--- name: "Lloyd Bacon" canonical: "https://film.one/person/lloyd-bacon" roles: ["Director"] born: "4 December 1889" died: "15 November 1955" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 76 average_as: "director" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-19T22:29:04.340719+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Lloyd Bacon Director. Born 4 December 1889 in San Jose, California, USA. Died 15 November 1955. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 4 December 1889, San Jose, California, USA - **Died:** 15 November 1955 - **Active:** 1933–1934 - **Also known as:** Lloyd Francis Bacon, Ллойд Бекон - **Average Fi1m score:** 76, as director, over 2 titles - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Bacon, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q706678, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0045800/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/21305 ## Streaming the US now - **HBO Max:** [*42nd Street*](https://film.one/film/42nd-street.md) (82) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Lloyd Bacon > Lloyd Bacon made more than a hundred films for Warner Bros and left his mark on few of them in any way a viewer would notice. That is not the insult it sounds: the backstage hour of *42nd Street* is his, and it still bites. Nobody in *42nd Street* (1933) puts on a show for love. Julian Marsh needs the money because the crash took his, the backer pays because he wants the star, and the chorus turns up because the alternative is the breadline. Lloyd Bacon directs that backstage hour as a comedy with its teeth showing, fast and funny and hard about who is paying, and then hands the last reels to Busby Berkeley for the dance numbers. It is the arrangement his reputation has never got out from under. He came to directing from the other side of the camera. Bacon acted on stage and then in more than forty films, including supporting parts with Charlie Chaplin in the mid-1910s, and directed shorts from the early 1920s, some of them for Mack Sennett, before joining Warner Bros in 1926. There he made over a hundred features, in whatever genre the studio needed that month: musicals, gangster and crime pictures, comedies, westerns, war films. He worked with James Cagney fourteen times and Humphrey Bogart five. Later he moved to Twentieth Century-Fox and other studios, and he worked until the mid-1950s. The 1933 musicals are the peak, *42nd Street* and *Footlight Parade* in the same year, and the fairest thing to say about them is that Berkeley did the numbers and Bacon did everything else. Everything else is most of the film. Then came the topical Warners pictures: *Marked Woman* (1937), a crime drama with Bette Davis; *A Slight Case of Murder* (1938), a comedy with Edward G. Robinson; *Knute Rockne, All American* (1940), a sports biopic with Ronald Reagan; *Action in the North Atlantic* (1943), a war film with Bogart. We have not reviewed them, so we will not pretend to weigh them here, but the list tells you what he was: the man the studio sent when it had a large cast, a subject torn from the papers and a date it meant to keep. The case against him is that a director whose films are known for the choreographer or the star has not left much of himself in them, and that his standing rests on volume and consistency rather than on anything you could call a style. Some of that is true. He delivered on schedule and did not fuss, and the studio valued him for it. But watch the first hour of *42nd Street* again. We laughed through it and were faintly shocked at how little anyone cared about the show; Warner Baxter's Marsh is a man saving his own skin, and the jokes land because Bacon never lets the film pretend otherwise. That pace and that unsentimental eye did not come from Berkeley. The finale arrives, the chorus forms its patterns, and everybody remembers whose name goes on the dancing. The hour before it kept moving because somebody made it move. Give Bacon that hour, and then judge him on what else you can find. ## Biography Lloyd Bacon was an American film director and former actor. Born in San Jose, California, he began his career on stage and in silent