Rupert Julian was a New Zealand cinema actor, director, writer and producer. During his career, Julian directed 60 films and acted in over 90 films. He is best remembered for directing Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925). He also directed The Cat Creeps (1930), a sound remake of The Cat and the Canary (1927), which is now considered a lost film, with only two minutes of footage remaining in the 1932 Universal comedy short film Boo!.

Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim was an Austrian-American director, screenwriter, actor, and producer, most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era. His 1924 film Greed is considered one of the finest and most important films ever made. After clashes with Hollywood studio bosses over budget and workers' rights problems, Stroheim found it difficult to find work as a director and subsequently became a well-respected character actor, particularly in French cinema.