Episode 1 Stanley Kubrick
As Alfred Hitchcock stared the first series, we have my other favourite director starting the second. Stanley Kubrick was a genius at innovation, always looking for new ways to present a movie. Commercial as well as artistic, that combination was amazing. Born in New York in 1928, he was not good at school despite a high IQ. Given his first camera at 13, he became an obsessive photographer. His first involvement with film making was a documentary The Day of the Fight followed by his first feature funded by his family Fear and Desire, a very disturbing and nasty film. The Killer's Kiss was followed by his first studio movie The Killing, a big early success.
The rest is history: Paths of Glory, Spartacus {the most expensive Hollywood movie to date), Lolita, Doctor Strangelove (one of my top three movies of all time, the blackest black comedy ever made, every world leader needs to watch it once a month), 2001, A Clockwork Orange (I saw it in a cinema in Brighton, whilst at college, before it was banned), Barry Lyndon (I had not realised that this period movie was made with no electric light, only candles), The Shining (Kubrick wanted to make the scariest movie ever and I think that is what he achieved, and Full Metal Jacket. It was then another 12 years before his final movie Eyes Wide Shut. Although an odd film, it still has the classic unsettling feel of all his films and great visuals. He was a genius.
Episode 2 David Lean
I was surprised that with his Quaker upbringing, that David Lean became a film director. But it was his uncle who bought him a box brownie camera that set him on his way. His enthusiasm for taking and developing photographs led to his father arranging an interview for him at Gaumont Studios. There was no better apprenticeship for the movies, visiting and learning in all the different departments. He loved the process of editing films and this is where his real talent lay. His flair led to him editing some of their biggest features.
After assisting Noel Coward with the direction of In Which We Serve, Lean gets his first sole directing role with This Happy Breed, the first of three Coward adaptations which included the classics Blythe Spirit and Brief Encounter.. His continuing to edit his movies had a lot to do with their success. Into the 1950's he directed The Sound Barrier and Hobson's Choice.
It was in 1957 that Bridge on the River Kwai gave him his first big epic that won seven Academy Awards. Five years on he repeated this success with Lawrence of Arabia that was awarded seven more Oscars. Next up was Doctor Zhivago with five Oscars this time. Ryan's Daughter was next but it took another fourteen years before Lean directed his last film A Passage to India.
The general opinion of the contributors was that it was Lean's Englishness that pervades his movies and make them so distinct. And there was no doubt that he was a master of the cinema.
Episode 3 Michael Curtiz
If you had asked me who was the director of Casablanca, White Christmas and Angels With Dirty Faces, and who had directed Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in their first big feature (the first of many as a pair with this same director), I would not have been able to guess. The name of Michael Cutiz did not spring to mind. Originally from a Jewish family in Budapest, Curtiz dreamed of a theatrical career. He joined a travelling group and was learning all the different disciplines that went into a production.
He joined the National Theatre of Hungary and made the first feature film for that country. It was in Vienna in 1926, at the age of 39, that he was noticed by Jack Warner who signed him to a Warner Brothers Studio contract. He had already made 64 films in Europe. A studio contract meant he directed whatever the bosses told him to, and he went on to make 102 Hollywood movies, most at Warner Brothers.
Doctor X was a successful 1932 picture which gave him importance at the studio. His 1935 movie Captain Blood was the one where he put together unknown actors Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. It was a big success and was nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards. Te three followed this with The Charge of the Light Brigade. In 1938 Curtiz directed Errol Flynn again in another big success The Adventures of Robin Hood. One of the contributors went on to say it was the greatest swashbuckling movie ever made.
Curtiz directed films in every genre you could find. He directed James Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces which won them both Oscar nominations. In 1942 he worked with Cagney again, this time on the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy. for which Cagney won his only Academy Award. By this time Curtiz was Warner's top director and the following year he made the classic movie Casablanca for which he won his only best director Oscar.