films, appearing in more than 40 productions including several with Charlie Chaplin. He directed his first feature in 1926 and went on to direct over 100 films until 1955, working primarily at Warner Bros. for nearly two decades. Bacon directed films across many genres. He is best known for the Warner Bros. musicals *42nd Street* (1933) and *Footlight Parade* (1933), the crime drama *Marked Woman* (1937), the comedy *A Slight Case of Murder* (1938) and the war film *Action in the North Atlantic* (1943). Other credits include *Brother Orchid* (1940) and *My Darling Clementine* (1946, co-director). He died in Burbank, California, on 15 November 1955. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com, catalog.afi.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Here Comes the Navy* (1934), Fi1m 70, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-the-navy.md) - *42nd Street* (1933), Fi1m 82, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/42nd-street.md) ## Complete filmography (158) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Chaplin Mutuals, Vol. 2* (2017), Actor - *She Couldn't Say No* (1954), Director - *The French Line* (1954), Director - *Walking My Baby Back Home* (1953), Director - *The Great Sioux Uprising* (1953), Director - *The I Don't Care Girl* (1953), Director - *Golden Girl* (1951), Director - *Call Me Mister* (1951), Director - *The Frogmen* (1951), Director - *The Fuller Brush Girl* (1950), Director - *Kill the Umpire* (1950), Director - *The Good Humor Man* (1950), Director - *Miss Grant Takes Richmond* (1949), Director - *It Happens Every Spring* (1949), Director - *Mother Is a Freshman* (1949), Director - *An Innocent Affair* (1948), Director - *Give My Regards to Broadway* (1948), Director - *You Were Meant for Me* (1948), Director - *I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now* (1947), Director - *Wake Up and Dream* (1946), Director - *My Darling Clementine* (1946), Co-Director - *Home Sweet Homicide* (1946), Director - *Captain Eddie* (1945), Director - *Sunday Dinner for a Soldier* (1944), Director - *The Fighting Sullivans* (1944), Director - *Action in the North Atlantic* (1943), Director - *Silver Queen* (1942), Director - *Wings for the Eagle* (1942), Director - *Larceny, Inc.* (1942), Director - *Navy Blues* (1941), Director - *Affectionately Yours* (1941), Director - *The Charlie Chaplin Festival* (1941), as Various Roles (archive footage) - *Footsteps in the Dark* (1941), Director - *Honeymoon for Three* (1941), Director - *Knute Rockne All American* (1940), Director - *Brother Orchid* (1940), Director - *Three Cheers for the Irish* (1940), Director - *Invisible Stripes* (1939), Director - *A Child is Born* (1939), Director - *Espionage Agent* (1939), Director - *Indianapolis Speedway* (1939), Director - *The Oklahoma Kid* (1939), Director - *Wings of the Navy* (1939), Director - *Boy Meets Girl* (1938), Director - *Racket Busters* (1938), Director - *Cowboy from Brooklyn* (1938), Director - *A Slight Case of Murder* (1938), Director - *Submarine D-1* (1937), Director - *Ever Since Eve* (1937), Director - *San Quentin* (1937), Director - *Marked Woman* (1937), Director - *Gold Diggers of 1937* (1936), Director - *Cain and Mabel* (1936), Director - *Sons o' Guns* (1936), Director - *Frisco Kid* (1935), Director - *The Irish in Us* (1935), Director - *Broadway Gondolier* (1935), as Man Going to Brooklyn (uncredited) · Director - *In Caliente* (1935), Director - *Devil Dogs of the Air* (1935), Director - *6 Day Bike Rider* (1934), Director - *Here Comes the Navy* (1934), Director — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-the-navy.md) - *He Was Her Man* (1934), Director - *A Very Honorable Guy* (1934), Director - *Wonder Bar* (1934), Director - *Son of a Sailor* (1933), Director - *Footlight Parade* (1933), Director - *Mary Stevens, M.D.