---
name: "W. S. Van Dyke"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/w-s-van-dyke"
roles: ["Director","Producer"]
born: "21 March 1889"
died: "5 February 1943"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 5
average_fi1m_score: 70
average_as: "director"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-09-19T23:14:27.875491+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."
---

# W. S. Van Dyke

Director and producer. Born 21 March 1889 in San Diego, California, USA. Died 5 February 1943.

## Details

- **Work:** Director, Producer
- **Born:** 21 March 1889, San Diego, California, USA
- **Died:** 5 February 1943
- **Active:** 1931–1936
- **Also known as:** W.S. Van Dyke, Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke II, W.S. Van Dyke II, W. S. Van Dyke II, Major W.S. Van Dyke II, Major W. S. Van Dyke II, Maj. W.S. Van Dyke II, Maj. W. S. Van Dyke II, Woody Van Dyke, В.С. Ван Дайк, William S. Van Dyke, One-Take Woody
- **Frequently works with:** [Albert Hackett](https://film.one/person/albert-hackett.md), [Frances Goodrich](https://film.one/person/frances-goodrich.md), [Hunt Stromberg](https://film.one/person/hunt-stromberg.md), [Jeanette MacDonald](https://film.one/person/jeanette-macdonald.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 2 Oscar nominations
- **Average Fi1m score:** 70, as director, over 5 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 1 under 60
- **Genres:** Music 3, Comedy 2, Romance 2, Action 1, Adventure 1, Crime 1
- **Screen time:** 9 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $13m across 4 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._S._Van_Dyke, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q547078, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0886754/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/32427

## Fi1m on W. S. Van Dyke

> W. S. Van Dyke put a camera in front of things that were really there, a lion on a plain, William Powell and Myrna Loy trading lines, and let them get on with it. The method still plays; *Trader Horn* we admire more than we enjoy.

Somewhere in the first hour of *Trader Horn* (1931) a hippo surfaces beside the boat, and the boat is a real boat on a real river with real people in it. Nobody has arranged the light. In the villages the extras look straight at the camera, because nobody told them where else to look. That is W. S. Van Dyke's method in a single shot: go to where the thing is, put a camera in front of it and let it happen. He said as much himself. "I don’t try for Art. I don’t try to make epics."

A child stage actor from the age of three, he assisted D. W. Griffith on *The Birth of a Nation* (1915) and *Intolerance* (1916), then directed serials and westerns for Pathé from 1917. MGM took him on in 1926 and he became the studio's man for going somewhere difficult and coming back with a picture: he took over *White Shadows in the South Seas* (1928), went to Africa for *Trader Horn*, and saw the footage he brought home used again in *Tarzan the Ape Man* (1932). From 1934 he directed William Powell and Myrna Loy in *The Thin Man* and the films that followed it to 1941, made six musicals with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and staged the disaster in *San Francisco* (1936). The nickname was One-Take Woody. It was not a joke about his standards; it was a description of them.

The question with Van Dyke is whether speed is a virtue or a habit, and *Trader Horn* answers both ways. Left alone with animals he is superb. The lions on the plain and the herds at the river were not faked because they could not be, and no Hollywood feature had gone to Africa for them before. Left with a script, he shoots what he is given, and what Richard Schayer and Dale Van Every gave him is an old trader, a greenhorn and a missing girl, strung out over 122 minutes. We watched it in two states. The animals astonished us, and twenty minutes later we were checking how much of the film was left. The footage did the first and the story did the second, and Van Dyke plainly cared far more about one than the other.

Colleagues found him brusque and some thought him careless, and the charge that he chose getting it done over getting it right has followed him since. It is not the whole picture. The Powell and Loy films are remembered for two actors left to talk, and leaving them alone is a decision too, the same instinct that let the villagers look at the lens. Whether that instinct made better films than the one we have seen is a question for another day. On what we have seen, he made one film worth an hour of anyone's time and two hours of almost nobody's.

## Biography

W. S. Van Dyke was an American film director. Born Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke II on 21 March 1889 in San Diego, California, he died on 5 February 1943.

He directed *Trader Horn* (1931), the first non-documentary feature filmed on location in Africa. His other notable films include *Tarzan the Ape Man* (1932), *The Thin Man* (1934), *San Francisco* (1936) and several musicals starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. He earned the nickname "One Take Woody" for his efficient working methods and received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for *The Thin Man* and *San Francisco*.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (5)

- *San Francisco* (1936), Fi1m 71, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/san-francisco.md)
- *Broadway Melody of 1936* (1935), Fi1m 72, Co-Director — [page](https://film.one/film/broadway-melody-of-1936.md)
- *Naughty Marietta* (1935), Fi1m 64, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/naughty-marietta.md)
- *The Thin Man* (1934), Fi1m 84, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-thin-man.md)
- *Trader Horn* (1931), Fi1m 58, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/trader-horn.md)

