--- name: "Raoul Walsh" canonical: "https://film.one/person/raoul-walsh" roles: ["Director"] born: "11 March 1887" died: "31 December 1980" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-19T21:25:50.323423+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." --- # Raoul Walsh Director. Born 11 March 1887 in New York City, New York, USA. Died 31 December 1980. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 11 March 1887, New York City, New York, USA - **Died:** 31 December 1980 - **Also known as:** Albert Edward Walsh, A.E. Walsh, R.A. Walsh, Raoul A. Walsh, 拉乌尔·沃尔什, 라울 월시, 라울 월쉬 - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Walsh, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q72756, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0909825/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/8823 ## Fi1m on Raoul Walsh > Raoul Walsh made films that move: men crossing deserts, gangsters on the way up or down, a microphone carried into the open in 1928. He knew when a story was thin and kept it walking so nobody would notice. Listen to *In Old Arizona* (1928) before you look at it. Hooves on dirt, cattle, eggs going into a pan: Raoul Walsh and Irving Cummings carried a microphone out of the studio and pointed it at a desert, when a sound film still meant a man in a dinner jacket standing near a curtain. Warner Baxter's bandit is good company. The film around him is slow, stagey and thin, and we were held more by the sizzle of a frying pan than by anything the plot did, because the pan was new and the plot was not. He had been at it a long while by then. He acted for D.W. Griffith and assisted him, and was in *The Birth of a Nation* (1915), the same year he began directing features of his own. The silents that made his name were big and outdoors, *The Thief of Bagdad* (1924) with Douglas Fairbanks and *What Price Glory* (1926). In 1930 he made *The Big Trail*, a widescreen western that gave John Wayne his first leading role. Then Paramount, and from 1939 Warner Bros, where he spent a quarter of a century on gangsters, wars and westerns, finishing with *A Distant Trumpet* in 1964. Ask what he did and the answer is that he kept people moving. Critics have called his films journey pictures, stories that go from one point to another and stop when they arrive, shot in deep focus with panning cameras so that the people in them stand in a real, measurable place. Walsh put it more bluntly to an interviewer in 1972: "Outdoor stuff, adventure, things that would keep the picture moving. I didn’t like indoor films." The Warner years gave him actors who could move too. He directed James Cagney five times, in *The Roaring Twenties* (1939) and *White Heat* (1949) among them; Humphrey Bogart three times, including *High Sierra* (1941); Errol Flynn three; Victor McLaglen three. Sidney Hickox photographed several of them. The knock against him has always been that he was a genre man, bound to the conventions he worked in and given less careful attention than directors who made a show of their thinking. There is something in it. He did not make films that announce themselves. But critics who have gone back to *White Heat* find more feeling under the action than the action lets on, and we would rather a director who hid his feelings in the running about than one who stopped the film to explain them. If *In Old Arizona* is the only Walsh you see, you will have seen him standing still, which was the one thing he could not bear. He is better met on the road. ## Biography Raoul Walsh (1887–1980) was an American film director and actor. He began directing in the silent era and continued into the 1960s. Walsh was set to direct and star in the early sound Western *In Old Arizona* (1928), but an accident on location cost him his right eye and ended his acting career. He is known for directing *The Big Trail* (1930), *The Roaring Twenties* (1939), *High Sierra* (1941), *They Died with Their Boots On* (1941) and *White Heat* (1949). Walsh played John Wilkes Booth in D.W. Griffith's *The Birth of a Nation* (1915). He was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent-film actor George Walsh. His last film as director was released in 1964. