tom Drake and Rooney playing famed composers Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, respectively. The musical featured a number of songs performed by such stars as Garland and Lena Horne, the best of which was arguably Gene Kelly’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.”

That Midnight Kiss (1949), an entertaining production, featured opera star Mario Lanza in his screen debut as a singing truck driver who whisks a socialite (Kathryn Grayson) off her feet. A box-office hit, it helped establish Lanza as a movie star. Filmgoers also turned out for The Toast of New Orleans (1950), with Lanza playing a singing fisherman and Grayson as an opera singer. Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone (1950) was a mystery played for laughs, and Rich, Young, and Pretty (1951) had Jane Powell as a diplomat’s daughter who visits Paris, where she falls in love and meets her mother (Danielle Darrieux) for the first time.