Although he's not often mentioned among the greatest directors, he was certainly a giant. Besides directing two smash musicals, West Side Story and The Sound of Music, he did a film-noirish boxing classic (The Set-Up), made the most famous American sci-fi film before 2001 in The Day the Earth Stood Still, returned to boxing with Somebody Up There Likes Me which made Paul Newman a star and "inspired" Sly Stallone to make Rocky, made a scary ghost story (The Haunting), made a period war film set in the Far East during the Vietnam War (The Sand Pebbles with Steve McQueen's best performance), directed the first film in the Star Trek franchise, and many more.
It's too bad we didn't talk about him before this. Anybody else have any thoughts about Robert Wise?
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
Posts: 12889 | Location: Behind the Orange Curtain | Registered: 14 May 2004
It is too bad he has never come up before. Some of the other movies I like are Andromeda Strain, Run Silent Run Deep,and I Want To Live. In addition to directing the above pictures, he also served as editor for Citizen Kane, which some regard as the greatest film ever produced. What made him different than a lot of directors was his willingness to direct all sorts of genres, from westerns to sci-fi flicks. I recommend checking out some of the movies that have been listed.
Posts: 3130 | Location: FoCo | Registered: 07 January 2005
Robert Wise first came to my attention when I waited eagerly after reading "The Andromeda Strain," with book in hand, to go see the first showing of the movie version in 1971. I was a fan of Robert Wise after that. "Andromeda Strain" was one of the first serious, biological disaster films to come out and it was done with intensity and power. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) is considered a sci fi classic and ranks among the best of them. Personally, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1980) remains my favorite of all Star Trek movies because it truly represented and portrayed the most purest form of sci fi movie genre of the whole series. Robert Wise, while he didn't have the quantity of great movies, his directorial works are such, that I will remember him as a great director until I die.
Posts: 959 | Location: Utah, United States | Registered: 22 July 2005
He is certainly an eclectic director with his highs and lows. He suffers from the ignominy of directing THE SOUND OF MUSIC, which has to be seen to be believed. This one is a camp classic.
Even if it's not popular for a married man with a daughter to defend The Sound of Music, I have to do it. The film is really very funny, very cinematic, and is actually a serious depiction of Nazism. It was the most serious such depiction in a musical until my favorite musical, Cabaret, turned up.
Now I can understand the problems which arise when you're trapped in a room or a theatre with teenage girls annoyingly singing all the lyrics to all the songs, but you can't really blame Robert Wise for that! At least, I don't.
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
Posts: 12889 | Location: Behind the Orange Curtain | Registered: 14 May 2004
In 1965 (for the Golden Globes it was 1966), it was Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago. The two Julies, Julie Christie had two major films to her credit Darling and Doctor Zhivagoand Julie Andrews with one movie that year. There was Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou and Omar Zharif in Doctor Zhivago who seeme to be ignored that year though of course Richard Burton had his The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.
As to the test of time, Lara's theme from Doctor Zhivago managed to get the People's Choice Award for Favorite All-Time Motion Picture Song almost a quarter of a century later in 1988. Nevertheless, the music from The Sound of Music had continued to be recognized universally as well. It's difficult to go back many years when the movie came out, the Cold War still echoing, the Vietnam War winding down, yet the memories of World War II and Nazi Germany still bore living memories and the movie's treatment in song, comedy, and drama as a big-picture, epic musical is hard to ignore. Yet equal as its more serious and emotionally compelling historic epic of a non-American background and riveting love-story one of the most haunting of all time, Doctor Zhivago continues to have a strong hold as a recognized classic film. The American Film Institute found that both 1965 movies warranted recognition as one of the greatest movies in the past 100 years ranking Doctor Zhivago as subjectively, artistically inching ahead over time in (1998) thirty-three years later at number 39 to the number 55 ranking of The Sound of Music.
The rankings could be attributable to the more lasting resonance of Doctor Zhivago more everlasting them of love and its serious epic historical backdrop to the more musical entertainment nature of The Sound of Music.
Posts: 959 | Location: Utah, United States | Registered: 22 July 2005
THE SOUND OF MUSIC, which my parents took me to back on original release (I fell asleep), is a certified camp classic.
Meanwhile, here in NYC the Museum of Modern Art, to its credit, is paying tribute to Wise by screening a half dozen or so of his films next month. I've seen them all in theatres, but one I've only seen on video and that is BORN TO KILL, a terrific little B movie from the 1940s that starred the incomparable tough guy Lawrence Tierney.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC, which my parents took me to back on original release (I fell asleep), is a certified camp classic.
Because you fell asleep when you were small, The Sound of Music is a "certified camp classic"? And does camp classic mean something like a Boys Scout or Girls Scout camping classic? One meaning of "camp" is ostentious so extreme as to amuse or have a perversely sophisticated appeal.
Posts: 959 | Location: Utah, United States | Registered: 22 July 2005
THE SOUND OF MUSIC, which my parents took me to back on original release (I fell asleep), is a certified camp classic.
Because you fell asleep when you were small, The Sound of Music is a "certified camp classic"? And does camp classic mean something like a Boys Scout or Girls Scout camping classic? One meaning of "camp" is ostentious so extreme as to amuse or have a perversely sophisticated appeal.
It wasn't because I nodded off way back when, but because SOM is so bad it is good. It is inadvertendly funny.
Having had an opportunity to watch The Sound Of Music (1965) and a much younger Julie Andrews on television last night, I have to admit that in comparison to Dr. Zhivago, the level of cinematic presentation that was awarded the Oscar makes me favor the later movie for its seriousness of its presentation. What makes judging or rating The Sound of Music so subjective is its musical genre format, a genre most certainly different from a more serious historical, epic drama such as Dr. Zhivago. What's more Sound of Music oftentimes was set in part on live locations, not designed sets.
Yet when I compare The Sound of Music to say My Fair Lady (1964) or Mary Poppins (1964), or West Side Story (1961), I find that Julie Andrews' earlier performance and the editing and the connectedness of the musical rendition to the script much more tight and classy in these other musicals. It would be three years later when Oliver received Best Picture Oscar as a muscial and then it would be another 34 years until Chicago woyld be so honored.
Posts: 959 | Location: Utah, United States | Registered: 22 July 2005
Wise made his share of stinkers. Fairly recently I watched, via video, AUDREY ROSE, which Wise directed in the late 1970s or so. It was clearly an attempt to cash in on THE EXORCIST'S success. It wasn't a very good film; it fell kind of flat. Anthony Hopkins, well before SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, was the male lead and I think Marsha Mason was the female lead. The film was about some sort of strange kid or something happened to their kid. In any event, I felt it was mediocre.
Another 1970s Wise bomb was THE HINDENBERG with I believe George C. Scott in th lead. I have it on tape, but its poor reputation has kept it at the back of the queue.
The Museum of Modern Art is running a mini-retro of Wise's films and I caught up with BORN TO KILL, a nasty little B movie Wise directed that starred real life tough guy Lawrence Tierney, Claire Trevor (best known as the prostitute in Ford's STAGECOACH), Elisha Cook Jr. and Walter Slezak, never better as an oleaginous private eye.
Just a terrific little film that they don'make any more. Tierney is a psycho/murderer who marries Trevor's rich sister, though Trevor & Tierney are in love, Slezak is on Tierney's trail and Cook is terrific as Tierney's pal, in a role with clear homo-erotic overones. Special mention to character actress Esther Howard, terrific as she hams in up as a washed-up floozy who hires Slezak to find the killer (Tierney) who offed her friend.
Anybody else have any thoughts about Robert Wise?
