American film director.
A fiercely independent filmmaker, Stanley Kramer produced a number of classic Hollywood films during the 1950s and 1960s, including the adaptation of Neville Shute's novel, On the Beach. Kramer began working in the US film industry with several major studios, dating back to 1933. He went independent at the end of World War II in a joint venture with Armand S. Deutsch, one of the heirs to the Sears, Roebuck fortune. The partnership was short-lived as Deutsch decided to buy out his partner and form an independent production company with Hal Horne. Kramer used the proceeds from the sale to start his own independent company Screen Plays Inc. in 1947. The following year he gained much notoriety by breaking through the Hollywood blacklist and hiring many artists subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC). His stated goal was to champion a unique brand of social consciousness in order 'to use film,' he stated, 'as a real weapon against discrimination, hatred, prejudice, and excessive power.'
In 1949 he went against the high-budget Hollywood convention to produce the acclaimed anti-boxing film Champion (1949) and soon afterwards founded Stanley Kramer Productions Inc. in association with United Artists (UA). Kramer went on to produce Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and High Noon (1952) before moving his company to Columbia Pictures to become an in-house independent under a five-year, 30-picture deal. In 1954, however, Kramer established the Stanley Kramer Picture Corporation, and re-established an association with UA to release his films. As the budgets increased, so did his range of filmmaking. Kramer's output during the 1950s also includes: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953), The Wild One (1954), The Caine Mutiny (1954), The Defiant Ones (1958) and On the Beach (q.v., 1959). During the 1960s he made such films as: Inherit the Wind (1960) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Pressure Point (1962), It's a Mad Mad World (1963), Ship of Fools (1965). Later films include: Bless the Beasts and Children (1971) and The Runner Stumbles (1979.
