Robert Aldrich

[Stirling Moss]

...All the Marbles (1981) aka The California Dolls
The Frisco Kid (1979)
The Choirboys (1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)
Hustle (1975)
The Longest Yard (1974)... aka The Mean Machine (UK)
Emperor of the North Pole (1973)
Ulzana's Raid (1972)
The Grissom Gang (1971)
Too Late the Hero (1970)
The Killing of Sister George (1968)
The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) aka What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?
4 for Texas (1963)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah (1962)
The Last Sunset (1961)
The Angry Hills (1959)
Ten Seconds to Hell (1959) ... aka The Phoenix
The Garment Jungle (1957) (uncredited)
Attack (1956)
Autumn Leaves (1956)
The Big Knife (1955)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Vera Cruz (1954)
Apache (1954)
World for Ransom (1954) (uncredited)
Big Leaguer (1953)




http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000736/

A perenially overlooked Director, in my opinion.
Despite his solid body of work, he never (to my limited knowledge) receives the plaudits of his contemporaries.

Can we at least agree that:

...All the Marbles (1981) aka The California Dolls
The Choirboys (1977)
The Longest Yard (1974)... aka The Mean Machine (UK)
The Grissom Gang (1971)
The Killing of Sister George (1968)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

...are excellent pieces of work by an under-rated film-maker?

[marios]

Can't believe you left Kiss Me Deadly out of your list. Great film.

Then again i've never seen The Choirboys or All The Marbles...

[Stirling Moss]

Can't believe you left Kiss Me Deadly out of your list. Great film.

Then again i've never seen The Choirboys or All The Marbles...

I've never seen Kiss Me Deadly, Marios.


...what's it like? Sell it to me

[The Modernist]

Kiss Me Deadly is certainly his best. A lean, spare noir which moved away from the artier aspects of noir and settled for a raw brutality, which was very Aldritch I think.
Other than that a good action director, you always know what you're getting with his films and there's a directness I like.

[marios]

Kiss Me Deadly is great! One of the classic noirs! You don't need me to sell it to you, you're already a fan of his and it's possibly his best film. Get it, see it.

[Stirling Moss]

Can't believe you left Kiss Me Deadly out of your list. Great film.

Then again i've never seen The Choirboys or All The Marbles...

California Dolls (All The Marbles) was shown on BBC2 as part of Alex Cox's Moviedrome series in the late 80's.

Peter Falk played the foul-mouthed manager of 2 attractive female wrestlers. I thought it was a super film.

[marios]

Can't believe you left Kiss Me Deadly out of your list. Great film.

Then again i've never seen The Choirboys or All The Marbles...

California Dolls (All The Marbles) was shown on BBC2 as part of Alex Cox's Moviedrome series in the late 80's.

Peter Falk played the foul-mouthed manager of 2 attractive female wrestlers. I thought it was a super film.

HEY! I saw that but didn't remember the title! It was OK, nothing great...

[Ranking Ted]

I watched The Longest Yard recently - it was great, unreconstructed fun. There's a whole pile of man's man films there, isn't there? No pissing around...

[Sneelock]

HEY! I saw that but didn't remember the title! It was OK, nothing great...

but it was funny!
I love Robert Aldrich!
he made entertaining movies. that was his job and he did his job well.
I love "Kiss Me, Deadly" but I don't agree that it sits and hovers over other films he made.

"Attack" is a dynamite movie!!!
'Apache', 'Vera Cruz', 'The Big Knife' all have much to recommend them.
My personal favorite is "Emperor of the North". most of Aldrich's films mine well worn genres - that's part of what's good about them - they stand things on their head a bit. 'Emperor' is a hobo movie - not exactly a well worn genre. still, it's the best damned hobo movie I ever saw.

I think his films are muscular and brisk. he was great with actors and often gets them to go that extra mile - just enough over the top to fit the scale of the film.

I liked how his camera guys would use funny lenses and got right in the actor's faces, like Frankenheimer did and often to similar effect.

good popcorn movies with something extra added. what is 'Dirty Dozen' about? it's about having a last chance! who can't identify with that? what's "baby jane" about? it's about sheilding a loved one from the truth!

I think his filmography is great and good fun to run barefoot through.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

...All the Marbles (1981) aka The California Dolls
The Choirboys (1977)
The Longest Yard (1974)... aka The Mean Machine (UK)
The Grissom Gang (1971)
The Killing of Sister George (1968)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

...are excellent pieces of work by an under-rated film-maker?

Absolutely - but throw "The Frisco Kid" onto that list as well. Gene Wilder as a rabbi teamed with Harrison Ford as a cowboy...and somehow he makes it work.

[Sneelock]

in fact, I don't know when Wilder's been better. he just lights up the screen in that thing.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

in fact, I don't know when Wilder's been better. he just lights up the screen in that thing.

I have to agree. It is probably my favorite performance by him.



My favorite scene: Wilder chasing a chicken saying with a sing-song Yiddish accent, "chicken, chicken, chicken...I don't want to hurt you. I just want to eat you..."

The guy could do no wrong back then.

[the masked man]

One of American cinema's great mavericks, who certainly deserved more acclaim than he ever achieved. I'll always maintain that What Ever Happened To Baby Jane is one of the most unexpectedly perverse US films ever made - a remarkable Grand Guignol that riffs on Sunset Boulevard, comes up with stunningly nasty content for a film made in the early 60s, and still manages to be eerily poetic.

I'd also give a shout to his late hard-edged police drama Hustle, which is often discarded by critics, though I found it a very moving experience. If nothing else, the central casting of Burt Reynolds alongside Catherine Deneuve is such an utterly bizarre meeting of cinematic worlds that you have to treasure it.