Metvmorphosis
Several noted directors didn't get paved the silver screen way, instead their humble beginnings took place on that good ol' square box in the living room. There was a wave of key directors that matriculated from the small to the not not so small screen. Illustrious directors, like John Frankenheimer and Norman Jewison for starters.
In 1961, John Frankenheimer (1930-2002) would knock the proverbial socks with his maiden venture into filmville
with The Young Savages. A stark and emotively charged study in juvenile delinquency based on the true story of the murder of a Hispanic teenager in New York's Harlem. This first release would also mark the historical point where Frankenheimer made the beautiful music with Burt Lancaster and they would duet another five times after. Theirs was such a sacrosanct union, think early Lennon and McCartney and you will get the picture. Lancaster staunchly insisted that Frankenheimer become the replacement director in two films 1962's The Train, which was originally being helmed by Arthur Penn (yes Sean's father), Lancaster encouraged production to fire Penn and Frankenheimer took over - and in the invigorating Birdman of Alcatraz which was also released the same year. The early 1960s would also be the high point and most successful juncture in Frankenheimer's career. It was his cutting edge and contemporary visions, he fearlessly went into uncharted territories - teenage tragedies and home truths conveyed.
1962 was quite busy for the director, All Fall Down with Angela Lansbury and Manchurian Candidate also with this same woman before she wrote the murder. It would be in 1973 that some would consider, his greatest turn, when he presented the world with his stunning interpretation of Eugene O'Neill's
The Iceman Cometh.
Norman Jewison was born in Canada in 1926, and like John Frankenheimer, broke into the business the old fashioned televisual way and he would work abroad in Britain and America. His forte was the 'musical spectacular.' Syrupy comedy would be his first rounds in his film career, 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962) and an early Doris Day vehicle with 1963's The Thrill of it All. Jewison would prove his gravitas with The Cincinnati Kid in 1965, and he would up the ante further with the powerful In The Heat of the Night (1967), where Sidney Poitier portrays a philosophical black policeman who is confronted with the bigotry of a white Southern sheriff (Rod Steiger). It would not end there for Norman, and he would grace the cinema world with his flash The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) he would also bolster the career of Steve McQueen in the process. He would then proceed to produce and direct two high octane stage-musical adaptations with Fiddler on The Roof in 1971 and Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). The futuristic ultra-violence of Rollerball (1975) helped reinvigorate this career. F.I.S.T produced in 1978, was a rare-form moment for Jewison, it was an acerbic film about the Union and then it was back to liberal social issues with 1980's And Justice for All.
William Friedkin (b.1939) was a highly ambitious ex-television helmer himself, he took on Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party and a hilarity ensuing period comedy set in the burlesque age, The Night They Raided Minsky's (both 1968). Friedkin cashed in properly with two of the most popular Seventies' entries The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973) respectively and these would influence peer filmmakers to capitalize on the contemporaneous public's parapsychology fascination with satanic possession among children.
Perhaps the most significant of all the directors that made the transition from TV to film in the Sixties would be Sam Peckinpah (1925-84) who mortified his producers with Major Dundee in 1965 and most of his audience with the methodically slow-motion slaughter of The Wild Bunch. Peckinpah's subsequent releases were decidedly more obstinate, often depicting the lonesome loser, the pariah, the outmoded and the misfit, which he characterized in deliberate montages of grotesque carnage and machismo. The controversial rape scene in 1971's Straw Dogs enhanced his critical notoriety. He would go on to make two successful pictures starring Steve McQueen as the paradoxically tender Junior Bonner and a violent crime-drama, The Getaway (both 1972) before embarking on the elegiac and epic Western, Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid (1973), perhaps his most thoughtful film of the lot. His impetus would be waning and it would be apparent by the garrulous nastiness of Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) being succeeded by a sub-par thriller The Killer Elite (1975), a blood-soaked war saga, Cross of Iron (1977) and most surprisingly a keep on truckin' entry with Convoy (1978) and finally the thriller, The Osterman Weekend in 1983.
Very enlightening article, I learned a lot, keep it coming!
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