Edward Dmytryk was born to Unkranian immigrants in British Columbia on September 4, 1908, but grew up in Hollywood. Dmytryk left home at age 14 because his father beat him, and a friend got him a job as a messenger at Famous Players-Lasky Studios. Realizing that his survival and getting through high school depended on his job he learned everything that he could, graduating to splicer, and then projectionist, where he could do homework in between changing 12 minute reels. He also got to watch when directors screened rough cuts of films, and he spent every free moment observing the shooting of films on the nearby stages. Hector Turnbull, one of the supervisors at Famous Players, paid the tuition for Dmytryk’s first year of university, but after one year, he realized there were few opportunities for a mathematical physicist, so he took a job as a projectionist at Paramount. In the re-ordering that followed the introduction of sound, he became an assistant cutter. Tired of lifting film cans, he pushed to become an editor. However, he was only 22 when he lost his job after a new team took over Paramount.

Dmytryk managed to survive being unemployed for seven months during the Depression until he was rehired by the studio. He spent three years as an assistant cutter until the introduction of B films enabled him to become a full editor. Cutting films for directors like Henry Hathaway and George Cukor taught him a great deal, and he was eventually allowed to shoot small scenes. In 1939, he was hired to direct B movies at $250 a week, and he became a US citizen. Although he directed some decent B pictures, he lost his job again in 1940 when a new head of production came in and wanted to start fresh with a clean slate.

Dmytryk found work directing B movies at Columbia, but the fear that he was in danger of becoming a hack drove him to give the studio an ultimatum, no more B movies. The studio chose no more Dmytryk. Six months of almost no work convinced him to return to Columbia and B movies. However, the success of Hitler’s Children for RKO in 1943 finally won him entry to A movies.

When America entered WWII, director Frank Capra was assigned by the War Department to form a Signal Unit that would produce training films and propaganda films for the military. Like most of Hollywood, Dmytryk offered his services as an editor but was surprisingly not accepted. He later found out that he had been considered a security risk since unlike mainstream America, he had realized that Fascists were dangerous before Pearl Harbor. In 1944, he helped put together film courses with the People’s Education Center, which was ahead of its time, since few universities offered any type of film courses. At the same time, the Writer’s Mobilization Group was attempting to organize study groups to explain the causes and reasons behind the war. Believing that these groups were the only ones trying to improve society, involvement in those groups led to him joining the Communist Party in late 1944. Later that year, he filmed Back to Bataan (1944) where he met returning soldiers and officers from the Philippines who universally condemned General Douglas MacArthur.

The love affair with the Communist Party did not last long. Dmytryk and fellow member Adrian Scott had arranged for a left-wing writer to prepare the script for Cornered (1945), but it was so full of lengthy, overtly Communist propaganda speeches that he was paid, and then politely let go. The writer, John Wexley, accused them of making a pro-fascist film, and the dogmatic attitude of the rest of the local communists drove both Scott and Dmytryk to quit the party.

Dmytryk was one of RKO’s top directors when he was summoned to appear in front of HUAC on October 23, 1947. He was originally looking forward to confronting the right-wing element in Hollywood. The 19 leftists who had received summons met at Lewis Milestone’s house, where they agreed that all decisions must be unanimous, and then strictly followed, which Dmytryk soon came to regret. Their chances were good at first because the committee seemed like bullies, and many powerful Hollywood people supported them. Unfortunately, some members of the group began shouting shrilly, and the group lost public support. Worse, Dmytryk was fired by RKO on November 28, 1947, one day after the meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria where the studio heads agreed to fire anyone who would not pledge that he was not a communist. He had refused to make the pledge, and was let go despite a supposedly ironclad contract. Unlike writers, he couldn’t work under the table, and he had just completed an expensive divorce settlement. In April 1948, two members of the Ten, John Lawson and Dalton Trumbo, had been tried for contempt of Congress, and the remaining members of the Ten had already agreed that they would be bound by the decision. He managed to find work in England while the Ten’s case was being tried by the Supreme Court.

After seeing Robert Rossen being ripped apart by Lawson because All the King’s Men (1949) wasn’t critical enough, and being told to say on the witness stand that they believe in freedom of speech for communists, but not fascists, Dmytryk realized that he didn’t want to be part of the Ten anymore. He was sentenced on June 29, 1950, and his six-month sentence was considered lenient, but his experience in prison made him realize that no prison film has ever been harsh enough or showed enough despair.

Dmytryk had decided to break with the rest of the Ten before going to prison but he didn’t do anything because he didn’t want to look like he was avoiding prison. He made a statement while in prison on September 9, 1950 that he was not a Communist or a Communist sympathizer, but he still had to finish out his full sentence. However, he was still on the blacklist, and both the IRS and his ex-wife wanted a lot of money. The only way off the blacklist was to appear before HUAC, and answer everything. Dmytryk decided to testify because every name he knew already had been mentioned, and once he was off the blacklist, he signed a four picture deal with Stanley Kramer just after High Noon was finished. The films, including Eight Iron Men (1952) and the Juggler (1953), had small budgets, and did not do well but he was working again. His fourth film for Kramer was the Caine Mutiny (1954), and it proved to be a big hit, thus winning him re-admission to the big leagues. He then did Broken Lance (1954), Soldier of Fortune (1955), and a couple of more moderately successful movies, until he was given Raintree County (1957), MGM’s attempt to produce another Gone With The Wind.

