While in his junior year in Lake View High School, he and several friends formed a small radio clique and obtained amateur licenses.

When talking pictures began in the late 1920s, Bernds and broadcast operators like him relocated to Hollywood to work as sound technicians in "the talkies".

After a brief period at United Artists, Bernds resigned and worked at Columbia Pictures, where he functioned as sound engineer on many of Frank Capra's classics in the 1930s.

Both the film and Bernds received a commendation from Stanton Griffis of the government's diplomatic corps, which impressed both Harry Cohn and staff producer Hugh McCollum.

The 41-year-old Howard had suffered a series of minor strokes prior to filming; as a result, his tired performances were marred by slurred speech and slower timing.

[2] Years later, Bernds discussed his trying experience during the filming of A Bird in the Head: It was an awful tough deal for a novice rookie director to have a Curly who wasn't himself.

As a result, Bernds feared that his directing days would be over as soon as they began if Columbia released A Bird in the Head with a weak Curly as his first entry.

[3] Bernds struggled through three additional films, all released in 1946, (The Three Troubledoers, Monkey Businessmen and Three Little Pirates, with Curly in varying stages of decline) until the comedian suffered a debilitating stroke that ended his career.

Every Columbia series alternated between the White and McCollum units, allowing Bernds to direct the other Columbia comedians: Shemp Howard, Hugh Herbert, Andy Clyde, Gus Schilling and Richard Lane, Joe Besser, Joe DeRita (then a solo comic; he later joined the Three Stooges), Vera Vague, Wally Vernon and Eddie Quillan, Harry Von Zell, and Billie Burke, among others.

In 1951 Bernds directed Gold Raiders, an independently produced comedy-western co-starring veteran cowboy star George O'Brien and The Three Stooges.

Bernds is also known for directing the cult classic science fiction films World Without End, Queen of Outer Space and Valley of the Dragons.