Desc: The First Year: Directed by William K. Howard. With Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Minna Gombell, Dudley Digges. "The First Year" was a 1920 play that originally ran on Broadway at the Little Theatre. The play was written by Frank Craven and produced by John Golden. It closed in 1922 after 760 performances. In 1932, a film adapted from the Craven play was written by Lynn Starling. The film starred Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, and was directed by William K. Howard. Gaynor and Farrell made almost a dozen films together, including Frank Borzage's classics "Seventh Heaven" (1927), "Street Angel" (1928), and "Lucky Star" (1929); Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress for the first two and F. W. Murnau's "Sunrise" (1927).