William Christy Cabanne (1888-1950) became a stage actor, and subsequently director, in 1908. In 1912, he and Raoul Walsh took a film crew to Mexico to film the revolution taking place, producing a film released as Life of Villa. He then worked alongside D W Griffith at the Biograph Company.
After that, Cabanne always worked as a freelancer, directing silent and talking pictures for many studios. Metro assigned him to The Hollywood Revue of 1929, but found his work unexciting and brought in Charles Reisner to finish the picture. It has been estimated that Cabanne was responsible for about half the finished film, but he received no credit.
