Notes (and Images) on Frank Tuttle

"Tuttle’s importance as a communist comes from the fact, first, that he is recognized as a very capable motion picture director and, moreover, he is considered to be an excellent teacher of motion picture methods." The first serious appraisal of Frank Tuttle (1892-1963) in writing was not penned by a critic but an admiring FBI agent, who had the ‘red’ director under surveillance, adding these notes to his secret dossier.

With Bebe Daniels on location

Probably the only famous silent film director to get into trouble during the McCarthy era, Tuttle was once one of Paramount Studio’s stars, with a knack for comedies and extracting memorable performances from female stars. A few years later he was a "double-threat talking picture hep cat" who knew how to navigate the troubled waters of early sound. Flourishing again during the Second World War, his work had mutated, becoming darker and more personal. It is during this time that he made his most memorable films. It’s hard to think of a figure more American in his aspirations, sense of irony and effortless creativity; and one so quick to fade into oblivion.

Circa mid 1940s

Raised in a well-off family, Tuttle worked as a script doctor from the early 1920s. By the end of 1921 he had started his own company, Film Guild, whose productions included historical films made for Yale University (of which he was an alumnus). In 1922 he made his first film, The Cradle Busters, but when the company started to struggle it was a proposition from Allan Dwan which lured him to Hollywood. By the mid-1920s he was fully established as a director of light comedies, preferring to work with starlets such as Bebe Daniels, Clara Bow and Esther Ralston. The success of his early sound films and a subtle change of direction from comedies to dramas in the ’30s revealed other facets of Tuttle’s artistry. The 1930s and early ’40s were the peak of Tuttle’s career until the purge of red elements in Hollywood forced him to work as a freelancer, with some odd yet impressively directed projects in Europe.

Even if Tuttle’s political line was that of cocktail-party Marxism and boy-scout materialism, that didn’t stop him from throwing into his films some progressive ideas which defied Hollywood genres, took stylistic liberties, and offer surprises in both dramatic and visual senses. The relative consistency of his long career, with a good number of highlights, makes it a perfect entry into the world of inspiring imperfections, of masters on the margins. — Ehsan Khoshbakht

Hollywood figures banned by General Franco of Spain in 1937, including Frank Tuttle. It was in reaction to their support of Spanish Republic.

In Paramount with Clara Bow