
Directing
Fred C. Newmeyer
Born 1888-08-08 · Central City, Colorado, USA
A native of Central City, Colorado, Newmeyer is best known for directing a handful of films in the Our Gang series and for directing several Harold Lloyd movies. With Sam Taylor, Newmeyer co-directed Lloyd in films including Safety Last! (1923), Girl Shy (1924), and The Freshman (1925). Newmeyer also had an extensive directing and acting resume in other comedy short films. He appeared as an actor in 71 films between 1914 and 1923. Prior to his film career, Newmeyer played professional baseball. Partial statistics exist for his time as a left-handed pitcher in Minor League Baseball at the Class D level from 1911 to 1913 in the Southwest Texas League, Michigan State League, and Central Association.[6] He made at least 66 appearances and was the winning pitcher of at least 26 games. Newmeyer was the original director of the first short in the Our Gang series, also titled Our Gang; his version tested poorly, and producer Hal Roach scrapped most of the footage and remade the short with Robert McGowan as the director. Newmeyer, after directing numerous other shorts at Roach, returned to the Our Gang series in 1936 to direct The Pinch Singer, Arbor Day, Mail and Female and the feature film General Spanky. Newmeyer and his wife, Berna, had a son, Fred W. After his film career, Newmeyer worked with the athletic department of University High School in Los Angeles. Newmeyer died on April 24, 1967, in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 78.
Acting credits
7.7When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.
Safety Last!
1923
4.9Lonesome Luke has a movie theater and also works the box office and as an usher. He has to put up with, among other things, an incompetent projectionist who falls asleep all the time. Complications ensue.
Luke's Movie Muddle
1916
6.2After a wild bachelor party, our hero finds himself aboard a sailing vessel where he encounters numerous adventures. In a dream sequence, he fantasizes that the ship is seized by a band of female pirates.
Captain Kidd's Kids
1919
6.9A young playwright spends his last cent to pay the past-due rent for the pretty dancer who's his boarding house next-door neighbor. Soon after, he winds up at a gambling club, where he wins big - just before a police raid.
Bumping Into Broadway
1919
NRLuke is an inept detective who follows the wrong man to a seaside hotel.
We Never Sleep
1917
5.9While running away from his girl's father, Harold's car breaks down in front of a dance hall run by crooks. Harold has to not only stay one step ahead of the girl's father, but also those trying to rob them of everything they have.
Young Mr. Jazz
1919
NRLuke, running a chili parlor, inherits a million dollars and joins high society.
Birds of a Feather
1917
NRLuke runs a beanery, in which the bad service, terrible food and filthy conditions lead to hi-jinx.
Luke's Late Lunchers
1916
5.2In pre-historic times (dream sequence), our hero, in a loin cloth, battles other cavemen over the opposite sex.
Clubs Are Trump
1917
6.1Harold and his rival fight over Bebe on her birthday, first at her home and then at a nearby skating rink.
Don't Shove
1919
NRLonesome Luke asleep in the briny deep.
Luke and the Mermaids
1916
4.6Snub Pollard plays a drunken man-about-town who believes Harold has robbed him. Meanwhile, Bebe has her hands full with a lounge lizard who won't take no for an answer.
Step Lively
1917
5.0Our hero is a janitor in a old age rest home who actually runs the place.
Pipe the Whiskers
1918
A short film starring Harold Lloyd.
The Tip
1918
6.5While at an amusement park, trying vainly to forget the girl he has lost, a young man sees the girl with her new boyfriend. When her dog gets loose in the park, both suitors have to help her catch it. Then, the girl's uncle, a balloonist, gives her a pass for two in his balloon, provided that her mother approves. She then offers to take along the first of her admirers who is able to get her mother's consent.
Number, Please?
1920
5.9Snitch steals Ginger's (stolen) baseball tickets and takes Ginger's girl to the game. Finding himself without tickets, Ginger dresses as a baseball player and wins the game. A possible debut of the "Glasses" or "Boy" character.
Over the Fence
1917
NRLuke, a mechanic, stands in for a famous violinist. At first, his bad manners and rough behavior are accepted as the eccentricities of genius. Then matters get out of hand.
Luke's Society Mixup
1916
NROut west, Luke changes clothes with an outlaw and proceeds into town. Of course, he is mistaken for the wanted man and a chase ensues.
Luke Rides Roughshod
1916
NRLuke crashes a society affair, thereby livening things up.
Luke, Rank Impersonator
1916
5.9Billy Blazes confronts Crooked Charley, who has been ruling the town of Peaceful Vale through fear and violence.
Billy Blazes, Esq.
1919
NRLuke, working in a fireworks factory.
Luke's Fireworks Fizzle
1916
NRAs a detective, Luke is after a gang of crooks who are robbing party guests of their jewels.
Luke Locates the Loot
1916
5.7A bumbling American soldier saves a girl from a bunch of Cossacks.
A Sammy in Siberia
1919
5.0Harold invades the "Gilded Guzzle" café, where he appropriates a lady's roll of money, hides under a table and impersonates a cigar store Indian.
It's a Wild Life
1918
Behind the camera
7.7When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.
Safety Last!
1923
6.2A young man, unaccustomed to children, must accompany a young girl on a train trip.
