|
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
John Frankenheimer 1930 - 2002
John Frankenheimer was born February 19, 1930, in New York City. He died July 6, 2002, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California; after suffering a massive stroke due to complications following spinal surgery. Frankenheimer started in television: series and movies -- often live -- and did some groundbreaking stuff. You can also see in the themes of his films a fascination with television. He learned his craft while making training films for the Air Force during his stint in the service. His first feature film assignment, The Young Stranger (1957), itself an adaptation of a Frankenheimer-directed TV show. He followed this with a minor film about urban youths, The Young Savages (1961), and then the popular, but somewhat sentimental and sluggish The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). His best film, pulled after Kennedy's assassination and rereleased theatrically to acclaim and new fans in 1988, The Manchurian Candidate has some great performances by Sinatra, Janet Leigh, James Gregory and especially Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey. A stark, satiric political thriller based on Richard Condon's novel. Seven Days in May (1964) is another quality political thriller with a great cast; Grand Prix (1966) is a very long movie about race car drivers, attractively photographed; Seconds (1966) is a currently in vogue cult sci-fi-thriller-mystery starring Rock Hudson (in one of his most interesting roles). "Want out of your life? Just pay the fee and we'll fake your death, change your face, and set up a new identity for you..." A neat cast (Salome Jens, John Randolph, Will Geer, Jeff Corey, Richard Anderson, Murray Hamilton, Khigh Dhiegh, Wesley Addy), music by Jerry Goldsmith and outstanding cinematography by James Wong Howe are pluses. On June 5, 1968, Frankenheimer drove his friend Senator Robert Kennedy to the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where he was assassinated later that day. He started slipping in the late sixties (and slipping farther and farther into the bottle), but I Walk the Line (1970) has a wonderfully captured setting, good lead performances by Greg Peck and Tuesday Weld, and a great Johnny Cash song. In the 70s, The Horsemen (1971), The Iceman Cometh (1973), Story of a Love Story (1973), 99 and 44/100% Dead (1974), French Connection II (1975), Black Sunday (1977), and Prophecy (1979), were largely flat, although Connection II and Black Sunday were hits. Finally off the sauce, in 1993 Frankenheimer directed Elizabeth Taylor in a highly touted and highly budgeted perfume commercial. Some well-received TV movies led to, the laughably silly Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). "There are two things I will never do in my life. I will never climb Mount Everest, and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn't enough money in the world," said Frankenheimer in re working with Kilmer on Moreau. Ronin (1998), was an exciting, well photographed action thriller with a great cast (Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgård, Michael Lonsdale, Jonathan Pryce) and a marvellous car chase. But Reindeer Games (2000) was a terrible and stupid thriller with the awful Ben Affleck adding another oblivious performance to his canon. In 2001 Frankenheimer showed he still wasn't afraid to try something new; he directed Ambush, a short film for bmwfilms.com, a short film made specifically for the internet. Ambush was interrelated with films by other major directors for the website, including Chosen, directed by Ang Lee, and Star, directed by Guy Ritchie.
|
