Sam Peckinpah

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Jul 052012
 
Sam Peckinpah

Sam Peckinpah (February 21, 1925-December 28, 1984) was the controversial director of The Wild Bunch (1969), Straw Dogs (1971) and The Getaway (1972). After a successful career as a writer for TV westerns, he broke into movies with Ride the High Country (1962). Capable of producing scenes of astonishing tenderness, he also created violence with shocking intensity, so he became famous for ballet-like action, earning the nickname “Bloody Sam.” A superbly talented filmmaker, who was able to place his personal vision on the screen, Peckinpah’s career was limited by a self-destructive nature. Deeply distrustful of producers, he often picked fights with the studios, so several of his movies were taken away from him and edited without his involvement, including Major Dundee (1965) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), and his career experienced lengthy slumps. Alcoholism and drug use ravaged his body until he died at the relatively young age of fifty-nine. Read More…

Sam Fuller

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Apr 212012
 
Sam Fuller

A crime reporter for a New York City tabloid while still a high school student, Sam Fuller became a pulp writer, moved to Hollywood to write screenplays, served in WWII and became a director after the war. Although studio movies like Fixed Bayonets (1951) and House of Bamboo (1955) did well, Fuller became an independent. His emphasis on shock value and harsh realism attracted attention, but not large audiences, therefore his career had declined by the 1960s, but he did manage to make his dream project, The Big Red One (1980), based on his own experiences during WWII. Read More…

David Lean

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Mar 092011
 
David Lean

David Lean (March 25, 1908-April 16, 1991) was an extremely successful editor until famous playwright Noel Coward offered him the position of co-director on Coward’s first film, In Which We Serve. After directing several of Coward’s plays, Lean branched out on his own, and films like Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and Brief Encounter made him one of Britain’s leading directors. However, he appeared to have reached his limits until he agreed to direct Bridge on the River Kwai for producer Sam Spiegel. It was an international hit, followed by Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, so Lean became synonymous with epic films. Read More…

William Wyler

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Jan 122009
 
William Wyler

Wyler’s films have won twice as many Oscars as those of his nearest rival and he himself received three Oscars but few people would name him if they were asked to describe Hollywood’s greatest directors. Famous for demanding endless takes, his perfectionism produced beautiful films like Mrs. Miniver, Roman Holiday and Ben Hur. His reluctance to repeat himself drove him to make as wide a range of films as possible, which makes it hard to classify him. Read More…

Don Siegel

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Nov 212008
 
Don Siegel

Don Siegel (October 26, 1912-April 20, 1991) made five films with Clint Eastwood, including Dirty Harry (1971). Two of Siegel’s better but less-known films are Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954) and the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Read More…

Robert Aldrich

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Aug 192008
 
Robert Aldrich

Robert Aldrich’s family was one of the traditional pillars of society, Nelson Rockefeller was a cousin, but he distanced himself from his family and his films always presented traditional pillars of society as forces of oppression. He is best known for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and The Longest Yard (1974). Throughout his career he was driven by the desire to achieve complete control over his work, so he used the profits from The Dirty Dozen to buy his own studio. Read More…

William Wellman

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Sep 142007
 
William Wellman

Although he was a contemporary of John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Raoul Walsh, William Wellman is not that well-known because he has long been regarded as a studio hack, which is odd since much of his personal life, especially his experiences as a pilot in WWI, found their way into his films. He is probably best known for Wings (1927) or The Public Enemy (1931), but my personal favorites are The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and Battleground (1949). Read More…

Anthony Mann

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Aug 212007
 
Anthony Mann

Anthony Mann’s best-known films were El Cid (1961) and Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), but the ten westerns that he directed between 1950 and 1960 were his greatest accomplishment. In most people’s minds the director most associated with Jimmy Stewart is probably Alfred Hitchcock or Frank Capra but it should be Mann. The westerns they made together were more like film noir with horses, which reflected his background in film noir. Mann’s sudden death in 1967 prevented him from receiving the recognition that he deserved. Read More…

Lewis Milestone

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Jul 042006
 
Lewis Milestone

Best known for the anti-war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Lewis Milestone (September 30, 1895-September 25, 1980) directed several patriotic war movies during WWII. However, he was labeled a Communist sympathizer during the witch hunt after the war, which limited his career. Other notable films include Of Mice and Men (1940), A Walk in the Sun (1945), Ocean’s Eleven (1960) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). Read More…

Michael Curtiz

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May 302005
 
Michael Curtiz

It may seem surprising that the director of films such as Casablanca (1942), Captain Blood (1935), and the Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is considered by many critics to be a technically skilled director, but nothing more than a loyal member of the studio system, who was unwilling to challenge himself artistically. Michael Curtiz (December 24, 1886-April 10, 1962) did little to change this view, and rarely gave interviews, therefore his movies are much better known than he is. Read More…