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Howard Higgin's first cinematic break came when he received his first screen credit as production assistant for Cecil B. DeMille in 1921. He went on to become a director for DeMille's PDC Film Corporation, and also contributed screenplays to such major silent productions as Clarence Brown's Smouldering Fires (1925). It was Higgin who, in 1931, directed Clark Gable in his first major role in The Painted Desert; coincidentally, he had previously directed Gable's wife-to-be Carole Lombard in several of her formative screen appearances. His directorial career dwindling into quickies like 1932's Hell's House, Howard Higgin returned to screenwriting, notably for a brace of 1936 horror films The Invisible Ray and Revolt of the Zombies.