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *In Old Arizona* (1928), Fi1m 61, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/in-old-arizona.md) ## Complete filmography (128) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *A Distant Trumpet* (1964), Director - *Marines, Let's Go* (1961), Story, Director, Producer - *Come September* (1961), Producer - *Esther and the King* (1960), Director, Producer, Writer - *A Private's Affair* (1959), Director - *The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw* (1958), Director - *The Naked and the Dead* (1958), Director - *Band of Angels* (1957), Director - *The King and Four Queens* (1956), Director - *The Revolt of Mamie Stover* (1956), Director - *The Tall Men* (1955), Director - *Battle Cry* (1955), Director, Producer - *Saskatchewan* (1954), Director - *Gun Fury* (1953), Director - *A Lion Is in the Streets* (1953), Director - *Sea Devils* (1953), Director - *The Lawless Breed* (1952), Director - *Blackbeard, the Pirate* (1952), Director - *The World in His Arms* (1952), Director - *Glory Alley* (1952), Director - *Distant Drums* (1951), Director - *Along the Great Divide* (1951), Director - *Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.* (1951), Director, Producer - *The Enforcer* (1951), Director - *White Heat* (1949), Director - *It's a Great Feeling* (1949), as Raoul Walsh (uncredited) - *Colorado Territory* (1949), Director - *One Sunday Afternoon* (1948), Director - *Fighter Squadron* (1948), Director - *Silver River* (1948), Director - *Cheyenne* (1947), Director - *Pursued* (1947), Director - *The Man I Love* (1946), Director - *The Horn Blows at Midnight* (1945), Director - *Salty O'Rourke* (1945), Director - *Objective, Burma!* (1945), Director - *Uncertain Glory* (1944), Director - *Northern Pursuit* (1943), Director - *Background to Danger* (1943), Director - *Gentleman Jim* (1942), Director - *Desperate Journey* (1942), Director - *They Died with Their Boots On* (1941), Director - *Manpower* (1941), Director - *The Strawberry Blonde* (1941), Director - *High Sierra* (1941), Director - *They Drive by Night* (1940), Director - *Dark Command* (1940), Director - *The Roaring Twenties* (1939), Director - *St. Louis Blues* (1939), Director - *College Swing* (1938), Director - *Hitting a New High* (1937), Director - *Artists & Models* (1937), Director - *Jump for Glory* (1937), Director - *O.H.M.S.* (1937), Director - *Spendthrift* (1936), Director, Writer - *Big Brown Eyes* (1936), Director, Screenplay - *Klondike Annie* (1936), Director - *Every Night at Eight* (1935), Director - *Baby Face Harrington* (1935), Director - *Under Pressure* (1935), Director - *Going Hollywood* (1933), Director - *The Bowery* (1933), Director - *Hello, Sister!* (1933), Director - *Sailor's Luck* (1933), Director - *Me and My Gal* (1932), Director - *Wild Girl* (1932), Director - *The Yellow Ticket* (1931), Director, Producer - *Women of All Nations* (1931), Director - *The Big Trail* (1931), Director - *The Man Who Came Back* (1931), Director, Producer - *The Big Trail* (1930), Director, Story - *Hot for Paris* (1929), Story, Director - *The Cock-Eyed World* (1929), Director, Writer - *In Old Arizona* (1928), Director — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/in-old-arizona.md) - *The Red Dance* (1928), Director - *Me, Gangster* (1928), Director, Writer - *Sadie Thompson* (1928), as Sergeant Timothy 'Tim' O'Hara · Adaptation, Director, Producer - *The Loves of Carmen* (1927), Director - *Life in Hollywood No. 5* (1927), Actor - *The Monkey Talks* (1927), Director - *What Price Glory* (1926), Director - *The Lady of the Harem* (1926), Director - *The Lucky Lady* (1926), Director, Producer - *The Wanderer* (1925), Director - *The Spaniard* (1925), Director - *East of Suez* (1925), Director - *The Thief of Bagdad* (1924), Director - *Rosita* (1923), Co-Director - *Lost and Found on a South Sea Island* (1923), Director - *Kindred of the Dust* (1922), Producer, Director - *Serenade* (1921), Director, Producer - *Dangerous Business* (1920), Producer - *From Now On* (1920), Director, Scenario Writer - *The Deep Purple* (1920), Producer, Director - *The Strongest* (1920), Scenario Writer, Director - *Should a Husband Forgive?