Assistant director and set designer James P. Hogan was promoted to director in 1920 on the recommendation of his former employers Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Allan Dwan. Consigned mainly to programmers in the silent era, Hogan temporarily left directing in 1931 to concentrate on screenwriting. He returned to the director's chair at Paramount's "B" unit in 1936, where he handled several of the studio's Bulldog Drummond quickies. After 1940, James P. Hogan directed four of Columbia's Ellery Queen mysteries, and also utilized Queen stars William Gargan and Margaret Lindsay for the enjoyable detective comedy No Place for a Lady (1941). James Hogan's best films, the speculative The Strange Death of Adolph Hitler (1943) and the Universal horror opus The Mad Ghoul (1943), were released after his death.
by Hal Erickson
biography
