The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House

Although usually billed as 'Frank R. Capra' (the 'R' stands for 'Russell') his name in reference books rarely includes that middle initial, with the IMDb repeating that omission. Here billed on his directorial debut in lettering almost as big as original author Rudyard Kipling, the middle initial was probably an early way of qualifying among the big boys like D. W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille and Thomas H. Ince.

Already recognisably the work of the preCode Capra who made worldly entertainments like 'Platinum Blonde' and 'Bitter Tea of General Yen' rather than the tiresome fellow later responsible for didactic screeds like 'You Can't Take It With You'; 'Fultah Fisher' also anticipates Longfellow Deeds by a good fifteen years with a hero who responds to opposition with a punch in the face rather rather than simply engaging in negotiation.

Fulta Fisher's Boarding House (1922)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This film is based on the Rudyard Kipling poem and tells the story of a port where seamen stop to drink, fight and pass out. Anne of Austria (Mildred Owens) is the popular woman that everyone loves to flirt with but she's with Hans (Olaf Skavlan) who soon finds himself in a fight over her.

FULTA FISHER'S BOARDING HOUSE is best remembered today because it was the first film directed by the one and only Frank Capra. Watching this film today there's certainly nothing here that tells you the man behind the camera would become a legend but at the same time he does a nice job with the material. The "material" is rather lacking as there's really not too much that happens. There's the introductions that are done very well. We then see a fight and then the conclusion. I did like the setting of the film and thought Capra did a good job with what he had to work with. Mildred Owens is okay in the lead role but she's certainly nothing special.

The gift of gab can open career doors, especially if the speaker is persuasive enough to secure a competitive position despite having a thin resume. Such was Frank Capra's situation, who would become one of cinema's most inspirational directors, when he was a struggling 25-year-older. As a frustrated, impoverished book-seller in San Francisco, he answered a newspaper ad calling for a qualified professional to direct short movies based on famous poems. Besides working in a high school film project and coordinating a short documentary in 1921, Capra was able to convince the producer he could do the job. For $75 a week, the new hire spent two days directing April 1922's ""Fultah Fisher's Boarding House." It marked the beginning of one of the most successful careers in movies for a director.

A Sicilian immigrant, Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra) arrived in the United States with his family in 1903, residing in Los Angeles. Working at odd jobs including playing a banjo in nightclubs to pay for his tuition at the California Institute of Technology, Capra earned his degree before enrolling in the Army during World War One. Contracting the Spanish Flu, he was discharged from the service, returning home with little future prospects. Capra floated around the Western United States for the next few years, working on farms, playing poker and as an extra in movies. "I hated being a peasant, being a scrounging new kid trapped in the Sicilian ghetto of Los Angeles," said Capra on those lean years. "All I had was cockiness-and let me tell you that gets you a long way."

Living in a flophouse in San Francisco selling books, Capra answered the ad placed by Walter Montague, an English Shakespearean actor who formed a small film production company with two financiers focused on transposing famous poems onto the screen. Budgeting $1,700 for a short film on one of Rudyard Kipling's more obscure poems on a death of a sailor in a boarding house from a fistfight over a hooker, Montague was convinced by Capra he could do the job despite never directing a movie before.

There are elements in "Fultah Fisher's Boarding House" that hint of Capra's directing expertise later on. His camera placement, both eye level and up high, as well as his later signature close-ups, varies the photographic elements in the short, making the simple story sparkle. Because of a lean budget, Capra gathered amateurs on the Francisco waterfront to be in the film, resulting in a hard-edged cast of characters ideal for the director's patented close-ups. The rookie director himself said the first time he looked into the camera to frame his shot he was thrilled from head to toe at the position he was in.

"Fultah Fisher's Boarding House" was bought by Pathe Exchange for $3,500 after its representatives viewed the short 11 minute film., a tidy profit for the small company. Capra's movie was shown at the Strand Theater in New York City in April with some favorable reviews. The new director had a disagreement with Montague, however, who wanted to continue the poems-to-screen series, and the two departed. Capra himself later in his successful career was proud of his directorial debut and secured a copy of it to donate to the U. S. Library of Congress, insuring that today's viewers can see his very first movie.