Dudley Murphy: Difference between revisions

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Line 1: '''Dudley Murphy''' (July 10, 1897 – February 22, 1968) Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in [[Winchester, Massachusetts]]. He began making films in the early 1920s after working as a journalist<ref name="FilmEnc">The Film Encyclopedia, First Edition, Thomas Y. Crowell, Pub., 1979</ref>. In his first [[short film]], ''Soul of the Cypress'' (~~[[1920 in film\|1920]]~~1921), a variation on the [[Orpheus]] myth, the film's protagonist falls in love with a dryad (a wood nymph whose soul dwells in an ancient tree) and throws himself into the sea to become immortal and spend eternity with her. Murphy's then-wife Chase Harringdine played the dryad. Murphy followed this with ''Danse Macabre'' (1922) featuring [[Adolph Bolm]], [[Olin Howland]], and [[Ruth Page]]. Both of these early films are on the ''Unseen Cinema'' DVD issued in 2005 (see link below). Murphy's eighth film, ''[[Ballet mécanique]]'', which he ~~codirected~~co-directed with the French artist [[Fernand Léger]], premiered on 24 September 1924 at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International Exposition for New Theater Technique) in Vienna. Considered one of the masterpieces of early experimental filmmaking, ''Ballet mécanique'' also included creative input from [[Man Ray]] and [[Ezra Pound]], and was presented at the exposition by [[Frederick Kiesler]]. The film was scheduled to be screened with [[George Antheil]]'s masterpiece of the same name. However, the music ran close to 30 minutes, while the film was 17 minutes long. In 2000, Paul Lehrman produced a married print of the film.<ref>[http://www.antheil.org Paul Lehrman's website devoted to the film and music ''Ballet Mecanique]</ref> In her book ''Dudley Murphy: Hollywood Wild Card'', film historian Susan Delson argues persuasively that Murphy was the film's driving force but that Léger was more successful at promoting the film as his own creation. ''Ballet mécanique'', with the [[George Antheil]] music originally written for the film, was included in the DVD collection ''[[Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941\|Unseen Cinema]]'' released in October 2005.