I'd like to know more about this guy. Dude has a fistfull of very high profile stone cold classics in his resume, plus a lot of less well known interesting seeming movies, but he never seems to get talked about or given much respect as an auteur. For why? From the little I've seen of his stuff, I kinda get the vibe that he could be a very important link between Howard Hawks (who his movies remind me of in their humor and focus on male friendship) and modern action cinema; he seems to have really excelled at the men on a mission genre, too (pity Inglourious Basterds didn't get people namedropping him more.) The films of his I've seen are wildly entertaining, and he worked with all of those 60's macho icons we know and love- Marvin, Borgnine, McQueen, Bronson.
Is it just a question of his biggest movies being so iconic that they overshadow their creator - The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven feel like they've ALWAYS been there, it's hard to imagine anyone being responsible for making them?
And, more importantly, what movies of his should I track down?
The little I've seen:
Bad Day At Black Rock - So fucking awesome. It's included in the Warner Bros Controversial Classics box for dealing with the possible murder of a japanese immigrant during WWII, but without wanting to downplay its social relevance, it is also just an action movie through and through. Great mounting tension. Spencer Tracy brings this incredible sense of confidence and moral authority to his role; Lee Marvin plays one of those psycho hotheads that he excelled at in the 50's, Ernest Borgnine is smiling and swarmy. Plus Robert Ryan and Walter Brennan! Wotta cast.
Never So Few - I've namedropped this movie a few times on CHUD. It's nominally a WWII movie starring Frank Sinatra, only Ol' Blue Eyes abandons the burmese battlefield pretty early on and it morphs into this fun intrigue/adventure movie. A very young Steve McQueen plays Sinatra's driver. Charles Bronson plays an interesting character, too - he's a navajo soldier who's surly and agressive, except you never get to figure out entirely how much everyone's antipathy towards him has to do with racism and how much it's due to his own antisocial demeanour. He sort of acts like I imagine Bronson did in real life, actually.
The Magnificent Seven - Has this movie become underrated? Every movie fan worth his salt has to point out that it's just a remake of the Kurosawa masterpiece which is a lot more profound yadda yadda yadda. And I suppose it's light hearted enough for people to use it as an argument about how Hollywood dilutes/bastardises its source material, plus it's two hours long while the original is four hours like a REAL serious movie, so clearly if you prefer it you just have a short attention span. And sure, Kurosawa focuses more on the peasant's misery, the battle in the rain is unfuckwithable and the entire tenor of Seven Samurai a lot more coherent, but fuck it: The Magnificent Seven is still a whole lot of fun! Wonderful soundtrack, great action, a plot that doesn't pull too many punches for the sake of its protagonists, and hell, how could you not like a men on a mission/western mashup (see also: The Professionals)?
The Great Escape - I don't really have a whole lot to say about this movie and out of the ones I've seen by him it's probably my least favourite (though Never So Few is probably the weakest one, plotwise), but when the worst I've seen by a director is something still as indisputably iconic and entertaning as The Great Escape, surely it is time to investigate further.
Gunfight At The O.K. Corral is weird - it's one of those go-to titles when you want to evoke western imagery in pop culture, kinda like how there's millions of movies/TV eps/comic book stories called 'The Good, The Bad & The (insert Joke Here)', but I've heard very little about the actual movie; I assume it's canonical but I haven't seen it show up on too many best of lists. Ice Station Zebra is on TCM Europe all the time; if I knew it was a Sturges joint I'd already have DVRed it. I'm checking through the rest of his filmography on IMDB - kinda want to see them all!
Is it just a question of his biggest movies being so iconic that they overshadow their creator - The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven feel like they've ALWAYS been there, it's hard to imagine anyone being responsible for making them?
And, more importantly, what movies of his should I track down?
The little I've seen:
Bad Day At Black Rock - So fucking awesome. It's included in the Warner Bros Controversial Classics box for dealing with the possible murder of a japanese immigrant during WWII, but without wanting to downplay its social relevance, it is also just an action movie through and through. Great mounting tension. Spencer Tracy brings this incredible sense of confidence and moral authority to his role; Lee Marvin plays one of those psycho hotheads that he excelled at in the 50's, Ernest Borgnine is smiling and swarmy. Plus Robert Ryan and Walter Brennan! Wotta cast.
Never So Few - I've namedropped this movie a few times on CHUD. It's nominally a WWII movie starring Frank Sinatra, only Ol' Blue Eyes abandons the burmese battlefield pretty early on and it morphs into this fun intrigue/adventure movie. A very young Steve McQueen plays Sinatra's driver. Charles Bronson plays an interesting character, too - he's a navajo soldier who's surly and agressive, except you never get to figure out entirely how much everyone's antipathy towards him has to do with racism and how much it's due to his own antisocial demeanour. He sort of acts like I imagine Bronson did in real life, actually.
The Magnificent Seven - Has this movie become underrated? Every movie fan worth his salt has to point out that it's just a remake of the Kurosawa masterpiece which is a lot more profound yadda yadda yadda. And I suppose it's light hearted enough for people to use it as an argument about how Hollywood dilutes/bastardises its source material, plus it's two hours long while the original is four hours like a REAL serious movie, so clearly if you prefer it you just have a short attention span. And sure, Kurosawa focuses more on the peasant's misery, the battle in the rain is unfuckwithable and the entire tenor of Seven Samurai a lot more coherent, but fuck it: The Magnificent Seven is still a whole lot of fun! Wonderful soundtrack, great action, a plot that doesn't pull too many punches for the sake of its protagonists, and hell, how could you not like a men on a mission/western mashup (see also: The Professionals)?
The Great Escape - I don't really have a whole lot to say about this movie and out of the ones I've seen by him it's probably my least favourite (though Never So Few is probably the weakest one, plotwise), but when the worst I've seen by a director is something still as indisputably iconic and entertaning as The Great Escape, surely it is time to investigate further.
Gunfight At The O.K. Corral is weird - it's one of those go-to titles when you want to evoke western imagery in pop culture, kinda like how there's millions of movies/TV eps/comic book stories called 'The Good, The Bad & The (insert Joke Here)', but I've heard very little about the actual movie; I assume it's canonical but I haven't seen it show up on too many best of lists. Ice Station Zebra is on TCM Europe all the time; if I knew it was a Sturges joint I'd already have DVRed it. I'm checking through the rest of his filmography on IMDB - kinda want to see them all!