Following the end of the studio system, Dmytryk worked on projects for different studios, always signing short-term contracts, but he never set up a production company of his own. He did not have a stock company or relationship with a specific actor like that between John Ford and John Wayne or Anthony Mann and James Stewart, but he often worked with Richard Widmark, who gave several of his better performances.

Dmytryk continued to make successful, intelligent films such as The Young Lions (1958), Warlock (1959), Alvarez Kelly (1966) and Anzio (1968). His experiences with the Communist Party destroyed any desire to produce message films that banged the audience on the head. Instead, he preferred to make entertaining films with an interesting perspective like Warlock and Anzio.

However, by the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Dmytryk was viewed as an old-timer, and had fallen out of fashion, so he was not getting many scripts. As a result, he began teaching film theory and production at the University of Texas in 1976 and then received a chair in filmmaking at the University of Southern California in 1981, as well as wrote several books on the practical aspects of filmmaking. He passed away on July 1, 1999.

Historical Movies:

Mystery Sea Raider (1940)
Starring Carole Landis and Henry Wilcoxin
A freighter captain and his fiance fall into the hands of Nazis who plan to use the freighter as a mother ship for U-boats during WWII.
Behind the Rising Sun (1943)
Starring Margo and Tom Neal
A young engineer returns to Japan after completing his studies in America and begins working for an American engineer, but when he is drafted and sent to fight in China, the shock of witnessing atrocities causes him to embrace the growing militaristic mood.
Tender Comrade (1943)
Starring Ginger Rogers and Robert Ryan
Four female defense plant workers whose husbands are all fighting in the military during WWII share a house.
Back to Bataan (1945)
Starring John Wayne and Anthony Quinn
After the fall of the Philippines during WWII, an American colonel stays behind to lead Filipino guerillas against the Japanese occupation force.
Cornered (1945)
Starring Dick Powell and Walter Slezak
After the war, a Canadian pilot tracks down the Nazi who betrayed a French Resistance group during WWII
Till the End of Time (1946)
Starring Guy Madison and Robert Mitchum
Three WWII veterans have trouble adjusting to life after the war
Crossfire (1947)
Starring Robert Young and Robert Mitchum
Several demobilized American soldiers are accused of murdering a man and the police detective investigating the case discovers that anti-Semitism is the cause
Mutiny (1952)
Starring Mark Stevens and Angela Lansbury
An American captain tries to smuggle gold through a British blockade during the War of 1812 while preventing his crew from mutinying and taking the gold for themselves
Eight Iron Men (1952)
Starring Lee Marvin and Bonar Colleano
While waiting to be furloughed, a squad of GIs in Italy during WWII, debate whether or not to leave the safety of their basement to search for a missing soldier
The Juggler (1953)
Starring Kirk Douglas and Milly Vitale
A German survivor of the concentration camps relocates to Israel in 1949, a year after it was founded, but finds it difficult to forget the horrors that he experienced.
The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Starring Humphrey Bogart and Jose Ferrer
When the captain of a small US Navy ship in the Pacific during WWII is relieved of his command because he has shown symptoms of insanity, a court martial must determine whether or not it was mutiny.
Broken Lance (1954)
Starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner
A cattle baron destroys a copper smelter that is polluting his water but one of his sons takes the responsibility and serves time in prison. When he is finally released and learns that his other brothers caused his father's death, he seeks revenge.
Soldier of Fortune (1955)
Starring Clark Gable and Susan Hayward
A mercenary helps a woman free her husband from Communist China
The Left Hand of God (1955)
Starring Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney
An American pilot shot down over China near the end of WWII poses as a Catholic priest at a small mission to avoid being forced to serve a local warlord. Although he intends to escape at the first opportunity, he finds that he is both falling in love with one of the nurses and accepting the responsibility that comes with being a priest.
Raintree County (1957)
Starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor
A young schoolteacher leaves his high school sweetheart for a tempting Southern belle but discovers that insanity runs in her family. Frustrated by a loveless marriage, he joins the Union army.
The Young Lions (1958)
Starring Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift
WWII is seen through the eyes of three soldiers, one German and two American, who enlisted for different reasons and gradually become disillusioned with the senseless destruction and killing.
Warlock (1959)
Starring Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark
A town hires a famous gunman to serve as marshal and deal with a gang of outlaws that is terrorizing the inhabitants. However, the situation becomes complex when a group of townspeople decide that hiring a gunman is illegal and persuade a reformed member of the gang to serve as sheriff.
The Reluctant Saint (1962)
Starring Maximilian Schell and Ricardo Montalban
A young man, thought by many in his village to be an idiot, is pushed to join a monastery. To everyone's surprise, he passes the examination to become a priest and his natural humility and holiness eventually win him canonization as Saint Joseph of Cupertino
Alvarez Kelly (1966)
Starring William Holden and Richard Widmark
A Mexican cattleman has no interest in the Civil War, just money, but after delivering a herd of cattle to Union troops beseiging Richmond, he is kidnapped by a Confederate officer and forced to help smuggle the cattle across enemy lines.
Anzio (1968)
Starring Robert Mitchum and Peter Falk
Allied forces land at Anzio, Italy but are unable to expand the beachhead and breakthrough the German lines

Books:

It’s a Hell of a Life But Not a Bad Living-Edward Dmytryk, New York: Times Books, 1978.

An enjoyable book, it is a good, honest memoir, he talks as much about the evolution of movies, as he does about his own life. He doesn’t ramble, and he puts across part of the chilling atmosphere in prison. His career after prison was successful enough that he does not wallow in bitterness, just tells what happened, at least as he saw it.