Boyle started at Paramount as a draftsman, illustrator and set designer under the auspices of
Hans Dreier. He did second unit work on Paramount's
The Plainsman (1936) and
Union Pacific (1939), then went to Mexico to paint. Except for interludes at RKO (1946-47) and Columbia (1957-59), Boyle spent the bulk of his pre-1970 career at Universal (1941-43, 1947-56, 1961-64). He is best known for his fruitful collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock, beginning with
Saboteur (1942), for which he created a studio model of the hand and torch of the Statue of Liberty, used for the climactic final scene. OHis other famous contributions include the crop-dusting plane strafing Cary Grant in
North by Northwest (1959) (for which he combined small models with location footage) and his clever montage work of the seagulls swooping on Tippi Hedren in
The Birds (1963).
