Rowland V. Lee is the contract director who restarted Universal horror with Son of Frankenstein and the swashbuckler with The Count of Monte Cristo.
Quick Specs
- Born: September 6, 1891, Findlay, Ohio
- Died: December 21, 1975, Palm Desert, California (aged 84)
- Known for: Son of Frankenstein, Tower of London, The Count of Monte Cristo
- Occupations: Director, producer, screenwriter, actor
- Director credits: 58
- Years active: 1917–1959
Overview
Rowland V. Lee directed nearly sixty films across silent and sound, in just about every genre Hollywood had — and he is remembered for two of them, both from 1939. As producer-director of Son of Frankenstein, he restarted Universal horror after the studio had abandoned the genre, invented Ygor, and gave Boris Karloff his farewell as the Monster. The same year he made Tower of London, a Richard III history film dressed in horror clothes. Five years earlier he had restarted the swashbuckler with The Count of Monte Cristo. He was a prestige contract director, not a horror specialist — and his two 1939 Universals outlived everything else he made.
The Life
Rowland Vance Lee was born September 6, 1891, in Findlay, Ohio, to stage-veteran parents, and began performing at an early age. He served in the infantry during World War I and worked as a screen actor from 1917 to 1920. Producer Thomas H. Ince told him to choose between acting and directing. Lee chose directing, beginning with A Thousand to One (1920), and worked at contract-director speed through the 1920s — five films in 1928 alone, most notably Doomsday and The First Kiss, both featuring Gary Cooper.
He was there at the start of the directors’ union: one of the small group who founded the Screen Directors Guild — today the Directors Guild of America — at the key meeting at King Vidor’s house on December 23, 1935. His brother Robert N. Lee wrote Tower of London and the Captain Kidd story. In 1935 Lee bought a ranch in the San Fernando Valley; after retiring from directing, he ran it and turned part of it into a motion-picture location. He retired from directing in 1945 after Captain Kidd, then returned to filmmaking once, to produce and co-write The Big Fisherman (1959), hiring Frank Borzage to direct it. He died of a heart attack at home in Palm Desert on December 21, 1975, aged 84, survived by his wife, Eleanor, and his brother Donald W. Lee. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.
The Work
Alice Adams (1923) put him in the big time: Lee directed and scripted the Fox adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer-winning novel — not George Stevens’s better-known 1935 version. At Paramount he made the first Fu Manchu film of the talkie era, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929), starring Warner Oland, followed by The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930). At Fox he directed and co-wrote the delirious zoo romance Zoo in Budapest (1933), whose original prints carried amber- and blue-tinted sequences.
The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) is his other restart. Independent producer Edward Small hired Lee to write and direct the Dumas adaptation for United Artists, starring Robert Donat as Edmond Dantès. It was a huge success and ushered in a cycle of swashbuckling films — the sound-era swashbuckler revival starts here. Love from a Stranger (1937), his first film with Basil Rathbone, is a wife-in-peril Gothic thriller from Agatha Christie’s “Philomel Cottage,” with a score by Benjamin Britten — his only feature-film score.
Son of Frankenstein (1939) is the centerpiece: director and producer, screenplay by Wyllis Cooper, cinematography by George Robinson. Basil Rathbone is Baron Wolf von Frankenstein, Boris Karloff is the Monster, Bela Lugosi is Ygor, Lionel Atwill is the one-armed Inspector Krogh, and Donnie Dunagan is Peter. Released January 13, 1939, it was the third film in Universal’s Frankenstein series, following Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) — and the studio had dropped horror until a 1938 Los Angeles triple-bill revival proved the audience was still there.
Lee’s authorship is documented in the rewrite fight. Cooper’s first draft had a talking Monster who demanded Wolf make him a friend. Lee rejected it and delayed filming until November 9, 1938; the revision eliminated the Monster’s speech, turned the villain Neumüller into Krogh, renamed the child Peter — and added Ygor, who is not in the original draft at all. Actors got freshly written pages minutes before scenes were set up. The brooding, mute Monster and the vengeful Ygor who commands him are products of the Lee-supervised rewrite. Lee let Lugosi build the character — Lee’s own account: his crew let Lugosi “work on the characterization; the interpretation he gave us was imaginative and totally unexpected … when we finished shooting, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he stole the show. Karloff’s monster was weak by comparison.” Rain, cold, and doubled cutting staff dogged the shoot, which finished January 5, 1939, eight days before release. Final cost: $420,000, against a $250,000 plan raised to $300,000. It was a critical and commercial success, with bigger key-city openings than any prior horror film, and Karloff’s final appearance as Frankenstein’s Monster in a Frankenstein film.
