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King directed three films in ’40. LITTLE OLD NEW YORK, with Alice Faye and Fred McMurray, was an entertaining story about Robert Fulton’s troubles with his steamboat, distinguished by carefully reproduced atmosphere of early New York. MARYLAND, with Walter Brennan, Fay Bainter, Brenda Joyce and John Payne, effectively deployed the beauty of the Maryland countryside and the splendors of horses and horse racing. And CHAD HANNA was a bright, entertaining film in color about the romantic side of circus life, based on Walter D.Edmonds’ Red Wheels Rolling, with Henry Fonda as the farm boy who ran away to join the circus.

King’s ’41 pictures were minor ones – A YANK IN THE RAF, a wartime triangle between Tyrone Power, Betty Grable and Reginald Gardiner, with RAF footage of reconnaissance and bombing flights, and REMEMBER THE DAY, a tearjerker with Claudette Colbert and John Payne about a school teacher whose brief secret marriage was terminated by her husband’s death in World War I.

King’s one picture in ’42, THE BLACK SWAN, was an old-fashioned swashbuckler about pirates and the Spanish Main based on a Rafael Sabatini novel, with Tyrone Power and Maureen O’Hara.

The following year saw one of King’s best films THE SONG OF BERNADETTE. He put the story of little Bernadette Soubirious, whose vision brought the Grotto of Lourdes into existence, on the screen with both delicacy and power. The sentimental weaknesses of the script, and of Franz Werfel’s novel, were largely obscured by Jennifer Jones’ performance and King’s direction.

THE SONG OF BERNADETTE was followed by WILSON, an impressive, and inadequately appreciated, film. The public and private life of Woodrow Wilson, from his days at Princeton until his tragic fight for the League and his departure from the White House, were shown against an extraordinarily accurate background. Alexander Knox was surprisingly good as Wilson, and the huge mass of factual material utilized in that picture was stirringly dramatized by both scenarist (Lamar Trotti) and director.

King’s pictures during the next five years were good, but not exceptional. A BELL FOR ADANO (’45) was an adequate filmization of the Hershey novel, with a good performance by John Hodiak; MARGIE (’46) was a curious piece of nostalgia for the ’20s with Jeanne Cram and Glenn Langhan; CAPTAIN FROM CASTILLE (’47) was broad, sombre pageantry about the conquest of Mexico, starring Tyrone Power and Jean Peters; DEEP WATERS (’48) was a poignant story of a delinquent boy among the lobstermen of Maine, with Dean Stockwell, Anne Revere, Dana Andrews and Jean Peters, and sepia photography enhancing the Maine landscape; THE PRINCE OF FOXES was a big, costume drama made in Italy about Cesare Borgia (Orson Welles), with some excellent sixteenth century warfare.

Then, in ’50, one of King’s major films was released. TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH was a creative depiction of the morale problem during our daylight bombing of Germany. Gregory Peck has never given a better performance than that of the general who assumed the leadership of demoralized men. Almost every member of the cast gave a good performance, and Dean Jaggers won an Academy Award for his. Actual USAF footage was used for the air battles.

King’s THE GUNFIGHTER was also released in ’50. He surrounded its tragic theme – a gunfighter’s attempt at regeneration – with a great deal of local color. Gregory Peck’s performance was so effective that a melodramatic conclusion did not wholly invalidate this unjustly forgotten film.

In ’51 King directed an even more unjustly forgotten film – I’D CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN. Based on A CIRCUIT RIDER’S WIFE by Corra Harris, and shot in a small town in the Georgia mountains, it depicted humorous and poignant occurrences in the life of a backwoods preacher of the early 1900s. William Lundigan and Susan Hayward were a bit too glamorized, but a good and down-to-earth cast helped to make convincing the film’s “message” that simple religious, faith can and does give plain people comfort and strength.

The following year King directed a relatively inexpensive film that was promoted as a major spectacle – DAVID AND BATHSHEBA. Its architecture, furnishings, costumes and armor were more interesting than its retelling of the story about David and another man’s wife. David’s life as a shepherd boy was skillfully sketched in well-handled flashbacks.

WAIT TILL THE SUN SHINES NELLIE, released in ’52 as a piece of Americana, was too synthetic and melodramatic a story about a barber in a small town to be believable, and David Wayne and Jean Peters (in a dual role) didn’t help. Also released in ’52 was the 5-episode O. HENRY’S FULL HOUSE. Its best episode, “The Gift of the Magi,” with Farley Granger and Jeanne Cram, was directed by King.

One of King’s major films – he has said it is his best was also released in ’52: THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO. It had a brilliant script by Casey Robinson, which supplied background and connective tissue for Hemingway’s famous story, and truly brilliant direction (see FILMS IN REVIEW, Oct. ’52). Ava Gardner really acted, a phenomenon she said was due to King, and Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward and Hildegarde Neff were all appropriately cast and creatively directed. THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO has been grossly under-estimated.

King’s first picture in CinemaScope, KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES (’54), with Tyrone Power, Terry Moore and Michael Redgrave, was a re-make of John Ford’s ’29 version of the Talbot Mundy novel called BLACK WATCH, and was not a success. Nor was King’s subsequent picture UNTAMED (’55), with Power and Susan Hayward. LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, with William Holden and Jennifer Jones, also released in ’55, was merely elaborately mounted soap opera.

King’s direction of CAROUSEL (’56) has been much impugned and it must be admitted it was uninspired. The static quality of which critics complained may have been due to the fact that Carousel was shot in 55mm CinemaScope, the cinematographic problems of which are still unsolved.

Nor was THE SUN ALSO RISES (’57) a success. Its flaws, however, were not King’s (see FILMS IN REVIEW, Oct. ’57). Peter Viertel’s script was inadequate and Darryl Zanuck, who produced, hired the wrong actors. Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Eddie Albert and Errol Flynn were too old for their roles.

THE BRAVADOS, with Gregory Peck, released earlier this year, was a so-called “neurotic Western” with an unbelievable plot.

A few months ago, for the first time in a quarter century, King contracted to direct a picture for a company other than Fox. It is a drama called THIS EARTH IS MINE, with Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons, for Universal-International.

Like all great directors Henry King is a believer in pre-planning, and rehearsal. He helps his actors, even to acting out the individual parts himself, and has often assumed the blame for failings that were theirs. He has never been known to lose his temper. The members of his technical crew rarely change: Leon Shamroy has photographed a dozen of his pictures, and Barbara McLean has edited 25.

He is a tall, heavy-set man, father of four children, and a faithful friend. He once liked to drive racing cars. More recently his relaxations have been golf, fishing, reading, and, above all, piloting a plane.

His most creative thoughts, he says, have come to him as he soloed in his cabin plane ten or more thousand feet above this earth.

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