In 1945, Joan Crawford won her Oscar for Mildred Pierce. Curtiz had directed so many stars to Academy Awards. In 1954 he directed another classic in White Christmas. It was said to be the highest grossing musical of all time. At the end of his career he ended up directing probably the best movie that Elvis ever made in King Creaole and his last film was The Comancheros starring Joh Wayne in 1961.
Michael Curtiz was the ultimate professional, hugely experienced, and left an amazing legacy. This episode told me more about a director I could not name than any other so far.
Episode 4 John Ford
I had thought that all John Ford movies were westerns. How wrong could I be. His ancestors were Irish and it was his brother Francis that gave him a job working on early silent films. So it was from 1917 to 1923 he learnt the whole process of movie making by working on the set. When he was given the chance to direct his own films, he gave Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogard their debuts.
Ford became busy with the advent of the "talkies" and in 1935 he directed the movie about the IRA that he really wanted to make. The Informer gave Ford his first directing Oscar and the movie was also nominated for Best Picture. Then in 1939 he directed Stagecoach with John Wayne in his breakthrough role. This, the first of Ford's great westerns, won him the Academy Award for best director. His use of the Monument Valley landscape meant he returned there time and again.
He followed this with Young Mr Lincoln, a biography starring a young Henry Fonda. The contributors thought this a great film despite it's lack of success. Unlike Grapes of Wrath that was a box office smash, was highly acclaimed and won Ford his second best director Oscar. His talent across many genres again showed through with his 1941 film How Green Was my Valley. An unlikely movie abut a Welsh mining village shot, not in Wales but California, it was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won five including best picture and best director.
During the second world war he shot documentaries including The Battle of Midway, taking his camera onto aircraft carriers. and won the Oscar for best documentary. He was back to westerns after the war and made three with Henry Fonda and two more with John Wayne: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande. A departure from westerns followed with John Wayne starring in 1952's The Quiet Man. This became a huge box office hit despite reservations from the studio, a pet project of Ford's that gave him his fourth Oscar.
A lull in his career was only resurrected in 1956 with yet another western. The Searchers. The contributors thought this the greatest western ever made and it was a huge success. More disappointments followed, only for yet another western to be a big hit. The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance in 1962 was perhaps the last good film that Ford made. he was one of the directors on the epic How The West Was Won, he made his last movie with John Wayne with Donovan's Reef , his last ever western with Cheyenne Autumn and his last ever movie with Seven Women.
His prodigious output, his great storytelling and his many successful westerns made him a Hollywood legend.
Episode 5 John Huston
John Huston was a writer first and foremost. "The Ernest Hemingway of the big screen". He was born in Nevada, Missouri in 1906. His father (Walter Huston) was a film actor, though never a star. He did help John with doing some script writing, and he worked on films such as Jezebel and Sergeant York. However, he became frustrated at actors and directors changing his words and finally persuaded Jack Warner to give him a chance at directing his own script.
In 1941 he could not have picked a better film to be his first time in the director's chair. The Maltese Falcon had failed at the box office twice before, but Huston kept close to the novel and was helped by the performance of Humphrey Bogart, with whom he would work many times in the future. It became an instant classic, and Huston won the Oscar for his screenplay. He went on to write nearly all the 37 films he directed.
During WW2, Huston directed films for the US Army Signal Corp. Back at Warner's, his next movie in 1948 was The Treasure of the Sierra Nevada. with a once in a lifetime cast. He won the Oscar for best director and best adapted screenplay. His father Walter also won an Oscar for best supporting actor, the only time father and son won on the same film. It was not a big commercial success, although the critics loved it.
His next film was a big box office smash, 1948's Key Largo with Bogart and Lauren Bacall. He followed this with another success that was The Asphalt Jungle. One contributor said this was his favourite Huston film, a 1950 heist movie that even featured a newcomer in Marilyn Monroe. The next year came another classic in The African Queen with Bogart (again) and Katherine Hepburn. Then came Moulin Rouge, Moby Dick and Heaven knows Mr Allison.
