Philip K. Scheuer

Philip K. Scheuer (March 24, 1902 – February 19, 1985) was an American film critic who wrote for the Los Angeles Times for forty years.

Life and career Scheuer was born on March 24, 1902, in Newark, New Jersey. In high school, he won a trip to interview prominent figures in the Hollywood filmmaking industry and then decided to pursue a career for himself. During the silent film era, he had invested $2,700 in producing an "allegedly artistic quickie", where he served as an assistant cameraman to Leon Shamroy, wrote the title cards and a music cue sheet, and served as a cutter. However, Scheuer lost his investment as his project was never released.

In March 1927, he was hired by Edwin Schallert at the Los Angeles Times as an assistant film critic. Scheuer's early contributions to the Los Angeles Times chronicled the shift from silent to sound films that was occurring. He was concerned with helping to establish cinema as a valid and discrete art form separate from other performing arts.

By the mid-1960s, Scheuer became disgusted by the explicit depiction of sex and violence in mainstream Hollywood films. A friend later explained that Scheuer hated the "new freedom" seen in contemporary films because it was "anathema to a man of taste and breeding". At the time of his retirement, Scheuer was believed to be the only working critic who had been reviewing films since the silent era. He was succeeded by Charles Champlin.

Death Scheuer died on February 18, 1985, at the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center from an undisclosed illness. Scheuer had one daughter, Lucie, who became a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times during the early 1970s.