Elia Kazan - Film Career

Film Career

At the height of his stage success, Kazan then turned to Hollywood where he soon demonstrated equal skill as director of motion pictures. He first directed two short films, but his first feature film was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), one his first attempts to film dramas focused on contemporary concerns, which became his forte. Two years later he directed Gentleman's Agreement, where he tackled a seldom-discussed topic in America, antisemitism, for which he won his first Oscar as Best Director. In 1949 he again dealt with controversial subject when he directed Pinky, which dealt with issues of racism in America, and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards.

In 1947, he directed the courtroom drama Boomerang!, and in 1950 he directed Panic in the Streets, starring Richard Widmark, in a thriller shot on the streets of New Orleans. In that film, Kazan experimented with a documentary style of cinematography, which succeeded in "energizing" the action scenes. He won the Venice Film Festival, International Award as director, and the film also won two Academy Awards. Kazan had requested that Zero Mostel also act in the film, despite Mostel being "blacklisted" as a result of HUAC testimony a few years earlier. Kazan writes of his decision:

Each director has a favorite in his cast, ... my favorite this time was Zero Mostel... I thought him an extraordinary artist and a delightful companion, one of the funniest and most original men I'd ever met... I constantly sought his company... He was one of the three people whom I rescued from the "industry's" blacklist... For a long time, Zero had not been able to get work in films, but I got him in my film.