## Complete filmography (94)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *That's Entertainment, Part II* (1976), Thanks
- *Journey for Margaret* (1942), Director
- *Cairo* (1942), Director
- *I Married an Angel* (1942), Director
- *Dr. Kildare's Victory* (1942), Director
- *Shadow of the Thin Man* (1941), Director
- *The Feminine Touch* (1941), Director
- *Rage in Heaven* (1941), Director
- *Bitter Sweet* (1940), Director
- *I Love You Again* (1940), Director
- *I Take This Woman* (1940), Director
- *Another Thin Man* (1939), Director
- *Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever* (1939), Director
- *It's a Wonderful World* (1939), Director
- *Stand Up and Fight* (1939), Director
- *Sweethearts* (1938), Director
- *Marie Antoinette* (1938), Director
- *Rosalie* (1937), Director
- *The Prisoner of Zenda* (1937), Co-Director
- *They Gave Him a Gun* (1937), Director
- *Personal Property* (1937), Director
- *After the Thin Man* (1936), Director
- *Love on the Run* (1936), Director
- *The Devil Is a Sissy* (1936), Director
- *His Brother's Wife* (1936), Director
- *San Francisco* (1936), Director, Producer — Fi1m 71, [page](https://film.one/film/san-francisco.md)
- *Rose Marie* (1936), Director
- *I Live My Life* (1935), Director
- *Broadway Melody of 1936* (1935), Co-Director — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/film/broadway-melody-of-1936.md)
- *Naughty Marietta* (1935), Director, Producer — Fi1m 64, [page](https://film.one/film/naughty-marietta.md)
- *Forsaking All Others* (1934), Director
- *Hide-Out* (1934), Producer, Director
- *The Thin Man* (1934), Director — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/the-thin-man.md)
- *Manhattan Melodrama* (1934), Director
- *Laughing Boy* (1934), Director, Producer
- *Eskimo* (1933), as Inspector White (uncredited) · Director, Producer
- *The Prizefighter and the Lady* (1933), Director, Producer
- *Penthouse* (1933), Director
- *Night Court* (1932), Director
- *Tarzan the Ape Man* (1932), Director
- *The Cuban Love Song* (1931), Director
- *Guilty Hands* (1931), Director
- *Never the Twain Shall Meet* (1931), Director
- *Trader Horn* (1931), Director — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/film/trader-horn.md)
- *The Pagan* (1929), Director
- *White Shadows in the South Seas* (1928), Director
- *The Adventurer* (1928), Director
- *Under the Black Eagle* (1928), Director
- *Wyoming* (1928), Director
- *Spoilers of the West* (1927), Director
- *Foreign Devils* (1927), Director
- *The Heart of the Yukon* (1927), Director, Writer
- *The Eyes of the Totem* (1927), Director
- *California* (1927), Director
- *Winners of the Wilderness* (1927), Director
- *War Paint* (1926), Director
- *The Gentle Cyclone* (1926), Director
- *The Desert's Price* (1925), Director
- *The Timber Wolf* (1925), Director
- *Ranger of the Big Pines* (1925), Director
- *Hearts and Spurs* (1925), Director
- *The Trail Rider* (1925), Director
- *Barriers Burned Away* (1925), Director
- *Gold Heels* (1924), Director
- *Winner Take All* (1924), Director
- *The Beautiful Sinner* (1924), Director
- *The Battling Fool* (1924), Director
- *Loving Lies* (1924), Director
- *Half-a-Dollar Bill* (1924), Director
- *The Miracle Makers* (1923), Director
- *Ruth of the Range* (1923), Director
- *The Destroying Angel* (1923), Director
- *The Little Girl Next Door* (1923), Director
- *The Boss of Camp 4* (1922), Director
- *Forget Me Not* (1922), Director
- *According to Hoyle* (1922), Director
- *White Eagle* (1922), Director
- *The Avenging Arrow* (1921), Director
- *Double Adventure* (1921), Director
- *The Adventures of Daredevil Jack* (1920), Scenario Writer, Director
- *The Hawk's Trail* (1919), Director
- *The Forbidden Room* (1919), Story
- *The Lady of the Dugout* (1918), Director
- *Sadie Goes to Heaven* (1917), Director
- *Gift o' Gab* (1917), Director
- *Men of the Desert* (1917), Director, Writer
- *Open Places* (1917), Director, Writer
- *On Trial* (1917), Director
- *The Land of Long Shadows* (1917), Writer, Director
- *Oliver Twist* (1916), as Charles Dickens
- *Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages* (1916), as Cana Wedding Guest · Second Assistant Director
- *Orphan Joyce* (1916), Writer
- *A Daughter of the City* (1915), Writer
- *The Birth of a Nation* (1915), Assistant Director

## Gallery

- ![W. S. Van Dyke](https://film.one/media/person/1225312/gallery-d92f8dc9b3b6.jpg) W. S. Van Dyke — Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/W._S._Van_Dyke%2C_1933.jpg/1280px-W._S._Van_Dyke%2C_1933.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![W. S. Van Dyke, Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power in Marie Antoinette (1938).](https://film.one/media/person/1225312/gallery-f995858e8496.jpg) W. S. Van Dyke, Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power in Marie Antoinette (1938). — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Van_Dyke%2C_Shearer_and_Power.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![W. S. Van Dyke](https://film.one/media/person/1225312/gallery-d787aaf9536c.jpg) W. S. Van Dyke — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 2 nominated

- 1937: Best Director (nominated), for *San Francisco*
- 1935: Best Director (nominated), for *The Thin Man*

*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/w-s-van-dyke