Ernest B. Schoedsack(1893-1979)

Schoedsack entered the film industry as a cameraman for Keystone. He served with the U.S. Signal Corps during World War I. After the war, he took on several journalistic assignments and later helped relief efforts in Poland following the Armistice. From 1926, Schoedsack worked in tandem with an old army acquaintance, Captain Merian C. Cooper, under contract to Paramount on the documentary dramas Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925) and Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927), shot respectively in Persia (Iran) and in Siam (Thailand). After going solo on another documentary, Rango (1931), filmed in Sumatra, Schoedsack was hired by RKO from 1932 to 1935 to direct documentaries, starting with The Most Dangerous Game (1932). He then worked (uncredited) with Cooper on King Kong (1933), and later directed the (unofficial) sequel Mighty Joe Young (1949) with the same production team. Schoedsack's sparse output as a director also includes the classic live action/miniature science-fiction drama Dr. Cyclops (1940).