Harry S. Webb was one of the early Jack-of-all-trades in silent Hollywood, albeit working mostly on the wrong side of the tracks along Poverty Row. Born in 1896 (some sources claim 1892), Webb broke into movies as an actor, working at what was then the largest studio on earth, "Uncle" Carl Laemmle 's Universal Pictures. After a few turns in front of the camera, he moved into production and, like many of Laemmle's relatively few unrelated employees, left for what he felt was greener pastures. In 1926, Webb hooked up with legendary serial producer Nat Levine for the serial, The Silent Flyer (1926) (ultimately sold and distributed by his old studio, Universal) just prior to the formation of Mascot Pictures. As half of Webb-Douglas Productions, he continued at Mascot for about a year, directing the first 3 of the newly formed company's cliffhanger serials. Webb-Douglas moved out from behind Mascot, continuing to produce serials and low budget westerns. In 1933, with Bernard B. Ray (who also worked as a director under the pseudonym "Raymond Samuels"), he formed Reliable Pictures until the company disintegrated in 1937. Metropolitan Pictures briefly rose out of the ashes of Reliable. Ray soon went to work at lowly Producer's Releasing Corp. (PRC), while Webb signed on with Monogram Pictures. His movie career petered out by 1941 and he spent the war working at a defense plant. Webb retired from pictures, save for a brief assistant director's credit on Columbia's The Parson and the Outlaw (1957). He was married to Rose Gordon and is the father of producer Gordon Webb and director Robert Webb . Their grandsons Mark Webb and Gordon Webb Jr. are also in the film business.
Father of Gordon A. Webb , grandfather of Mark Webb .Father of Robert Webb , grandfather of Chris S. Webb , brother of Ira Webb .Co-owner, with Bernard B. Ray , of Reliable Pictures. The short-lived operation, specializing in "B" westerns and action pictures, was based at the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Beachwood in the mid-'30s. Reliable's contract stars were Tom Tyler , Richard Talmadge and Jack Perrin .
Good-natured troublemaker "Cyclone" Tom Saunders is hired by a ranchers' association manager to investigate recent cattle rustling at one of their ranches and to see if a pair of nesters have anything to do with it. After discovering the nesters, pretty Betty Powell and her rickety old father, are incapable of rustling, Tom instead turns his attention to the huge, swaggering bully of a foreman, Nate Lenox.