But it was not until 1961 that Huston had his next big success. The Misfits starred Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe in their last films. A troubled shoot, given it was written by Arthur Miller. It was not until 1964 that Night of the Iguana made another big box office hit. A huge cast included a fine Richard Burton. Huston cast himself as Noah in 1966's The Bible and this was his last success before 1975's The Man Who Would Be King. This was a pet project for Huston and we were shown a clip featuring Sean Connery and Michael Caine standing next to each other doing a wonderful double act.
I was surprised when the programme glossed over 1981's Escape to Victory. Then Annie in 1982 and in 1985 came his last major success in Prizzi's Honour. where he was nominated yet again for a best director Oscar. In total there were fifteen nominations for Academy Awards. He left a legacy of some classic films where his intelligence and innovation shone through.
Episode 6 Sergei Eisenstein
Sergie Eisenstein was a pioneer of European cinema. I only knew that he had directed Battleship Potemkin, a famous film released in 1925 and we were told it "changed film absolutely". One contributor remarked that he was "the most important figure in early film history". He came from a well to do family who moved from Riga (then part of the Russian empire, now Latvia) to St Petersburg at the time of the 1905 revolution.
In 1920 he moved to Moscow to work in the theatre and his first attempt at film making came in 1923's Glumov's Diary. This led him to make Strike in 1925, all the time under the auspices of the Russian authorities led by Stalin. In the same year came his masterpiece Battleship Potemkin that reflected the real life mutiny f 1905. This is now a hugely influential and well studied piece of early cinema. We were told how he took a tiny portion of a massive script and expanded it to make an action movie, taking out nearly all the narrative to make a visual epic, almost like a documentary but all violent fiction staged with many extras.
His next film was October about the 1917 revolution, but it fell foul of the authorities and the last quarter was lost. In Hollywood he met Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin, both big fans, but he was banned from working there. He tried Mexico but that was a disaster. When Stalin ordered him home, he made Alexander Nevsky with a score by Prokofiev and then 1944's Ivan the Terrible Part 1. Stalin loved it but when Ivan turns into a tyrant in Part 2 it was banned, only to be released eventually in 1958.
Eisenstein was a highly intellectual film maker, he was a great editor and shot wonderful visuals. The team of contributors were in awe.
Episode 7 Federico Fellini
I knew that Federico Fellini had directed La Dolce Vita and was highly respected in the film industry, but nothing else. This is why this series is an education, almost a course in film studies. We were told that Fellini brought modern Italy to film fans worldwide and that "he created the the Italian film industry as we now know it". And that watching his films, they could not have been made by anyone else.
He was born in Rimini and was taught by nuns. But his rebellious, artistic streak led him to writing for radio through the 1940's. He started working with the director Roberto Rossellini and in 1947 Fellini and Sergio Amidie were nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay to Rome, Open City.
In 1950 he co-produced and co-directed Variety Lights and the following year saw his first solo project with The White Sheik. When 1953's I Vitteloni was discussed, I was surprised that nobody mentioned how close was the plot to Waiting for Godot, but with more characters. In 1954 came Fellini's breakthrough movie. La Strada (with Anthony Quin) was his first to win the Academy Award for best foreign language film. As did 1957's Nights of Cabiria.
An even bigger success came in 1960 with La Dolce Vita, set in Rome and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and broke all box office records.
After Boccaccio '70 came 8 1/2. This won Fellini another Oscar for best foreign language film. However, this seemed to be the first in a succession of increasingly strange movies, amongst them the 1971 autobiographical Roma. In 1973 Fellini won yet another best foreign language Oscar for Amarcord, Then in 1976 came his first film in English in Casanova starring Donald Sutherland. Derek Malcolm tells us when he first saw it he thought it was dreadful, only on a second viewing he acknowledge it was marvellous.
