Joseph J. Franz on AllMovie

A veteran stage performer who toured extensively with The Squaw Man, Joseph J. Franz turned to motion pictures in the early 1910s, directing and acting in scores of low-budget Western melodramas, including The Gun Men from Plumas (1914), Sage Brush Hamlet (1918), and The Broadway Cowboy (1920). Exclusively a director in the '20s (Fighting Mad in 1921, Horseshoe Luck in 1924, and Blue Blazes in 1926), Franz turned to acting full-time after the changeover to sound, playing cops, reporters, guards, and the like.