February
16
Richard Fleischer: Hack or Genius?
Directors are often harshly judged by their output at the end of their long careers. I have always considered Richard Fleischer to be a studio hack, partly because when I was growing up I actually saw 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Vikings, Barabbas, Fantastic Voyage (see trailer), Dr. Dolittle, Soylent Green, Mandingo, and The Boston Strangler. (He liked Tony Curtis.) I was never impressed. Nor was Andrew Sarris, who put him in the "strained seriousness" category in his classic The American Cinema, writing that Fleischer's career had "sputtered at less than 50 % efficiency" after The Narrow Margin. I will always prefer the output of Fleischer's father, Betty Boop and Popeye animator Max Fleischer, whose 1933 Snow White features the memorable St. James Infirmary Blues.
And yet esteemed NYT critic Dave Kehr defends Richard Fleischer in the NYT this week. I respect Kehr--he's watched a lot more Fleischer films than I have, especially his B-pics for RKO. I guess I must have seen the wrong ones.
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I've defended Fleischer before on this page and I'm so glad that Kehr has written this consideration of him. I'm looking forward to getting the N.Y. Times tomorrow when it's dropped off at my door. Johnathan Rosenbaum as well has also written very highly of Fleischer. Not every director can be a Hitchcock, a Hawks, a Scorsese or a Paul Thomas Anderson. (In fact 99% of them aren't.) But Fleischer, like John Sturges and Michael Curtiz (two other directors who are unfairly dismissed as studio hacks but who were much better than their unjust reputations) was, when he was at his best, a terrific, rock solid director with several films worthy of serious critical evaluation.
Violent Staurday, which Kehr mentions in his piece, is in my opinion one of the best and most disturbing studio films made during the 1950's. The climatic shootout towards the end alone will freak you out! (There have rumors for a long time that Fox is releasing it on DVD but nothing yet) 10 Rillington Street is simply flat out brillant with an amazing performance by Richard Attenborough as the infamous serial killer John Christie (another film sadly not available on DVD, though it is in the U.K) If Stephen Frears' or Neil Jordan's names were on the credits instead of Fleischer, critics would be tripping over themslves praising it
Yes, Fleischer did his fair share of uninspired studio work and his last films (Conan The Destroyer???) were pretty godawful when it was obvious that he had simply lost all interest in filmmaking and was just going through the motions. But he had an extraordinary range, making some incredibly enjoyable and well made films such as The Vikings (a BEAUTIFULLY photographed example of 1950s mainstream commercial filmmaking at its peak), Mr. Majestyk (a surprisingly brutal, fast paced and exciting Charles Boronson thriller), The New Centurions, Barabbas, The Last Run (a film he took over from John Huston when he walked off the film after the first week of shooting), Armored Car Robbery (a gem like, perfect example of a B movie thriller) and one of my absolute guilty pleasures, Mandingo, which despite it's campiness is an angry and disturbing movie and one of the few studio films ever made that honestly deals with the brutal, violent, ugly, sick, reality of slavery and not the usual romanticized "it-wasn't-really-that-bad" tone you see in most films about the period
Posted by: Sergio | February 16, 2008 at 07:28 PM
I'll second that. The American Cinematheque frequently screened his films, and he often showed up to talk about them. The good ones far outnumber the stinkers, and even they generally have some redeeming qualities.
Posted by: cadavra | February 17, 2008 at 11:18 PM
Genius.
Posted by: Lisa | November 07, 2008 at 11:41 AM