* (1919), Director, Writer - *Evangeline* (1919), Director, Scenario Writer, Producer - *I'll Say So* (1918), Director - *Every Mother's Son* (1918), Screenplay, Director - *On the Jump* (1918), Story, Director - *The Prussian Cur* (1918), Story, Director, Screenplay - *The Woman and the Law* (1918), Director, Writer - *The Pride of New York* (1917), Director, Scenario Writer - *This Is the Life* (1917), Director, Writer - *The Conqueror* (1917), Director, Writer - *The Innocent Sinner* (1917), Director, Scenario Writer - *The Silent Lie* (1917), Director - *The Honor System* (1917), Scenario Writer, Director - *Pillars of Society* (1916), Director - *The Serpent* (1916), Scenario Writer, Director - *Carmen* (1915), Director, Scenario Writer - *Peer Gynt* (1915), Director - *The Regeneration* (1915), Director, Writer - *The Birth of a Nation* (1915), as John Wilkes Booth (uncredited) · Editor, Assistant Director - *The Exposure* (1914), as Joe Reed - *They Never Knew* (1914), as Carrol Walker - *The Little Country Mouse* (1914), as The Designing Guest - *The Availing Prayer* (1914), as The Doctor - *Out of the Deputy's Hands* (1914), as Kinney · Director - *Sands of Fate* (1914), as James Holden - *Sierra Jim's Reformation* (1914), as Sierra Jim - *The Second Mrs. Roebuck* (1914), as Francis Carryl - *The Mystery of the Hindu Image* (1914), as The Detective - *The Angel of Contention* (1914), as Jack Colter - *The Rebellion of Kitty Belle* (1914), as Bud Parker - *Regeneration* (1914), Adaptation, Director - *The Life of General Villa* (1914), as Villa as a young man · Director, Writer, Director of Photography - *The Pseudo Prodigal* (1913), as The Prodigal's Rival · Director ## Gallery - ![R. A. Walsh, director of silent films Subjects: miscellaneous (1924)](https://film.one/media/person/1224218/gallery-6afba610704c.jpg) R. A. Walsh, director of silent films Subjects: miscellaneous (1924) — Hoover, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/R_A_Walsh%2C_director_of_silent_films_%28SAYRE_10049%29.jpg/1280px-R_A_Walsh%2C_director_of_silent_films_%28SAYRE_10049%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Raoul Walsh](https://film.one/media/person/1224218/gallery-f1b8af0cf4de.jpg) Raoul Walsh — Photographer uncredited, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Raoul_Walsh.jpg/1280px-Raoul_Walsh.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Still from the American drama film Sadie Thompson (1928) Subjects (LCTGM): motion pictures, actresses, actors](https://film.one/media/person/1224218/gallery-caa8e8e02578.jpg) Still from the American drama film Sadie Thompson (1928) Subjects (LCTGM): motion pictures, actresses, actors — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Sadie_Thompson_%28SAYRE_14076%29.jpg/1280px-Sadie_Thompson_%28SAYRE_14076%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Film still of Raoul Walsh and Gloria Swanson in the American drama film Sadie Thompson (1928).](https://film.one/media/person/1224218/gallery-4b15e1450da8.jpg) Film still of Raoul Walsh and Gloria Swanson in the American drama film Sadie Thompson (1928). — Gloria Swanson Productions / United Artists, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Raoul_Walsh_and_Gloria_Swanson_in_Sadie_Thompson.jpg/1280px-Raoul_Walsh_and_Gloria_Swanson_in_Sadie_Thompson.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Raoul Walsh](https://film.one/media/person/1224218/gallery-bfabc262e2db.jpg) Raoul Walsh — Image via TMDB - ![Raoul Walsh](https://film.one/media/person/1224218/gallery-9c0e2e1bff3e.jpg) Raoul Walsh — Image via TMDB - ![Raoul Walsh](https://film.one/media/person/1224218/gallery-1fb4f903ad80.jpg) Raoul Walsh — Image via TMDB - ![Raoul Walsh](https://film.one/media/person/1224218/gallery-051ea31f9069.jpg) Raoul Walsh — 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/raoul-walsh