Now or Never
1921
6.8Country doctor Jack Jackson is called in to treat the Sick-Little-Well-Girl, who has been making Dr. Saulsbourg and his sanitarium very rich after years of unsuccessful treatment.
Dr. Jack
1922
6.5A hypochondriac vacations in the tropics for the fresh air - and finds himself in the middle of a revolution instead.
Why Worry?
1923
6.9Harold Meadows is a shy, stuttering bachelor working in a tailor shop, who is writing a guidebook, The Secret of Making Love, for other bashful young men. Fate has him meet rich girl Mary, and they fall in love. But she is about to wed an already married man, so our hero embarks upon a hair-raising daredevil ride to prevent the wedding.
Girl Shy
1924
6.4A meek young man must find the courage within when a rogue tramp menaces his hometown.
Grandma's Boy
1922
9.0Bert, a pitcher for a baseball team in a small town, is given the opportunity to try out for a team in the big leagues. Unfortunately, he incurs the enmity of McRae, the league's leading home-run hitter. In addition, he falls for the team owner's daughter, who McRae has designs on.
Warming Up
1928
7.0An unathletic college freshman ridiculed by his peers for his mannerisms strives to become popular by making the football team.
The Freshman
1925
7.0A boxer falls in love with a girl he meets in the park.
The Night Bird
1928
5.3Private detective Donegal Dawn is summoned by the police commissioner to solve the reasons for a crime wave in Chinatown.
Secrets of Chinatown
1935
8.0Officer John Brown is after the outlaw known as the Night Rider. Posing as Jim Blake he takes a job on the Rogers ranch. He finds the secret passage from the Rogers mine to the Rogers house used by the Night Rider and also a note written by the Night Rider to his henchmen. Practicing his hand writing, he has a plan to trap him.
The Night Rider
1932
6.9A young man schemes to drum up business for his girlfriend's employer but after seeing her being intimate with another man, he attempts to commit suicide.
Never Weaken
1921
6.5Elmer Stone, quarterback of the 1899 Colton College football team vows to remain a student until Colton beats its biggest rival, State University. Twenty-seven years later, Elmer is still in school and is a classmate of his son, Jack. Other than driving a milk wagon in his spare time, Jack is also the quarterback of the football team. A matter of his eligibility comes up but he is cleared and goes out to do-or-die for Colton against State University. Maybe they will win The Big Game, and Jack's father can get a life...and a job.
The Quarterback
1926
6.8Lloyd's look at married life and the issues of the in-law. Adventures include a ride on a crowded trolley with a live turkey; A wild spin in a new auto with the in-laws in tow. Finally, a sequence in which Hubby accidentally chloroforms his mother-in-law and becomes convinced that he's killed her!
Hot Water
1924
9.0Jerry Willard, a clerk in a publishing house who is possessed of a massive inferiority complex, is fired from his job and, on the way out of the office, is mistaken for the boss, Watson, by Anne Rogers, the daughter of an author.
It Can Be Done
1929
5.3A wealthy family is thrown into turmoil when the daughter falls for the family chauffeur and the son begins to keep company with a chorus girl.
Fast and Loose
1930
9.0Bob Hamilton gets into trouble when crooks cause the defeat of his father's horse in the Derby, and it is reported he is in with the crooks. The old man disowns him and his sweetheart, Patricia , breaks their engagement. So Bob and "Skipper", the also-suspected trainer, head for the western tracks, taking with them the horse Hamilton Senior forced them to buy, determined to make good and prove they are on the level.
The Big Race
1934
Snub and his wife give up their bungalow and allow another couple to move in. Then it develops that they can't find another home, and must live in an improvised tent.
Raise the Rent
1920
9.0Rivalry between two behavioral scientists gets out of hand...
The Savage
1926
6.3Prizefighter Jimmy Nolan, facing an opportunity to get a championship fight, is knocked out when he sustains what is apparently a permanent injury to his arm. From there, Nolan's path leads downhill. He is drawn into a romance with a nightclub entertainer, then is framed on a theft charge by a jealous suitor. After his prison term, Nolan makes a spectacular comeback in a fight which proves his courage and integrity, while disproving the fallacy about the old sports adage that "they never come back."
They Never Come Back
1932
9.0A wealthy bachelor lies his way out of a speeding ticket by telling the cops he's on his way to visit his baby girl in hospital - ever helpful, they accompany him whereupon a little girl attaches herself to him, with hilarious results.
That's My Daddy
1927
7.0Silent boxing sports comedy about a boxer whose grandmother wants him to be a ballet dancer, so he has the boxers at his training camp pose as ballet dancers to fool granny, with predictable results
On Your Toes!
1927
6.5The two partners of a ladies' garter business are constantly feuding with each other. When they ask their lawyer to dissolve their partnership, he proposes that instead the two of them play a single poker hand: the loser to become the winner's personal manservant for a year.
Queen High
1930
In this family comedy, the wealthy executive of a steel company must endure life with a strict, teetotaling wife, a wild daughter, and a deadbeat son. To gain some much needed attention, the lonesome fellow hires a hitman to kill him. Instead, the gunman kidnaps him to frighten the family into appreciating their devoted father.
No Ransom
1934