NH FILMMAKERS

As this amazing list shows, the career of maverick producer Louis de Rochemont was long and provocative. Always pushing the envelope, the NH-based filmmaker produced spy thrillers, military and war, social commentary, romance, cartoons, family films, fantasy, nature and educational films. A work in progress, here is our updated list.

SEE ALSO: Father of the Docu-Drama 

FILMOGRAPHY:
Louis de Rochemont
(1899-1978)

ABOUT LOUIS -- Born in Chelsea. MA in 1899, the man whose monthly documentaries would reach an audience of millions shot his first newsreel at age 12. His professional, insightful and snappy March of Time newsreels defined film news from 1935 to 1951 when television took over. Attracted to Seacoast, NH by family genealogy, Louis de Rochemont and his wife screen writer Virginia Shaler settled in Newington, NH at "Blueberry Hill" on the Piscataqua River. Snubbing Hollywood studios, de Rochemont chose to produce films based on real stories in actual locations, often with local people in the cast. After three spy films that helped define film noir, he produced an eclectic array of feature films, including three shot near his hometown. He was an early pioneer in cinerama and did not shy away from such controversial topics like race and labor relations. He often experimented with unknown and theater- trained actors, likely because they matched his small budgets. De Rochemont did cast top names including Vivian Leigh, James Cagney, Leo G. Carroll, Dorothy Gish, plus newcomers like Lloyd Bridges, Ernest Borgnine and Warren Beatty. Considered experimental and a maverick by Hollywood, he has been called the "father of the docu-drama." His early documentary productions won two Academy Awards. De Rochemont’s insistence on depicting the dangerous regime of dictator Hitler prior to WW2 caused some to label him a Nazi sympathizer. He died in the Seacoast region in 1978 survived by a daughter and a son, Louis III, who himself recently passed away. His wife lived in Portsmouth until her death in 1985. - JDR

SEE ALSO: The films de Rochemont Never Made 

QUICK LIST
(see next page for more detail)

March of Time theater newsreels (1935-1951)
March of Time: Inside Nazi Germany (1938)
The Ramparts We Watch (1940)
We Are the Marines (1942)
Show Business at War (1943)
The Fighting Lady (1944)
The House on 92nd Street (1945)
13 Rue Madeleine (1946)
Boomerang! (1947)
Lost Boundaries (1949)
Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951)
also called Richer Than the Earth
Walk East on Beacon! (1952)
also The Crime of the Century
Martin Luther (1953)
Cinerama Holiday (1955)
Animal Farm (1955)
Windjammer: The Voyage of the Christian Radich, (1958)
Man on a String (1960)
The Sand Castle (1961)
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961)
(also Widow and the Gigolo) 

CONTINUE for Complete FILLMOGRAPHY