Cy Endfield
| Cy Endfield | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Cyril Raker Endfield November 10, 1914 Scranton, Pennsylvania |
| Died | April 16, 1995 (aged 80) Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, United Kingdom |
| Occupation |
Film director screenwriter theatre director author magician inventor |
Cyril Raker Endfield (November 10, 1914 – April 16, 1995) was an American screenwriter, film director, theatre director, author, magician and inventor, based in Britain from 1953.
Endfield was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended Yale University and began his career as a theatre director and drama coach, becoming a significant figure in New York's progressive theatre scene. It was largely the shared interest of magic that led Orson Welles to become aware of Endfield and his recruitment as an apprentice for Mercury Productions (then based at RKO Pictures). One of his independent films was "Inflation" (1940), a 15-minute commission for the Office of War Information that was rejected as being anti-capitalist.
The debacle surrounding the production of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) ended with the expulsion of the Mercury team from the RKO lot and Endfield signed on as a contract director at MGM where he directed a wide variety of shorts (including the last films in the long-running Our Gang series), before freelancing on low-budget productions for Monogram and other independents. He served in the Army in World War II.
It was with the film noir The Underworld Story (1950), a United Artists independent production released, that Endfield first came to critical and studio attention. The film was a major leap from anything he had previously produced in regards to budget and social commentary; a coruscating attack on press corruption which could equally be taken as a wider attack on the McCarthyite ideology of the times. He followed this with the film often cited as his masterpiece,The Sound of Fury (aka Try And Get Me!), a lynching thriller based on a true story. Except for the lynch scene, the film was not well received by critics. It was with these two films that Endfield's signature approach to character developed, pessimistic without being uncompassionate.
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