Harry Fraser (director)
Harry L. Fraser (31 March 1889 – 8 April 1974) was an American film director and screenplay writer. BiographyBorn in 1889 in San Francisco, Fraser directed over 80 films between 1925 and 1951, including the 1934 John Wayne film Randy Rides Alone and the Frank Buck 1937 cliffhanger serial Jungle Menace. He had a small acting role in the John Wayne film 'Neath the Arizona Skies. He also wrote screenplays. In his autobiography, Fraser described filming a scene in Jungle Menace in which a boa constrictor attacks the heroine Dorothy (Charlotte Henry). The villain has tied Dorothy hand and foot and she thrashes about wildly, terrified when she suddenly sees the huge snake:
Fraser, like fellow silent-film directors William Beaudine, Christy Cabanne, Elmer Clifton, and Lambert Hillyer, was a resourceful director who could be relied upon to deliver a professional-quality feature film on ever-decreasing budgets. Fraser was exceptionally adept in this regard, as both a director and scriptwriter. He became the favorite director of the Weiss Brothers, who usually worked with tight schedules and rock-bottom budgets, and padded out their features with reels of footage taken from Weiss's older films. Fraser would be assigned to work the old films into new storylines. Fraser's efficiency was noted by the serial unit at Columbia Pictures, where he worked as a second-unit director and scriptwriter for The Spider Returns (1941), Batman (1943), and Chick Carter, Detective (1946), among other cliffhangers. Fraser died in 1974 in Pomona, California, eight days past his 85th birthday. Partial filmography
References
External links |