Peter Bogdanovich discusses The Dirty Dozen and the career of director Robert Aldrich. Good stuff.
"Bob Aldrich (1918-1983) was himself always a kind of insider/outsider in the Hollywood industry, a maverick who played by the rules, but bending them as much as possible in an ornery iconoclastic fashion that produced a number of complicated, darkly ambiguous works. Having been assistant to such unique filmmakers as Jean Renoir (on The Southerner; see Picture of the Week 1/18/11), Abraham Polonsky (on Force of Evil) and Charles Chaplin (on Limelight), Aldrich stamped his own movies with a restless, edgy signature, defying restrictions or easy assumptions.
"The results were such angry, oddball triumphs of individualism as his sardonic Gary Cooper-Burt Lancaster action-send up, Vera Cruz (1954); his annihilating Mickey Spillane thriller, Kiss Me Deadly (1955; see Picture of the Week 1/6/11), in which even the title, in a characteristic Aldrich manner, rolled up backward: Deadly Kiss Me; his Clifford Odets anti-Hollywood drama, The Big Knife (1955; see Special Comments: Film as Hell 6/15/11); his Bette Davis-Joan Crawford psycho duel, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962), among several others equally enthralling."
for all of it go here:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/peterbogdanovich/archives/the_dirty_dozen/
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Here are some of the movies released in 1950. What a year.
All About Eve
The Asphalt Jungle
Born Yesterday
D.O.A.
Les Enfants Terribles
Gun Crazy
In A Lonely Place
Miss Julie
Night and The City
Rashomon
Sunset Boulevard
Winchester 73
Aldrich's supreme masterwork is "Twilight's Last Gleaming" (1977), the complete uncut 145 minute version is still one of the greatest thrillers ever made (if not THE greatest).
ReplyDeleteJust saw and reviewed his THE LAST SUNSET, which is a twisted western in several ways. Never quite at ease with the genre.
ReplyDeleteULZANA'S RAID remains, to me, Aldrich's best western by miles; although THE FRISCO KID shows his lighter touch in good form (unlike FOUR FOR TEXAS which is a wincer, despite the cast /Charles Bronson and The Three Stooges????/) - Aldrich's westerns remain spotty, but ULZANA is a mini-masterwork, and although a cult item, has never really gotten the recognition it deserves.
ReplyDeleteTHE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, THE DIRTY DOZEN, THE ANGRY HILLS and THE LONGEST YARD are the only four Robert Aldrich films I've seen. Got a lot of catching up to do.
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