* (1933), Director - *Picture Snatcher* (1933), Director - *42nd Street* (1933), Director — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/42nd-street.md) - *You Said a Mouthful* (1932), Director - *Crooner* (1932), Director - *Miss Pinkerton* (1932), Director - *The Famous Ferguson Case* (1932), Director - *Fireman, Save My Child* (1932), Director - *Manhattan Parade* (1931), Director - *Honor of the Family* (1931), Director - *Gold Dust Gertie* (1931), Director - *Kept Husbands* (1931), Director - *Sit Tight* (1931), Director - *50 Million Frenchmen* (1931), Director - *Moby Dick* (1930), Director - *The Office Wife* (1930), Director - *A Notorious Affair* (1930), Director - *She Couldn't Say No* (1930), Director - *The Other Tomorrow* (1930), Director - *So Long Letty* (1929), Director - *Honky Tonk* (1929), Director - *Say It with Songs* (1929), Director - *No Defense* (1929), Director - *Stark Mad* (1929), Director - *The Singing Fool* (1928), Director - *Women They Talk About* (1928), Director - *The Lion and the Mouse* (1928), Director - *Pay as You Enter* (1928), Director - *Brass Knuckles* (1927), Director - *A Sailor's Sweetheart* (1927), Director - *The Heart of Maryland* (1927), Director - *White Flannels* (1927), Director - *Smith's Customer* (1927), Director - *Finger Prints* (1927), Director - *Private Izzy Murphy* (1926), Director - *Broken Hearts of Hollywood* (1926), Director - *A Prodigal Bridegroom* (1926), Director - *Circus Today* (1926), Director - *Meet My Girl* (1926), Director - *The Funnymooners* (1926), Director - *There He Goes* (1925), as The Cook - *Isn't Love Cuckoo?* (1925), Director - *A Rainy Knight* (1925), Director - *Hurry, Doctor!* (1925), Director - *Good Morning, Nurse* (1925), Director - *He Who Gets Smacked* (1925), Director - *The Raspberry Romance* (1925), Director - *The Wild Goose Chaser* (1925), Director - *The Speeder* (1922), Director - *The Greater Profit* (1921), as Jim Crawkins - *Hands Off!* (1921), as Ford Wadley - *The Road Demon* (1921), as Luther McCabe - *The Broken Gate* (1920), as John - *The Midlanders* (1920), as Wiley Curran - *The Kentucky Colonel* (1920), as Boyd Savely - *The Girl in the Rain* (1920), as Walter - *Miss Nobody* (1920), as The Aviator - *The Feud* (1919), as Ben Summers - *Vagabond Luck* (1919), as Buck - *Wagon Tracks* (1919), as Guy Merton - *The Blue Bonnet* (1919), as Jan Peterson - *Square Deal Sanderson* (1919), as Barney Owen aka Bill Bransford - *Easy Street* (1917), as Junkie (uncredited) - *The Rink* (1916), as Guest - *Behind the Screen* (1916), as Director of Comical Film (uncredited) - *The Count* (1916), as Orchestra Conductor (uncredited) - *The Vagabond* (1916), as Artist (uncredited) - *The Fireman* (1916), as Her Father - *The Floorwalker* (1916), as Assistant Manager - *The Book Agent's Romance* (1916), as The Butler - *Her Lesson* (1916), as The Butler - *A Christmas Revenge* (1915), as Billy's rival - *Snakeville’s Champion* (1915), as Hotch - *A Night in the Show* (1915), as Man in Balcony - *The Escape of Broncho Billy* (1915), as The Sheriff - *Wine, Women and Song* (1915), Actor - *Broncho Billy's Cowardly Brother* (1915), as Billy's Brother - *Broncho Billy Misled* (1915), as The Prospector - *Broncho Billy and the Card Sharp* (1915), as The Cattle Thief - *Broncho Billy and the Lumber King* (1915), as The Sheriff - *Broncho Billy Begins Life Anew* (1915), as The Sheriff - *Broncho Billy Steps In* (1915), as The Rancher - *Broncho Billy's Protégé* (1915), as The Girl's Sweetheart - *Broncho Billy and the Land Grabber* (1915), Actor - *The Bachelor's Burglar* (1915), Actor - *His Regeneration* (1915), as The Saloon Girl's Companion - *The Tramp* (1915), as Edna's Fiancé / Second Thief - *A Jitney Elopement* (1915), as Young Butler / Cop - *In the Park* (1915), as Pocketbook Thief - *The Champion* (1915), as Second Sparring Partner / Exerciser in Gym / Referee - *Broncho Billy's Brother* (1915), Actor - *Broncho Billy's Greaser Deputy* (1915), Actor ## Gallery - ![Lloyd Bacon](https://film.one/media/person/1225905/gallery-0774204c5a7b.jpg) Lloyd Bacon — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Lloyd_Bacon_%28SAYRE_2691%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Lloyd Bacon](https://film.one/media/person/1225905/gallery-2315c5805d98.jpg) Lloyd Bacon — Image via TMDB - ![Lloyd Bacon](https://film.one/media/person/1225905/gallery-50b9ef182e95.jpg) Lloyd Bacon — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/lloyd-bacon