With the possible exception of Stanley Kubrick, no director who worked in the Hollywood studio system ever exerted more influence over the entire field of film, and the sensibilities of audiences, than Rouben Mamoulian. With an output of a mere 16 movies across just 30 years, the Russian-born Armenian-descended Mamoulian, working as director and producer much of the time, managed to generate an array of classic films in the musical, dramatic, and action-adventure fields, and was also involved in the planning and all but the final direction of three renowned Hollywood films.

Rouben Mamoulian was born in Tbilisi — which was 60-percent Armenian at the time — in Russian Georgia, in 1897. He attended university in Moscow, studying law, no less, when he decided to join the Second Studio at the Moscow Art Theater, where he studied under Vakhtangov. It was during…  » Read more