Ralph Staub

Ralph Staub (July 21, 1899 in Chicago, Illinois – October 22, 1969, Los Angeles, California) was a movie director, writer, and producer. He broke into the motion picture industry in 1920, filming short travelogues in Alaska. Relocating to Hollywood, he sold his services as both director and cameraman to various short-subject companies. In 1933 he joined the Warner Bros. shorts department, where he directed slapstick comedies (his most famous being 1935's Keystone Hotel) and musicals (many filmed in Technicolor). He left Warners in 1936 and joined Republic Pictures as a feature-film director; this engagement lasted through 1938. He had short stints at Universal Pictures and Monogram Pictures in 1939-40. Since 1931 Ralph Staub had been contributing to Columbia Pictures' Screen Snapshots series of short subjects, as a writer. In 1940 he began directing and photographing the Snapshots reels, which usually covered movie-related public events and behind-the-scenes glimpses of moviemaking. Columbia appointed him a producer in 1943, and he devoted himself to Screen Snapshots for the next 15 years. In the 1950s, when budgets were lowered for short-subject production, Staub would save money on actors by h... ()