Happy Birthday, Jack Arnold! Born today in 1916 as Jack Arnold Waks, this American actor and film and television director was best known as one of the leading filmmakers of 1950s science fiction films.
He would eventually went on to become one of the most beloved B-movie directors in the history of Hollywood.
Born on a kitchen table in New Haven, Connecticut, Arnold was a son to Russian immigrant parents. As a child, he read a lot of science fiction, which laid the foundations for his genre films of the 1950s.
Arnold hoped to become a professional actor. In his late teens, he enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
His classmates included Canadian actor of stage and screen Hume Cronyn, American film and stage actress Betty Field and American writer and director of plays and film Garson Kanin.
After graduating, Arnold worked as a vaudeville dancer. In 1935, he began getting roles in Broadway plays.
He was acting in the 1940 American comedy stage production "My Sister Eileen" when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Afterwards, he immediately enlisted as a cadet for pilot training.
While Arnold intended to become a pilot, a shortage of planes meant he was temporarily placed in the Signal Corps, where he took a crash course in cinematography.
He then became a cameraman and learned the techniques of filmmaking by assisting Robert J. Flaherty ('Nanook of the North', 'Louisiana Story') on various military films.
At the war's end, with Arnold's term of service ended, he later formed a partnership with an air squadron buddy Lee Goodman to form a film production company. Their new company, called Promotional Films Company, made fundraising films for various non-profit organizations
He also continued acting on stage during this period, including a revival of Ben Hecht and American playwright, screenwriter and Academy Award winner Charles MacArthur's 1928 American Broadway comedy stage production "The Front Page".
Arnold later played opposite Bela Lugosi and American actress and singer Elaine Stritch in the 1947 American stage production "Three Indelicate Ladies".
By the following decade, after Arnold's documentary films had received more exposure, he was commissioned to produce and direct the 1950 American black and white documentary film 'With These Hands'.
The film told about the working conditions of the early 20th century. It was a recreation of the Triangle Fire of 1911 that helped to compare working conditions of the 1910s and 1950s.
The following year, 'With These Hands' was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. However, it didn't win. This occurred at the 23rd Academy Awards in late March.
Arnold directed a number of 1950s science fiction films. Of these, he was known from the early 1950s for directing the 1953 American black and white science fiction horror 'It Came from Outer Space' and the 1954 American black-and-white 3D monster adventure/horror film 'Creature from the Black Lagoon'.
Of the late 1950s, he was known for directing the 1955 American black and white science fiction giant monster film 'Tarantula' and the 1957 American black and white sci-fi/drama film 'The Incredible Shrinking Man'.
Later that same year after the release of 'Tarantula', Arnold began his television career in directing four episodes of the American black and white science fiction anthology television series Science Fiction Theater (1955–1957).
Arnold's main collaborator at Universal Studios was American western and science fiction/monster movie film producer and writer William Alland.
Arnold's 1955 American black-and-white horror/science fiction film 'Revenge of the Creature' was Clint Eastwood's debut film, uncredited as Jennings. However, Alland had written the story.
Later that same year, Eastwood also had another uncredited role as Jet Squadron Leader in 'Tarantula'.
Of the last two films mentioned, both are noted for their atmospheric black-and-white cinematography and sophisticated scripts.
However, 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' is considered Arnold's "masterpiece"; a fantasy film with few equals in intelligence and sophistication, notes Australian-born author, journalist and filmmaker John Baxter. While all the films display a "sheer virtuosity of style and clarity of vision."
While on a boating trip, Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is exposed to a radioactive cloud. Nothing seems amiss at first, but several months later Scott realizes that he's shrunk in height by several inches. He sees a doctor, who admits that he's baffled.
As Scott continues to shrink, decreasing to three feet tall, he becomes bitter, and lashes out at his wife, Louise (Randy Stuart). He begins to fear a cure will never be found -- since even as he becomes a national sensation, he's still shrinking.
The film was based off of American fantasy, horror and science fiction author and screenwriter Richard Matheson's 1956 science fiction novel "The Shrinking Man".
Arnold is also credited for his work as director on the small screen. Most notably, these included Perry Mason (1957–1966), Rawhide (1959–1965), The Mod Squad (1968–1973), The Brady Bunch (1969–1974), Wonder Woman (1975–1979), and The Love Boat (1976–1990).
During this time, Arnold co-directed the two-hour-and-a-half 1980 American made-for-television biography/drama film Marilyn: The Untold Story. It aired on September 28 of that year, and starred American actress Catherine Hicks as Monroe.
Five years later, Arnold won the President's Award at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1985.
Seven years later, Arnold passed of arteriosclerosis in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California on March 17, 1992. He was 75.
Later that year, the UCLA Film Archive held a tribute "Jack Arnold: The Incredible Thinking Man" film festival, which screened a number of his films.
The Archive also produced and screened a film about his life with the ten-minute 1992 American biographical documentary short film 'The Incredible Thinking Man'.
Baxter later said of the famed B-movie director: "Jack Arnold dominated the science fiction field during his brief career. No imprint lingers so indelibly on the face of modern fantasy film as that of this obscure yet brilliant artist.
All his films, no matter how tawdry, were marked with a brilliant personal vision. He exists as an éminence grise on the horizon of fantasy film, inscrutable, mysterious, almost impossible both to analyze and to ignore."
Arnold's films are distinguished by moody black and white cinematography, solid acting, smart, thoughtful scripts, snappy pacing, a genuine heartfelt enthusiasm for the genre and plenty of eerie atmosphere.
Science fiction as a storytelling genre spans decades, but Arnold's films in the 1950s truly modernized and popularized sci-fi cinema for American audiences. Today, he is considered one of the leading auteurs in the science-fiction genre of the 1950s.
Arnold encapsulated the hopes and anxieties of the era, and although he is not as well-known as his contemporaries, He helped establish the most significant trends in American sci-fi and defined the genre for years to come.
Arnold had been active from 1947–1984.
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