AllMovie

Interested in photography from childhood, Ralph Staub lensed Mack Sennett comedies in the 1920s. Specializing in behind-the-scenes films, Staub began his own series for Artclass. Advertising himself as "The One Man Company: Writer, Director, Cameraman," he settled at Columbia in the mid-'30s, where he became prime mover of the Screen Snapshots series, a movie mainstay since 1917 which lasted until 1958. Often turning out nearly two dozen of these one-reelers per year, Staub frequently hosted patchworks of stock footage from earlier Snapshot entries. Staub also directed Lonesome Trailer (1934), Keystone Hotel (1935), Olsen and Johnson's Country Gentlemen (1937), and Mandarin Mystery (1937), as well as many Westerns and three of Monogram's Renfrew of the Royal Mounted series.