Lambert Hillyer

Lambert Hillyer (July 8, 1893 – July 5, 1969) was an American film director and screenwriter. He is best known today for his many western features, his horror films The Invisible Ray and Dracula's Daughter , and the first Batman serial.

Lambert Harwood Hillyer was born July 8, 1893, in Tyner, Indiana ^[1] (his 1946 resumé amended this to South Bend, Indiana).^[2] His mother was character actress Lydia Knott.^[3] A graduate of Drake College,^[4] he worked as a newspaper reporter and short-story writer, then as an actor in vaudeville and stock theater. During World War I he began working in motion pictures with the Mutual company. He began his career as a director with Paramount-Artcraft, then First National, Goldwyn, and Fox. He became a specialist in westerns, working on many silent features starring William S. Hart, Buck Jones, Tom Mix, and others.

Hillyer expanded into romantic melodramas and crime films in the 1920s. In 1936 he directed two chillers for Universal, the science-fiction film The Invisible Ray and the cult horror film Dracula's Daughter .

He directed many features for Columbia Pictures in the 1930s and early 1940s. Some were major productions like The Defense Rests (1935) with Jack Holt and Jean Arthur, but most were low-budget action features. In 1940 he was assigned to Columbia's Charles Starrett westerns, including The Durango Kid (1940), which later inspired a popular series. When Starrett left the studio temporarily,^[5] Hillyer was reassigned to the Bill Elliott series, which he directed through 1942. One of Hillyer's most famous credits is the Batman serial (1943), which was memorable enough to be re-released in 1954, 1962, and 1965. The 1965 revival inspired the very successful Batman TV series.

After his tenure with Columbia ended in 1943, Hillyer moved to RKO Radio Pictures briefly, where he directed a Tim Holt western and a pair of two-reel comedies with Leon Errol. Hillyer then began a six-year association with Monogram Pictures, first with the Sam Katzman crime story Smart Guy and then a series with the studio's newest cowboy star Johnny Mack Brown. Hillyer also directed Monogram's other western leads Jimmy Wakely and Whip Wilson.

Like many directors who were accustomed to low budgets and speedy schedules, Lambert Hillyer made a smooth transition to the new field of television. He directed 40 episodes of the syndicated Western The Cisco Kid . Hillyer also directed seven episodes of Highway Patrol , which starred Broderick Crawford. His last assignment came in 1957, a single episode of the secret-agent show The Man Called X , under the pseudonym Lambert Hill.

Hillyer died July 5, 1969, in Los Angeles, California.^[6]

In addition to writing screenplays for many of the films he directed, as noted above, Hillyer wrote or contributed to the screenplays for these motion pictures.

• Lambert Hillyer at IMDb

• 1893 births
• 1969 deaths
• American male screenwriters
• Film directors from Indiana
• Screenwriters from Indiana
• Writers from South Bend, Indiana
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American screenwriters

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