Wissenswertes

His extraordinarily long career lasted from 1911-61. During that time he worked under contract at the following studios: Universal (1913-14), Paramount (1917-18, 1923-26), Fox (1926-27, 1929, 1931-32, 1935-40, 1957), United Artists (1944-45), Republic (1949-54) and RKO (1954-55).

He was Gloria Swanson's favorite director. After he began to work for Triangle in 1916, he also won the respect of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who were, at that time, the most powerful couple in the film business.

He worked for an illumination company in Chicago, installing Cooper-Hewitt lamps at the Chicago Post Office, opposite the Essanay film studio. Essanay exec George K. Spoor thought the lights could prove useful in movie photography and contracted Dwan to design a bank of lights. Dwan soon graduated to scenario editor. His first directing assignment arrived almost by accident: he was "pressed into service" by the American Film Co. when one of its directors went AWOL on an alcoholic binge.

Interviewed in Peter Bogdanovich's "Who the Devil Made It: Conversations With Robert Aldrich, George Cukor, Allan Dwan, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Chuck Jones, Fritz Lang, Joseph H. Lewis, Sidney Lumet, Leo McCarey, Otto Preminger, Don Siegel, Josef von Sternberg, Frank Tashlin, Edgar G. Ulmer, Raoul Walsh." NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

According to Kevin Brownlow's "The Parade's Gone By", Dwan thought he'd directed over 1400 films, including one-reelers, between his arrival in the industry (circa 1909) and his final film in 1961.

Co-founder of Associated Producers, Inc., 1919.

Graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in engineering.

It was Dwan, rather than D.W. Griffith, who devised the famous crane shot used in Intoleranz (1916). He also pioneered the dolly shot in 1915.

Dwan is buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, CA, Section F, Tier 18, Grave 62. He had once used the mission grounds as a location for his silent feature Goldjäger in Kalifornien (1929). Just as he was fond of opening his films with a poem after the main credits, Dwan wrote the epitaph on his grave marker in verse: "Look Down, Oh Lord, and bless me with thy grace / And make me worthy of thy sacrifice / And after death to look upon thy face / And earn, perhaps, a place in paradise".

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 283-291. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Interviewed in "Talking to the Piano Player: Silent Film Stars, Writers and Directors Remember" by Stuart Oderman (BearManor Media).

Founder of Allan Dwan Productions, a film production company active from 1919-1921.

President of Dwan Film Corp., formed in 1922.

Directed one Oscar nominated performance: John Wayne in The Sands of Iwo Jima.