Harry Beaumont (1888-1966) is not regarded today as a great cinematic auteur, and perhaps he shouldn't be in terms of such matter as camera placement, shot composition, and so forth (and to be fair, he started directing back in the cinematic Dark Ages). But perhaps he ought to be given a second look at to WHAT he shot, the stories he told, for these seem to coalesce into a voice.
Originating in Kansas, Beaumont took up with traveling stock companies as an actor in his youth, winding up in New York by around 1911. Whereupon he began going before the cameras at the Edison Studio in nearby New Jersey. Beaumont acted in more films (over 100) than he directed, though he is better remembered for his work behind the cameras. His acting career was essentially over by 1916, by which time he had begun directing. After Edison, he went to Essanay, and finally to Hollywood where he worked for most of the major studios, most notably MGM (once it was founded, if course). He married Hazel Daly, who starred in many of his early films.
It's in the twenties, The Jazz Age, that Beaumont really gets cooking, and this is when his body work seems to cohere in something greater. For example he directed the first screen versions of Sinclair Lewis's Main Street (1923) and Babbitt (1924), both hitting the century mark about now. He also directed the great flapper classics Our Dancing Daughters (1928) and Our Blushing Brides (1930), both vehicles that helped establish Joan Crawford as a star. He also directed the original (silent) The Gold Diggers (1923) and, while he didn't direct the more famous sequels, he did go on to helm many similar musicals and Broadway-related stories, which interest me in particular. This body of work includes The Broadway Melody (1929), The Floradora Girl (1930), Children of Pleasure (1930), Lord Byron of Broadway (1930), Those Three French Girls (1930), Dance Fools Dance (1931), Laughing Sinners (1931), and West of Broadway (1931).
Was this is a glut? Yes, and audiences famously got tired of musicals for awhile in the early '30s. Less memorably, Beaumont also directed melodramas and mysteries throughout his career both before and after that musical period. The Joe E. Brown comedy When's Your Birthday? (1937) was his last picture for several years. Then he returned for quite a good stretch in the mod to late '40s. He directed three of Ann Sothern's "Maisie" pictures: Maisie Goes to Reno (1944), Up Goes Maisie (1946), and Maisie Undercover (1947), as well as the 1946 remake of George Kelly's The Show-Off, starring Red Skelton. His last was Alias a Gentleman (1948) starring Wallace Beery.
For more on show biz history, please consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, for more on silent and early film please check out: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.
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