Gordon Douglas Brickner (December 15, 1907 – September 29, 1993) was an American film director and actor, who directed many different genres of films over the course of a five-decade career in motion pictures.
Brickner was born in New York City. He began his career as a child actor, appearing in some films directed by Maurice Costello. He also worked at MGM as a book-keeper.
As a teenager, Douglas got a job at the Hal Roach Studios, working in the office and appearing in bit parts in various Hal Roach films. He made walk-on appearances in at least three Our Gang shorts: Teacher's Pet (1930), Big Ears (1931) and Birthday Blues (1932).
By 1934, Douglas was assistant to director Gus Meins and served as assistant director on Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's 1934 film Babes in Toyland and on the Our Gang comedies made between 1934 and mid-1936.
Beginning with Bored of Education in 1936, Our Gang moved from two-reel (20-minute) comedies to one-reel (10-minute) comedies, and Douglas became the senior director of the series. Bored of Education won the 1936 Academy Award for Live Action Short Film, and was the only Our Gang entry ever honored with the award.
Douglas remained with the Our Gang series as director for two years. His Our Gang shorts, featuring Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Porky, Buckwheat, Waldo, Butch and Woim, are the most familiar in the series’ 22-year canon. In addition to Bored of Education, the twenty Hal Roach Our Gang shorts Douglas directed include entries such as Pay as You Exit (1936), Rushin' Ballet (1937), Our Gang Follies of 1938 (1937), and Three Men in a Tub (1938). He also co-directed, with Fred Newmeyer, the 1936 Our Gang feature-film General Spanky.
Roach sold the Our Gang unit to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in May 1938. Douglas directed two MGM Our Gangs that year on loan from Roach, The Little Ranger and Aladdin's Lantern, before deciding that he could not get used to the more industrialized atmosphere at the larger studio.
Returning to his home studio, Douglas directed the feature Zenobia (1939) with Oliver Hardy teamed with Harry Langdon instead of Stan Laurel; it was a box office disappointment. Laurel and Hardy were reunited for Douglas' next film, Saps at Sea (1940), which became Laurel and Hardy's last film produced by the Hal Roach Studios. Douglas next helmed All-American Co-Ed, starring former Our Gang member Johnny Downs (and Langdon).
Douglas next helmed Niagara Falls (1941), one of Hal Roach's Streamliners, a series of short features less than 50 minutes, and he co-wrote and directed Roach’s’’ feature Broadway Limited (1941) and provided the story for Topper Returns (1941). His last effort for Roach was the featurette The Devil with Hitler (1942). He might have stayed with Roach indefinitely, but Roach turned his studio over to the U.S. Army for the production of wartime training films.
Douglas moved over to RKO Radio Pictures. He made a series of low budget comedies including The Great Gildersleeve (1942), based on the radio show; and its sequel Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943), Gildersleeve's Bad Day (1943) and Gildersleeve's Ghost (1944). He also helmed The Falcon in Hollywood (1944), Girl Rush (1944), A Night of Adventure (1944) and First Yank into Tokyo (1945).
He made Zombies on Broadway (1945) with the comedy team of Brown and Carney, then San Quentin (1946), Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946) and If You Knew Susie (1948).
In 1948, Douglas migrated from RKO to producer Edward Small who had a releasing deal with Columbia Pictures. For Small, he made Walk a Crooked Mile (1948) and The Black Arrow (1948).
Columbia used Douglas on Mr. Soft Touch (1949), Between Midnight and Dawn (1950), Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950), Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950) and The Nevadan (1950). They loaned him to British Lion to make State Secret (1950) in England.
Cagney Productions and Warner Bros.
James Cagney was making a film for Warner Bros., Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) with his brother William, and they hired Douglas to direct. Douglas signed long-term deals with Cagney Productions and Warners.
In May 1950, Douglas signed a non exclusive two-picture deal with Paramount. The first of these was The Great Missouri Raid (1951). He was meant to make a second film for Paramount but they released him so Cagney could use him again on Only the Valiant (1951) a Western with Gregory Peck.
Douglas went on to establish himself as one of Warners' leading directors of the 1950s, working in all genres: I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951); Come Fill the Cup (1951), produced by Cagney starring James Cagney; The Iron Mistress (1952) a biopic of Jim Bowie starring Alan Ladd; Mara Maru (1952), an adventure story with Errol Flynn; So This Is Love (1953), a musical biopic of Grace Moore; The Charge at Feather River (1954), a 3D Western; She's Back on Broadway (1953), a musical; Them! (1954), a science fiction film about giant ants; Young at Heart (1955), with Doris Day and Frank Sinatra; Sincerely Yours (1955) with Liberace; The McConnell Story (1955), a biopic of Joseph C. McConnell with Alan Ladd; Santiago (1956) with Ladd; Bombers B-52 (1957) and The Big Land (1957), a Western with Ladd.
His three low-budget westerns starring Clint Walker – Fort Dobbs (1958), Yellowstone Kelly (1959) and Gold of the Seven Saints (1961, from a screenplay by Leigh Brackett originally commissioned by Howard Hawks) – have been compared to Budd Boetticher's contemporary minimalist westerns with Randolph Scott.