Rowland V. Lee

Rowland V. Lee (born September 6, 1891, Findlay, Ohio, U.S.—died December 21, 1975, Palm Desert, California) was an American film director of silent and sound pictures who worked in a variety of genres.

Born to stage-veteran parents, Lee began performing at an early age. In 1917 he started acting in films, but, after serving in the military during World War I, he returned to Hollywood intent on directing. In 1920 he made his directorial debut with the drama A Thousand to One. He then worked prolifically; in 1928 he made five films, most notably Doomsday and The First Kiss, both featuring Gary Cooper.

Although Lee did not contribute much of lasting value to the silent era, in 1929 he directed The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu, one of the best talking pictures from that transitional year. It was an adaptation of a Sax Rohmer novel, and it starred Warner Oland as the evil genius. In 1930 Lee helmed the sequel The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu, which also featured Oland and Jean Arthur.

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The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) was an exemplary adaptation (coscripted by Lee) of Alexandre Dumas’s classic adventure story. It starred Robert Donat as Edmond Dantès, a man unjustly imprisoned who escapes and seeks revenge against those who betrayed him. Cardinal Richelieu (1935) was a well-mounted historical drama, with George Arliss as the crafty Richelieu and Edward Arnold as the manipulatable Louis XIII. Lee’s version of The Three Musketeers (1935)—which he also cowrote—suffered from a middling cast, but Love from a Stranger (1937; also known as A Night of Terror) was a gripping thriller, notable for Basil Rathbone’s performance as an opportunist who marries a woman (played by Ann Harding) for her money. The Toast of New York (1937) was a compelling (if fanciful) biopic of 19th-century American financier James Fisk; Arnold, Cary Grant, and Frances Farmer starred. Next was the family drama Mother Carey’s Chickens (1938), which was about a widow raising three children.

In 1939 Lee made arguably his best film, Son of Frankenstein. It was the third entry in Universal’s series and the last to star Boris Karloff as the monster. Bela Lugosi was unforgettable as the demented Ygor, Lionel Atwill was memorable as the one-armed Inspector Krogh, and Rathbone was efficient as the eponymous character. Although not as terrifying as James Whale’s earlier films in the series, Son of Frankenstein was a critical and commercial success. Tower of London (1939) was less impressive, but Karloff and Rathbone were effective as, respectively, an implacable executioner and the cold-blooded Richard Plantagenet, duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III). The historical adventure The Sun Never Sets (1939) teamed Rathbone and Atwill with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., to good effect.

The Son of Monte Cristo (1940), with Louis Hayward as Dantès’s avenging son, was a solid swashbuckler. But The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944) failed to capture the tragic scope of Thorton Wilder’s novel, and Captain Kidd (1945) was a feeble pirate yarn, even with Charles Laughton in the title role. Lee subsequently retired from directing, and he later opened a movie ranch in the San Fernando Valley. Among the films shot there were Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955), and William Wyler’s Friendly Persuasion (1956).