City of Women was classed as another weird film but in 1986 he made his last notable movie in Ginger and Fred, again starring Marcelo Mastroianni and his wife Giulietta Masina. She had appeared in many of Fellini's movies. Apart from winning those four Oscars, Fellini was also presented with an honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement, many other Oscar nominations and director.other awards. Derek Malcolm called him a flamboyant visualist whose images on the screen are unforgettable.
Episode 8 Elia Kazan
Yet another director I didn't know except for his films. He has been credited with discovering Marlon Brando, James Dean, Warren Beatty amongst many others. Nobody has created so many actors who went on to greatness, Elia Kazan was a real actor's director. We were told he "raised the intellectual credibility of acting". Amazingly 21 of his actors went on to win Oscar nominations with nine wins. He won the Oscar for best director twice and an honorary Oscar award.
Elia Kazan was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul) but the family moved near to New York. he went to Williams College and then onto Yale where he attended the school of drama. He became an actor in New York and studied at the Juilliard School (I cannot help mentioning Bryan Adams name checking the students from Juilliard School who play the orchestrations on his song "I'm Ready" on his "Unplugged" album). Kazan was part of a group of young actors called Group Theatre. He became focused on directing and in 1942 his production of The Skin of our Teeth with Tallulah Bankhead was very well received, a big success for such an unknown director. The play won awards including one for Kazan. He followed this with other important plays. Someone called him the greatest American theatre director.
He moved to Hollywood in 1945 where he directed A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. In 1947 he directed Gregory Peck in Gentleman's Agreement which won the Oscar for best picture and best director. 1950 saw the release of Panic in the Streets with Jack Palance and Richard Widmark and this was followed by A Streetcar Named Desire. Kazan had earlier directed the stage version and cast the same two actors, Marlon Brando and Karl Malden. The film was nominated for twelve Oscars and won four.
In 1947 Kazan had founded the Actors Studio to develop new talent, Brando and Malden were amongst the many who started there. In 1952 he directed Viva Zapata again with Marlon Brando and Anthony Quin. But that year was quite traumatic for Kazan as he was hauled in front of the House Committee on Un-american Activities due to his previous association with the Communist party. After refusing to name names, he was forced to name eight, They were all already known to the committe but Kazan was for ever tarnished with this testimony.
However, in 1954 came Kazan's biggest success when he made On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger and Eva Marie Saint in her first film. It was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won eight including best picture, best director, best actor (Brando) and best supporting actress for Eva Marie Saint. Yet another discovery for Kazan. This was definitely his most famous film, with a world class cast. For this movie, the contributors called him a genius.
He made yet another discovery when James Dean appeared in 1955's East of Eden that became another classic of the cinema, this time from a John stein beck novel. The Tennessee Williams novel Baby Doll was adapted and released the following year. Then in 1960, Montgomery Clift's first movie was Wild River and in 1961 it was the turn of Warren Beatty to star with Natalie Wood in Splendour in the Grass". These major successes would not be repeated during the rest of Kazan's career.
In 1963 he made America, America, adapting and narrating his own book. But he once again discovered a new actor in James Woods for his 1972 movie The Visitors. In 1976 Kazan went back to the classics with F Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon and another all star cast: Robert De Niro, Donald Pleasance and Jack Nicholson. Kazan was certainly an actor's director, making classics powerful and accessible, loved by the audience and critics alike.
Episode 9 Fred Zinnemann
It was Derek Malcolm who opened the programme with his first words about Fred Zinnemann: "he always wanted to make films about something important". He is yet another director that I could not say which were the films he made, even though one or two are among my favourites.. he was born in 1907 in a city in what was the Austrian/Hungarian empire, now Poland. He studied music and law and visited Paris and Berlin where he was learning about film. He worked with the documentary film maker Robert Flaherty and this gave him a taste of authenticity that would show in his later work.
