Irving Reis

Biography

Irving Reis (May 7, 1906 – July 3, 1953) was a radio program producer and director, and a film director. Born into a Jewish family, Reis began his career as a motion picture photographer. The most notable of his screen efforts was being one of the photographers for The Hollywood Revue of 1929. A 1931 notice in Variety declared that he was transitioning into a playwright. By 1933, Variety took notice of his radio play St. Louis Blues. His radio play Meridian 7-1212 first broadcast on January 24, 1935, received an 'above par' comment from Variety. Observing that he wrote and produced the play, the unnamed reviewer noted the numerous radio effects, and that compared to his two previous radio plays, this was the best. Reis created the experimental anthology radio program Columbia Workshop, and its initial broadcast took place on July 18, 1936. He departed for Hollywood in 1938 where he became a scriptwriter for Paramount Pictures. In November 1939, Reis took ten weeks off from Paramount to study film direction. In February 1940, Reis left Paramount to direct for RKO Pictures. Among his motion picture credits are The Big Street (1942), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), All My Sons, Enchantment (1948), Roseanna McCoy (1949), and The Four Poster (1952).