Edward Bernds

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Edward Bernds
Born	July 12, 1905(1905-07-12) Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died	May 20, 2000 (aged 94) Van Nuys, California
Years active	1929-1965

Edward Bernds (July 12, 1905 - May 20, 2000) was an American film director born in Chicago, Illinois.

1 Career
2 Directing the Three Stooges
3 Later years
4 References
5 External links
6 Three Stooges film directed by Bernds

[edit] Career

While in his junior year in Lake View High School, he and several friends formed a small radio clique and obtained amateur licenses. In the early 1920s there was considerable prestige for an amateur operator to have commercial radio licenses, and Bernds was in a good position to get into broadcasting when he graduated in 1923, a year when radio stations began popping up all over Chicago. He found employment — at age 20 — as chief operator at Chicago's WENR.

When talking pictures burst onto the scene in the late 1920s, Bernds and broadcast operators like him relocated to Hollywood to work as sound technicians in "the talkies." After a brief stint at United Artists, Bernds quit and went to work at Columbia, where he worked as sound man on many of Frank Capra's '30s classics. He soon established himself as Columbia's best recording technician.

[edit] Directing the Three Stooges

In 1945, Bernds became a screenwriter and director, first for the Three Stooges short subjects. His first effort with the team was the lackluster A Bird in the Head, which featuring an ailing Curly Howard. The 41-year-old Howard had suffered a series of minor strokes prior to filming; as a result, his performance was marred by slurred speech, and slower timing. Though Bernds was initially thrilled at being a director, he was horrified when he realized that Curly was in such bad shape (something Columbia short subject head/director Jules White failed to alert Bernds of).^[1] Years later, Bernds discussed his trying experience during the filming of A Bird in the Head:

"It was an awful tough deal for a novice rookie director to have a Curly who wasn't himself.^[2] I had seen Curly at his greatest and his work in this film was far from great. The wallpaper scene was agony to direct because of the physical movements required to roll up the wallpaper and to react when it curled up in him. It just didn't work. As a fledgling director, my plans were based on doing everything in one nice neat shot. But when I saw the scenes were not playing, I had to improvise and use other angles to make it play. It was the wallpaper scene that we shot first, and during the first two hours of filming, I became aware that we had a problem with Curly." ^[3]

Realizing that Curly was no longer able to perform in the same capacity as before, Bernds devised ways to cover his illness. Curly could still be the star, but the action was shifted away from the ailing Stooge. In A Bird in the Head, the action focuses more on crazy Professor Panzer and Igor. This allowed Curly to maintain a healthy amount of screen time without being required to contribute much. ^[4]

Bernds first release, the Three Stooges film Micro-Phonies, secured his directing position at Columbia Pictures for seven years.

Bernds often commented that he and Jules White never really got along. As a result, Bernds feared that his directing days would be over as soon as they began if he released A Bird in the Head with a weak Curly as his first entry. Producer Hugh McCollum reshuffled the release order, and the superior Micro-Phonies was released first, securing Bernds directing position. ^[5] Bernds struggled through three additional films with Curly on board (The Three Troubledoers, Monkey Businessmen and Three Little Pirates) until the comedian suffered a debilitating stroke that ended his career. When Shemp Howard replaced his brother Curly as the third, Stooge, it breathed new life into the Stooges' films, and allowed Bernds to add new flair and wit to the team's antics.

Bernds also began directing the feature-length Blondie comedies with Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake. While at Columbia, Bernds usually worked for producer Hugh McCollum; when the Columbia shorts department downsized in 1952, McCollum was fired and Bernds quit the studio, out of loyalty to McCollum.

[edit] Later years

An assignment at the Allied Artists studio, directing action features starring Stanley Clements, led Bernds into Allied Artists' breadwinning series starring The Bowery Boys. Bernds directed Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and company as though he was still working with the Three Stooges; the Bernds efforts in the series have the most slapstick content.

Bernds has the distinction of receiving an Oscar nomination by mistake. In 1956 the Academy nominated him and co-writer Ellwood Ullman for the screen story to High Society. The Academy actually intended the nomination to be for the big-budget Frank Sinatra-Bing Crosby musical. Bernds and Ullman did make a film in 1955 called High Society — but theirs was a low-budget feature with The Bowery Boys. Graciously and voluntarily, Bernds and Ullman withdrew their nomination, though it still stands in the record books.

Bernds graduated to dramatic features in the late 1950s, although he was reunited with the Three Stooges in the 1960s for their feature films, and the live-action portions of their TV cartoons. He and Ullman also collaborated on an Elvis Presley feature for Allied Artists, Tickle Me. His best-known work from this time period is arguably the 1959 horror film Return of the Fly.

Bernds's autobiography is "Mr. Bernds Goes to Hollywood," ISBN 0810836025, published in 1999. It details the earlier stages of his career, before he was a director. Bernds's directorial career is chronicled in "The Columbia Comedy Shorts," ISBN 0786405775, first published in 1986; Bernds wrote the foreword and is quoted throughout.

Outliving most of his peers, Edward Bernds died peacefully on May 20, 2000, in Van Nuys, California.

[edit] References

^ Lenburg, Jeff; Howard Maurer, Joan; Lenburg, Greg; (1982). The Three Stooges Scrapbook, p. 76, Citadel Press. ISBN 0806509465
^ Fleming, Michael (1999). The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons, p. 79, Broadway Publishing. ISBN 0767905567
^ Lenburg, Jeff; Howard Maurer, Joan; Lenburg, Greg; (1982). The Three Stooges Scrapbook, p. 76, Citadel Press. ISBN 0806509465
^ Solomon, Jon. (2002) The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion, p. 272-273; Comedy III Productions, Inc., ISBN 0971186804
^ Fleming, Michael (1999). The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons, p. 80, Broadway Publishing. ISBN 0767905567