--- name: "Melvin Frank" canonical: "https://film.one/person/melvin-frank" roles: ["Producer","Director"] born: "13 August 1913" died: "13 October 1988" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "producer" average_over: 0 updated: "2026-09-20T05:47:18.471584+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." --- # Melvin Frank Producer and director. Born 13 August 1913 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Died 13 October 1988. ## Details - **Work:** Producer, Director - **Born:** 13 August 1913, Chicago, Illinois, USA - **Died:** 13 October 1988 - **Academy Awards:** 5 Oscar nominations - **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41131, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0291035/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/50567 ## Fi1m on Melvin Frank > Melvin Frank spent four decades writing comedies of logistics, first with Norman Panama for Bob Hope and Danny Kaye, then on his own. The jokes are built carefully and they work; the feelings, when he reaches for them, are less certain. Melvin Frank's comedies run on paperwork. In *A Touch of Class* (1973) two adults agree to an affair with no feelings attached, set the terms like a contract, and fly to Spain to carry it out. The flights go wrong, then the hire car, then the hotel, and Glenda Jackson says the rudest lines in the script in a level voice, as if reading a bill. That is Frank's method in one film: take a small hard idea, work out its logistics, and let clever people be made to look stupid by them. He learned the trade in a partnership. Frank met Norman Panama at the University of Chicago, and the two of them were writing together by the mid-1930s, in Hollywood by 1938 turning out radio material for Bob Hope and others, and selling a first screenplay in 1941. Through the 1940s and 1950s they wrote, produced and directed comedies for Paramount and MGM, swapping jobs from picture to picture: *Road to Utopia* (1946) for Hope and Bing Crosby, *Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House* (1948) for Cary Grant, *The Court Jester* (1955) for Danny Kaye. The partnership ended around 1962 with *The Road to Hong Kong*, and Frank went on alone, writing, producing and directing *A Touch of Class*, then *The Prisoner of Second Avenue* (1975) from the Neil Simon play, then *The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox* (1976). The solo films were received less warmly than the Panama years, and on the evidence of the one we have reviewed we can see why, and also why the complaint is only half fair. For an hour *A Touch of Class* is a well-built comedy of bookings and misunderstandings, and Frank and his co-writer Jack Rose give Jackson the best of it. We laughed hardest when she loses her temper in the Málaga hotel room, because Frank has spent forty minutes arranging for every plan to fail, and Jackson plays the rage as if the film's whole schedule has fallen on her at once. Then the couple come home, take a flat, and the film decides it is a love story. The jokes get quieter and nothing takes their place. Frank knew how to make a situation funny; he was less certain what to do with it once it stopped being one. That is a fair account of the whole career as far as we can judge it. He was a producer by temperament even when he was directing: the films are assembled properly, the jokes arrive when scheduled, the stars are given the kind of thing that suits them. If you want to see what he could do, watch the first hour of *A Touch of Class*. If you want to see the limit of it, stay for the second. ## Biography Melvin Frank (13 August 1913 – 13 October 1988) was an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He graduated from the University of Chicago, where he met Norman Panama; the pair formed a writing partnership that lasted several decades. Frank and Panama wrote screenplays including *Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House* (1948), *White Christmas* (1954) and *The Court Jester* (1955), and co-directed the last of these. Frank later worked solo, directing and writing *A Touch of Class* (1973), which he also produced; the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and won the award for Best Actress for Glenda Jackson. He received five Academy Award nominations in total and the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America in 1984. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *A Touch of Class* (1973), Fi1m 66, Director, Producer, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/a-touch-of-class.md) ## Complete filmography (35) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Are We Done Yet?* (2007), Original Film Writer - *Walk Like a Man* (1987), Director - *Lost and Found* (1979), Director, Producer, Writer - *The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox* (1976), Writer, Director, Producer - *The Prisoner of Second Avenue* (1975), Producer, Director - *A Touch of Class* (1973), Director, Writer, Producer — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/a-touch-of-class.md) - *Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell* (1968), Director, Producer, Writer - *Not With My Wife, You Don't!* (1966), Story - *A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum* (1966), Screenplay, Producer - *Strange Bedfellows* (1965), Story, Director, Producer, Screenplay - *The Road to Hong Kong* (1962), Producer, Writer - *The Facts of Life* (1960), Director, Writer - *Li'l Abner* (1959), Writer, Director - *The Jayhawkers!* (1959), Director, Producer, Screenplay - *The Trap* (1959), Producer - *That Certain Feeling* (1956), Director, Producer, Writer - *The Court Jester* (1955), Producer, Screenplay, Director - *White Christmas* (1954), Writer - *Knock on Wood* (1954), Director, Writer, Producer - *Above and Beyond* (1953), Director, Writer - *Callaway Went Thataway* (1951), Director, Writer, Producer - *Strictly Dishonorable* (1951), Director, Writer, Producer - *The Reformer and the Redhead* (1950), Screenplay, Director, Producer - *The Return of October* (1948), Writer - *Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House* (1948), Screenplay, Producer - *It Had to Be You* (1947), Screenplay - *Monsieur Beaucaire* (1946), Screenplay - *Our Hearts Were Growing Up* (1946), Writer - *Road to Utopia* (1946), Screenplay - *Duffy's Tavern* (1945), Screenplay - *And the Angels Sing* (1944), Screenplay - *Thank Your Lucky Stars* (1943), Screenplay - *Happy Go Lucky* (1943), Screenplay - *My Favorite Blonde* (1942), Story - *Star Spangled Rhythm* (1942), Screenplay ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 5 nominated - 1974: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *A Touch of Class* - 1974: Best Picture (nominated), for *A Touch of Class* - 1961: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *The Facts of Life* - 1955: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *Knock on Wood* - 1947: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *Road to Utopia* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © 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/melvin-frank