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Surely the most versatile of Hollywood Directors, and although his name rings no bells, Gordon Douglas - sometimes billed as Gordon M. Douglas, created a remarkable piece of work, his cinematic career spanning over five decades.

Indeed, what Hollywood film director could boast having helmed such a spectrum of personalities ranging in the 30's, from a hoofing Al Jolson, through an action western with Randolph Scott in the '40's, rambling on to culminate in rock sensation Elvis Presley (Follow that Dream) in the '60's and even Raquel Welch in 1970?

As a film director, Gordon Douglas was anything but a specialist. Whatever genre, you can think of - he did it ! Whether : gangster pictures, war pictures, political docu and satires, sci-fiction, slapsticks, biopics, musicals, westerns, swashbucklers, creepies, weepies - he made them all.

A Tribute to Gordon Douglas organized by the French Cinematheque during the first 5 weeks of the year, enabled cinephiles to discover the many periods and talents of this extraordinary American film director.

Born "Gordon Douglas Brickner", he began acting as a child at age three, for the Hal Roach Studio and after graduating, he appeared in Florenz Ziegfeld's Glorifying the American Girl (1929) and later made his way up to codirecting some Laurel and Hardy films. That experience, coupled with his ten-minute "Our Gang" comedies led to an Oscar when he was 27 in 1936 for Live Action short. When Roach sold out to MGM, Douglas directed two MGM "Our Gangs" and disliking the big outfit structure, went back to work for Hal Roach.

In Hollywood in 1930s, he went through all the ropes, working as casting director, prop man, gag man, screenwriter, assistant editor and assistant director, until he finally broke through as director. One of his first assignments was the Douglas directed 19 Our Gangs and four features for Roach, including Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea (1940) and The Devil with Hitler (1942).

The 1940's saw Douglas working for RKO, a dozen 'B' low-budget pictures, including First Yank into Tokyo (1945), the story of an American soldier, who succumbs plastic surgery to make him pass as a Japanese in order to save an American scientist in a War Camp, with a formula for the Atomic Bomb.

In the 1950's, Douglas made the same number of films at Warner Bros. One of the best known was the red-scare I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951), starring Frank Lovejoy as a true-life repentant Slovenian ex-Commie who turns his shirt under the caption:'... I learned every dirty trick in the book and had to use them - because I was a Communist - but - I Was a Communist for the FBI'. In a period of similar hyper anti-Communist studio features,such as 'I Married a Communist', the picture managed to receive an Oscar nomination as the year's Best Documentary Feature.

During his 15 year contract with Warner's, Gordon Douglas made his greatest successes.His westerns and crime dramas for Warners met with critical and financial success, and it was during this period that he made what is considered one of the classic sci-fi films of the era.

Them !, a prophetical science-fiction portrayal of giant ants as a mutation of the Atomic Bomb invading Los Angeles and menacing humanity. This could now be taken as one of the first environmental films portraying the consequences, still unknown of manipulating nature.

Although some of his films may now be considered 'turkies', they procured considerable enjoyment for post-war audiences in the 1950s and 1960s, hungry for distraction after experiencing World War II.

Later films dealt with less traditional themes such as in The Detective, where Frank Sinatra plays a tough cop investigating murder in wealthy homosexual circles.

While at Warner Bros, Douglas ekked some superb performances in dramas from James Cagney, Gig Young, James Gleason, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, John Garfield and other top-notch actors.This period began his association with Frank Sinatra for several police-detective genre movies including Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), Tony Rome (1967), The Detective (1968) and Lady in Cement(1968), with Raquel Welch.

Gordon Douglas also directed such stars as Bob Hope, Elvis Presley, Alan Ladd and Gregory Peck. By the late seventies, his last movies were action pics starring the likes of Sydney Poitier, James Coburn as Flint and a comedy starring Elvis Presley in "Follow That Dream".

Although little is known of his personal life, it seems he found the time to get married three times and raise three kids.

Gordon Douglas died recently in 1995, aged 85, of cancer, after a tremendously fruitful career in Hollywood for our enjoyment, thanks to the Cinematheque Francaise`s retro of this great artist.