
Directing
William A. Seiter
Born 1890-06-10 · New York City, New York, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia William A. Seiter (June 10, 1890 - July 26, 1964) was an American film director. He was born in New York City. After attending Hudson River Military Academy, Seiter broke into films in 1915 as a bit player at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, doubling a cowboy. He graduated to director in 1918. At Universal Studios in the mid-1920s, Seiter was principal director of the popular Reginald Denny vehicles, most of which co-starred Seiter's then wife Laura La Plante (his second wife was actress Marian Nixon). This period also included The Beautiful and Damned and The Family Secret. In the early talkie era, Seiter helped nurture the talents of RKO's comedy duo Wheeler & Woolsey in such rollicking features as Caught Plastered (1931) and Diplomaniacs (1933). He also directed the Laurel and Hardy feature Sons of the Desert (1933), their only film together. Other films include Sunny, Going Wild, Kiss Me Again, Hot Saturday, Way Back Home, Girl Crazy, Rafter Romance, Roberta, Room Service, Susannah of the Mounties, Allegheny Uprising, You Were Never Lovelier, Up in Central Park, and One Touch of Venus. Among the many stars directed by Seiter during his long career were Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Margaret Sullavan, Jack Haley, Deanna Durbin, Jean Arthur, John Wayne, Fred MacMurray, Lucille Ball, Rita Hayworth and the Marx Brothers. While many of his films were minor gems, Seiter was capable of turning out bad movies once in a while. For example, if he ran into friction from his star—as was the case with Lou Costello in 1946's Little Giant -- Seiter would get even by adhering religiously to the script, refusing to add any nuance or creativity to the project (this pettiness may have been the reason that one prominent actress of the 1930s referred to Seiter as the most unimaginative director she'd ever worked with). On his final four films, before he retired in 1954, Seiter functioned as both producer and director. These films included The Lady Wants Mink (1953), a gentle satire of the then topical "raise your own coat" craze. He died in Beverly Hills, California, of a heart attack, aged 74.
Acting credits
Behind the camera
6.8Ad man Stephen Dexter asks his secretary Kendall to marry him as a loophole in order to protect his finances during an important business deal. Once the deal is completed, he asks Kendall for a divorce and is dismayed when she refuses.
Hired Wife
1940
6.8Ad man Stephen Dexter asks his secretary Kendall to marry him as a loophole in order to protect his finances during an important business deal. Once the deal is completed, he asks Kendall for a divorce and is dismayed when she refuses.
Hired Wife
1940
7.1Ollie and Stan deceive their wives into thinking they are taking a medically necessary cruise when they are really going to a lodge convention.
Sons of the Desert
1933
7.1Ollie and Stan deceive their wives into thinking they are taking a medically necessary cruise when they are really going to a lodge convention.
Sons of the Desert
1933
7.1Football player John Kent tags along as Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagement in Paris, only to lose it immediately. John and company visit his aunt, owner of a posh fashion house run by her assistant, Stephanie. There they meet the singer Scharwenka (alias Huck's old friend Lizzie), who gets the band a job. Meanwhile, Madame Roberta passes away and leaves the business to John and he goes into partnership with Stephanie.
Roberta
1935
6.5Broke Gordon Miller tries to land a backer for his new play while he has to deal with with the hotel manager trying to evict him and his cast.
Room Service
1938
8.0Young Southerners Buck Hineman and Remington Osbury both are in love with the same woman, who promises to marry the one who returns when the Civil War breaks out. On the battlefield, Remington is wounded and left for dead, and Buck returns to marry her. Shortly afterward, Remington returns and contents himself with becoming one of the Hineman family.
The Kentucky Colonel
1920
7.1An Argentine heiress thinks a penniless American dancer is her secret admirer.
You Were Never Lovelier
1942
8.3Alain's uncle sends him to France to toughen him with his aviator friend Pierre. He meets Suzanne on the voyage and fights for her love against José in an airplane.
The Aviator
1931
8.0Waterfront is a 1928 silent film released with sound effects and music, produced and released by First National Pictures. The film was directed by William A. Seiter and starred Dorothy Mackaill and Jack Mulhall, then a popular duo under the First National banner.
Waterfront
1928
6.5ZaSu Pitts and Slim Summerville meet when both are sold deeds to an abandoned ranch in the California desert. Their lonely lives become much more crowded when a drifter discovers gold on the property—though all he’s found is Slim’s missing filling. (adapted from MoMA capsule)
Love Birds
1934
7.4An auto engineer and a professor's daughter pose as married servants in a mobster's mansion.
If You Could Only Cook
1935
6.5An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.
If I Had a Million
1932
6.0Radio singer Glory Eden is publicized as the ideal of American womanhood in order to sell the sponsor's product Ippsie-Wippsie Washcloths. In reality, Glory would like to at least sample booze, jazz, gambling, and men. When the strain of representing "purity" brings her to rebellion, the sponsor and his nutty henchmen pick her a public-relations "sweetheart" from fan mail, who turns out to be a hayseed.
Professional Sweetheart
1933
6.7A window dresser's kiss brings a statue of the Roman goddess of love to life.
One Touch of Venus
1948
6.7Chin-Ching gets lost in Shanghai and is befriended by American playboy Tommy Randall. She falls asleep in his car which winds up on a ship headed for America. Susan Parker, also on the ship, marries Randall to give Chin-Ching a family.
Stowaway
1936
5.3Lou Costello plays a country bumpkin vacuum-cleaner salesman, working for the company run by the crooked Bud Abbott. To try to keep him under his thumb, Abbott convinces Costello that he's a crackerjack salesman. This comedy is somewhat like "The Time of Their Lives," in that Abbott and Costello don't have much screen time together and there are very few vaudeville bits woven into the plot.
Little Giant
1946
6.8Carol Corliss, a beautiful movie star so insecure about her celebrity that she goes around in disguise, meets a rugged outdoorsman who is unaffected by her star status.
In Person
1935
5.6The Los Angeles police know that Pete Ritchie has been bringing drugs into the city, but they can't pin a single piece of evidence on him. After many botched attempts to get at the crook, they resort to having cop Madeleine go undercover and seduce her way into Ritchie's circle. Before she can get anywhere, she's abducted by Johnny, a government agent posing as a thug. But Johnny and Madeleine have no idea they're on the same side of the law.
Borderline
1950
7.5Barbers Willy Nilly and Hercules Glub have opened a barbershop in an Indian reservation, where they have no customers. When suddenly a white man asks for a shave, several Indians of the Oopadoop nation also enter, hearing the usual barbershop banter about foreign debts, they force them to be ambassadors of their nation at the Peace conference in Geneva. Ammunition industry executive Winkelreid is scheming to prevent their mission becoming an success, but the vamp Dolores aboard the ship fails, falling in love with Nilly, and so does Fifi, the toughest person of the world in Paris, falling for Glub. Although Winkelreid is able to steal their secret papers, Nilly and Glub don't give up after being reminded by constant observation of their Indians and enter the Peace conference, which turns out to be a battlefield...
Diplomaniacs
1933
6.0A single mother in New Mexico senses her own death in the hands of a mysterious stalker.
Make Haste to Live
1954
5.9A city girl on a bus tour of the West encounters a handsome rodeo cowboy who helps her forget her city suitors.
A Lady Takes a Chance
1943
5.0While breaking into a bank safe, a gangster overhears a bank employee singing and decides to put her in a Broadway revue
Sing and Like It
1934
5.8A young woman's ambitious boyfriend falls for a ditzy socialite.
Chance at Heaven
1933

