Mitchell Leisen trained as a costume and set designer before directing, and the films look better than most of their contemporaries because the visual planning was his own discipline. Remember the Night, Midnight and Easy Living are the ones that last.
He directed scripts by both Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, and both later said they moved into directing partly out of frustration at what he did to their writing. Wilder was blunt about it for decades.
The films themselves do not obviously support the complaint. Remember the Night in particular is warmer and more precisely observed than the reputation suggests.