Tower of London (1939), director and producer, screenplay by his brother Robert: Rathbone as Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Karloff as Mord, his fictitious club-footed executioner, and a young Vincent Price as the Duke of Clarence. This is a historical drama played as horror — Richard’s rise by murder, each killing marked by removing a figurine from a throne-room dollhouse. Art director Jack Otterson built a 75-foot Tower on the backlot. The studio, burned by his two previous overruns, pressured him to deliver on time and on budget; battle scenes shot with hundreds of extras saw studio rain machines destroy the extras’ cardboard helmets and costumes, and the film still finished nearly $80,000 over budget. When Hans J. Salter’s period score was rejected after the preview, Frank Skinner’s Son of Frankenstein music — including a slightly altered main title — was tracked in. In 1962 Roger Corman remade it, with Price — Clarence in 1939 — now playing Richard III.
The last films: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944), which he produced and directed, with an Oscar-nominated Dimitri Tiomkin score. Captain Kidd (1945) was his final film as director: Charles Laughton as William Kidd, with Randolph Scott, story by Robert N. Lee.
The Lee Touch
Lee controlled the production as well as the set. Across 58 films as director he accumulated 15 producer credits and 14 writing credits, repeatedly on his own films. That control is also why the budget overruns are charged to him personally: The Toast of New York ballooned from a four-week shoot to fifteen and lost $530,000; Son of Frankenstein grew from $250,000 to a $420,000 final cost; Tower of London finished nearly $80,000 over. The same Hollywood Reporter that tracked Tower’s troubles called his work on it “probably the finest effort in his career.”
His authority was quiet. Donnie Dunagan, five years old on Son of Frankenstein, remembered Lee’s “natural, calm, dignified presence” — “after a few days on Son of Frankenstein I thought he owned the whole place!” He gave actors room — the Ygor method, letting Lugosi invent — and he re-hired the people who could work at his pace: Rathbone in four Lee films, Karloff in two, Atwill in two, George Robinson shooting all three 1939 Universals, Dunagan in three films as a child. He never specialized — Tarkington, Fu Manchu, a zoo romance, the swashbuckler revival, a Christie thriller, two Universals. The range is the signature.
Why He Matters
He restarted Universal horror. The studio had abandoned the genre for two years when the 1938 revival proved the audience was still there, and Lee’s Son of Frankenstein — made as producer-director, on a script he forced through rewrites — returned bigger key-city openings than any prior horror film. The second Universal horror cycle of 1939–1948 runs through this film: without Lee’s Frankenstein film, there is no second monster cycle. The Universal Monsters era as audiences know it passes through his set.
He created Ygor as a permanent fixture of the Frankenstein mythos. Ygor exists in no Shelley, no Whale film, no first draft of Son — he enters in the Lee-era rewrite, was shaped on the floor by Lugosi under Lee’s let-him-work method, and returned in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), again played by Lugosi. He restarted the swashbuckler too: The Count of Monte Cristo ushered in a cycle of swashbuckling films. Two of the 1930s’ defining popular cycles both have a Lee film at the restart point. Britannica: Son of Frankenstein is “arguably his best film”; the silent work “did not contribute much of lasting value.” He sat in the room where the directors’ guild was born, and the ground remembers him: Hitchcock, Laughton, and Wyler all shot on Lee’s ranch.
Trivia & Facts
- Peter Lorre was the hoped-for signing for Son of Frankenstein but could not be borrowed from 20th Century Fox; Claude Rains was briefly considered for Wolf before Rathbone.
- Vincent Price told the story of the Tower of London malmsey scene himself: he volunteered to do his own drowning rather than be doubled, and was lowered into the vat — but Karloff had sat on the lid and Rathbone leaned on it, the lid stuck, and the crew had to break in with axes to get him out before he drowned.
- Captain Kidd, his last film as director, became one of Joseph Stalin’s favorite films, by Khrushchev’s account — and fell into the public domain when its copyright was not renewed in 1972.
- For Friendly Persuasion, Wyler’s team turned Lee’s ranch into 1860s Indiana: cornfields, sycamores, green grass over the California hills, a fake stone façade on the farmhouse.
FAQ
Who is Rowland V. Lee?
An American director, producer, and writer of the silent and early-sound eras — 58 films as director, including Son of Frankenstein, Tower of London, and The Count of Monte Cristo.
Did Rowland V. Lee direct Captain Pirate?
No. Captain Pirate (1952) was directed by Ralph Murphy. Lee’s last film as director was Captain Kidd (1945); his last screen credit was producing and co-writing The Big Fisherman (1959).
Is Tower of London a horror film?
Not strictly. It is a historical drama about Richard III, cast and scored to sit beside Universal’s horror programme — a history film in horror dress. Its only monster is Richard.
What is Rowland V. Lee’s best film?
Son of Frankenstein — arguably his best, per Britannica — for horror, The Count of Monte Cristo for the swashbuckler. Start with Son of Frankenstein.