Edward Buzzell

Edward Buzzell (born November 13, 1895, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died January 11, 1985, Los Angeles, California) was an American filmmaker, songwriter, and actor who directed a number of B-movies and musicals, earning a reputation for speed and economy.

(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)

Early in his career, Buzzell performed in vaudeville and on Broadway. After acting in silent comedies—including the feature films Midnight Life (1928) and Little Johnny Jones (1929), the latter of which he wrote—he began writing, directing, and performing in a series of comedy shorts at Columbia. He was promoted to director of features in 1932, and during that first year directed The Big Timer, Hollywood Speaks, and Virtue, the last with Carole Lombard as a prostitute reformed by a taxicab driver (played by Pat O’Brien). Child of Manhattan and Ann Carver’s Profession (both 1933) were melodramas, while The Girl Friend (1935) was a musical starring Ann Sothern and Jack Haley. Buzzell then spent three unproductive years at Universal, shooting a slate of B-movies that included Transient Lady (1935) and As Good as Married (1937).

In 1938 Buzzell moved to MGM, where the B-movies were of a higher quality. He began working with such performers as Robert Young and Eleanor Powell (Honolulu [1939]) and the Marx Brothers (At the Circus [1939]; Go West [1940]). Ship Ahoy (1942)—which features an uncredited Frank Sinatra in one of his first films, singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra—was well received, while Keep Your Powder Dry (1945), starring Lana Turner, Laraine Day, and Susan Peters as feuding Wacs, was not. In 1946 Buzzell remade the screwball classic Libeled Lady (1936) as Easy to Wed, with a cast that included Van Johnson, Lucille Ball, and Esther Williams.

Song of the Thin Man (1947) featured Myrna Loy and William Powell, and it was a fine closing entry for the popular Thin Man series of films that had spun off from the detective novels of Dashiell Hammett. Neptune’s Daughter (1949)—Buzzell’s final MGM picture—was a pleasant vehicle for Esther Williams, and it featured “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which earned noted songwriter Frank Loesser an Academy Award for best original song and which became a pop standard.

Buzzell’s last pictures were light fare. The best, Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1955), released by Universal, was an effective mix of music and solid acting by Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, Mamie Van Doren, and Jack Carson; Buzzell cowrote the screenplay for the film, which should not be confused with the 1978 musical concerning the Harlem Renaissance.