William Keighley

William Keighley (born August 4, 1889, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died June 24, 1984, New York City, New York) was an American director whose films, most notably with James Cagney and Errol Flynn, ranged across a variety of genres.

While still a teenager, Keighley began acting onstage, and in 1915 he made his Broadway debut. He also directed plays, notably Penny Arcade in 1930. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Hollywood and began working for Warner Brothers, where he would make most of his films. In 1932 he served as an assistant director on movies for William Dieterle and Michael Curtiz. That year Keighley also codirected (with Howard Bretherton) his first feature, The Match King. An effective fable for the Great Depression, it was based on the life of Swiss financier Ivar Kreuger. Another collaboration with Bretherton, Ladies They Talk About (1933), featured Barbara Stanwyck as a convicted bank robber sent to prison.

In 1934 Keighley earned his first solo-directing credit with Easy to Love. That year he made five other features, including the comedies Kansas City Princess, Big Hearted Herbert, and Babbitt, the latter a solid adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s satirical novel about middle-class American values. Keighley was also busy in 1935, helming five more films. Although most were forgettable, Keighley found critical and commercial success with the crime drama ‘G’ Men, which starred Cagney. After the disappointing Al Jolson musical The Singing Kid (1936), Keighley returned to the crime genre with Bullets or Ballots (1936), in which an undercover detective (played by Edward G. Robinson) is pitted against a mob boss (Barton MacLane) and his henchman (Humphrey Bogart). Then came the biblical musical The Green Pastures (1936), an adaptation of Marc Connelly’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The African American cast was highlighted by Rex Ingram, who gave impressive performances as De Lawd, Adam, and Hezdrel. Keighley codirected the film with Connelly, and it was a box-office hit, though audiences today have objected to its racial stereotypes.

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In 1937 Keighley had another success with The Prince and the Pauper, which was based on Mark Twain’s popular novel. Flynn was well cast as a heroic soldier of fortune, and Claude Rains delivered a fine performance as a villainous royal adviser. The musical Varsity Show (1937) was memorable for its Busby Berkeley-choreographed finale. Keighley then reteamed with Flynn and Rains on The Adventures of Robin Hood, one of the biggest hits of 1938. Keighley, however, was replaced halfway through the production by Curtiz, though both men received directing credits. In addition to its success at the box office, the film won three Academy Awards and earned a nomination for best picture. Keighley’s other credits from 1938 included Brother Rat, a lively version of the popular play of the same name, with Eddie Albert, Wayne Morris, and Ronald Reagan as three military cadets.

It was then back to the crime genre with Each Dawn I Die (1939), a prison film starring Cagney and George Raft. In 1940 Cagney appeared in two other Keighley productions: the World War I drama The Fighting 69th and Torrid Zone, a comedy adventure set on a Central American plantation. No Time for Comedy (1940), a praised adaptation of a S.N. Behrman play about a pretentious playwright, teamed James Stewart and Rosalind Russell. In 1941 Keighey directed both the romantic drama Four Mothers, a sequel to Curtiz’s Four Wives (1939), and The Bride Came C.O.D., a screwball comedy notable for the pairing of Cagney and Bette Davis. Although Keighley’s record with comedy had been mixed, Warner Brothers entrusted him with one of their most expensive acquisitions, the Broadway hit The Man Who Came to Dinner, which was written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The 1942 adaptation was a success, with fine performances by Davis and Monty Woolley, who re-created his stage role with verve. Nearly as funny was George Washington Slept Here (1942), which was based on another popular Kaufman-Hart play; it starred Jack Benny, Ann Sheridan, and Charles Coburn.

During World War II, Keighley produced training films for the military. Noted for his mellifluous voice, he later was a host for CBS radio in the 1940s and ’50s, and his film work waned. After Honeymoon (1947), a tepid romance starring Shirley Temple, Keighley directed The Street with No Name (1948), a noir featuring Richard Widmark as a menacing gangster who is being hunted by the FBI. In 1950 he made Rocky Mountain, one of Flynn’s least memorable efforts, but Close to My Heart (1951) is an effective melodrama with Gene Tierney and Ray Milland. Keighley’s final film was The Master of Ballantrae (1953), a Flynn swashbuckler that was a moderate hit. He later became an accomplished photographer.