He co-directed Redes in 1936 but it was in 1938 when his first solo short film That Mothers Might Live that brought him fame, winning the Oscar for best short film. His first features in Hollywood were thrillers that did well at the box office. But it was with his 1944 war movie The Seventh Cross with Spencer Tracy that he became generally recognised. In 1948 Zinnemann released The Search that was almost a wartime documentary. But it wasn't until 1952 that he made the first of his big blockbusters. High Noon became a classic starring Gary Cooper.
Then in 1953 came his most famous film From Here to Eternity. An all star cast included Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr This "legendary film" was a huge box office success and won the Academy Awards for best picture and best director. He followed this with the musical Oklahoma in 1955 and then in 1959 The Nun's Story with Audrey Hepburn, both had similar success. 1960 saw The Sundowners shot in the Australian outback followed by 1964's Behold a Pale Horse with Gregory Peck, Omar Shariff and Anthony Quin.
It was 1966's A Man for all Seasons that I remember most vividly that had Paul Schofield in the leading role of Thomas More with Robert Shaw as Henry V111 and Orson Wells as the Pope. Gorgeous to look at, it again won the Oscars for best picture and best director. But when MGM pulled the plug on the predictably expensive Man's Fate, Zinnemann was left for years fighting the studio. So it was seven years until he directed The Day of the Jackal. This turned out to be a huge box office success. His choice of the relatively unknown Edward Fox to play the assassin was a great decision.
!977's Julia with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave was followed by his final film in 1982's Five Days One Summer. This wrapped up a career where he brought a European sensitivity to Hollywood. Bonnie Greer says "he had an unshakeable belief in human dignity" that underpinned all his movies.
Episode 10 Vincente Minnelli
Yet another major director whose name I should have known but didn't. His talent for staging beautiful looking musicals was crucial to his success as a director. Minnelli was born in Chicago but his family were originally from Sicily. He had a talent for design and this led to him becoming a set designer for the Chicago Theatre. This experience would be a hallmark of all his movies. Moving to New York he became an art director in the theatre and finally a stage director on Broadway.
Minnelli was hired by MGM to direct his first film Cabin in the Sky in 1943 and already showed his prowess in the musical numbers. This was instrumental in his big 1944 success Meet Me in St Louis and catapulted him to the big league. It starred a young Judy Garland who he later married and had a daughter Liza Minnelli. With Judy he made The Clock when she wanted to a more dramatic role.
His work on Ziegfield Follies led him to direct Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire as a double act. A change of direction saw him take on a film noir in Undercurrent with Katherine Hepburn. Then he was back to musicals with 1948's The Pirate with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. After Madam Bovary he assembled an all star cast for 1950's Father of the Bride starring Spencer Tracy.
Next up was described as "one of the best musicals ever made". 1951's An American in Paris showed Minnelli's genius combining music and dance. It won the Oscar for best picture and many other awards. It is still a classic today. He went on to direct The Bad and the Beautiful in 1952 and then came The Band Wagon with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Ian Nathan called it his finest film. The same pair then appeared in Brigadoon that was followed amongst others with Kismet, the Vincent Van Gogh movie Lust for Life and 1957's Designing Woman with Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall.
One of Minnelli's biggest hits came in 1958 with Gigi. Adapted from the stage musical, it won many Oscars including, at last, a best director. The same year, unbelievably, he released The Reluctant Debutante with Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall and Some Came Running with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Another musical in 1960 The Bells are Ringing was not so successful. So it was not until 1965 that Minnelli had another hit with the newly married Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in The Sandpiper.
Then in 1970 came On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, another big musical, this time with Barbra Streisand. Amazing that it was 26 years since he directed Judy Garland. His final film in 1976 was A Matter of Time, a musical starring his daughter Liza Minnelli and Ingrid Bergman. Vicente Minnelli had a spectacular career making spectacular musicals.
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