Roubenesque

Armenian auteur Rouben Mamoulian born 1897 in what is now Tbilisi, Georgia - was chiefly a theatrical director who made fourteen of the sixteen feature films of his canon between the years 1929 and 1942. A stylistic genius who was highly innovative in the utilization of sound, visual effects and color, he would make his debut with an early talkie; the backstage tragedy Applause in 1929. He would invent the interior monologue, stream of consciousness narrative technique in 1931's pre-code proto-noir City Streets, a Sylvia Sidney vehicle based on the Dashiell Hammett story.

And although the great Sergei Eisenstein had the precise idea for his unmade version of An American Tragedy - experimented with tight shots and color filters to highlight the protagonist's metamorphosis in Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1932), Love Me Tonight (1932) was among the most inventive of early musicals and hosted a symphonic medley of sounds, music and words. Becky Sharp (1935) used the newly available three-color Technicolor with restraint, adding color as the film progressed, whereas the bullfighting story Blood and Sand (1941) was anti-realist in its derivation from noted Spanish painters El Greco and Diego Velazquez. 

Ya gotta look Becky Sharp. From the technicolor tactician that was Rouben Mamoulian

Mamoulian's  final film, Silk Stockings in 1957, was a musical remake in color and wide-screen of 1939's Ninotchka that featured Greta Garbo, with the essential romantic development expressed in the dance sequences of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. It is here that reveals Mamoulian still being at the height of his powers, though he was quite rueful that his regular career scarcely outlasted the 1930s. Sadly there is little regard for this giant among directors despite his tremendous contributions to the form. 

Mamoulian went out with a bang with Silk Stockings. Here Miss Charisse slips into something less comfortable.

Mamoulian passed away at the age of 90 in the year 1987.