Delmer Daves was an American screen-writer, film director and producer. He was the producer on 8 films including: "Bird of Paradise" and "Spencer's Mountain." Actor in 13 films, Director of 30 films including: "Hollywood Canteen", "Demetrius and the Gladiators", "A Summer Place".
Background
Delmer Daves was born on 24 July 1904 in San Francisco, California, United States. He was the son of Arthur Lawrence (a businessman), and Nan (maiden name, Funge) Daves.
Delmer Daves was born with not only a knack for storytelling but also an interest in the creation of words. Displaying artistic sensibilities from childhood, Daves began reproducing the Gothic calligraphy he found in his church hymnals at age eleven.
Education
Delmer studied engineering at Stanford University and got law degree in 1927. In addition to his interest in lettering, Daves was also active in drama during these early years.
Upon graduating from law school, Daves moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. Armed only with an introduction from a classmate at Stanford, Daves approached James Cruze, a director/producer who was currently working on a film titled The Covered Wagon. Daves impressed Cruze enough to hire him as an assistant in the prop department. From there, Daves’s career in film bloomed.
Soon he was working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, first in the props department, and then as an actor and advisor on the 1929 film The Duke Steps Out. To get his next job as a technical advisor on the film So This Is College, Daves had to submit ideas for the film to its director Sam Wood. Not only did he create ideas, but Daves also wrote a part for himself, so impressing Wood that he hired Daves to become a staff writer. From here, Daves would focus his energies, between 1929 to 1943, to screenwriting for various studios.
Daves’ early work reflects his basic understanding of how Hollywood operated. According to Joy Boyer, writing for Dictionary of Literary Biography, “Daves learned that movies were a commercial product necessarily crafted within the limitations of technical facilities, time, and budget. A good film was one that showed a profit; a good script, one that gave the public the story they wanted. His early scripts ... reflected this awareness. They risk little and remain faithful to tried-and- true conventions.”
Most of Daves’s early work focused on the romantic genre. His most successful scripts of this period were the films of Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler. In these films, the formula was good vs. evil, with a definite struggle and evident personal growth. What they lacked in variety, they made up for in box office success, providing Daves with a track record to continue writing. Some of these films include Dames and Flirtation Walk, both made in 1934, and Shipmates Forever, filmed in 1935.
After 1936, Daves’s writing became less formulaic, and more confident. The best films of this era were 1936’s The Petrified Forest, 1939’s Love Affair, and 1942’s You Were Never Lovelier.
In addition to his screenwriting career, Daves began working as a director in 1943. His first effort was the war film. Destination Tokyo, which he also wrote. However, he did direct a few films that he didn’t write. These films include To The Victor, Broken Arrow, and The Badlanders. He also began producing his films in 1959, providing him with greater creative freedom.
In the late 1950s, and early 1960s, Daves began writing romantic films with an air of melodrama. These films include A Summer Place, Parrish, and Rome Adventure. While these were not his best films, they nonetheless reflected his literary talent. When other writers failed to please studio executives, Daves was called in to fix an ailing script. This was the case with 1959’s A Summer Place. No one else had produced a satisfactory draft of Sloan Wilson’s novel, so Daves was called in to doctor the script. He turned in such a successful draft that he not only received writing credit, but he also got the opportunity to direct and produce.
In the 1970s, Daves received numerous accolades from his peers, both locally, and abroad. He died August 17, 1977.