Joseph Kane

Jasper Joseph Inman Kane (19 March 1894, San Diego – 25 August 1975, Santa Monica, California) was a prolific American film director, film producer, film editor and screenwriter. He is best known for his extensive directorship and focus on western films.

Kane began his career as a professional cellist. In 1934 he took an interest in film directing and, starting in 1935, he co-directed serials for Mascot Pictures and Republic Pictures. He soon became Republic's top Western film director.

Kane's first directorial credit was for The Fighting Marines (1935). When Mascot Pictures and several other small film companies amalgamated into Republic Pictures in 1935, Kane became staff director, remaining at the studio until it ceased production in 1958. He piloted many Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies and directed John Wayne in films such as The Lawless Nineties (1936) and Flame of Barbary Coast (1944), and Joseph Schildkraut on The Cheaters (1945). Between 1935 and his death in 1975 he directed 119 films and numerous television series episodes.

Unlike most Republic house directors, Kane was also credited as associate producer on many of his films. Between 1939-57 he was a major film producer, producing over 60 films. Kane was also a film editor and screenwriter responsible for the editing process of over 20 of his films, and he had a brief stint as an actor.

During the 1950s Kane worked steadily in television, with emphasis on Westerns and action series. He spent the last decade of his life as a second-unit director on such productions as Universal Studios Beau Geste (1966) and In Enemy Country (1968).

Kane died on August 25, 1975, in Santa Monica, California.