Director Robert Wise died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 91. I’ll guarantee you that almost every obituary you encounter today will mention The Sound of Music, but here are some other films you ought to know about.
The Set-Up (1949) is a gritty boxing noir film that takes place in real-time. The Haunting (1963) is one of the scariest movies ever made (And please avoid the atrocious remake). The Andromeda Strain (1971) is one of the smartest science-fiction films of all time and it is just as relevant today as it was when it was made.
Robert Wise edited two of Orson Welles’ classics, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. He directed films over the course of 45 years and was well-known for doing everything: horror, drama, westerns, war films, science fiction, historical pieces, musicals, and more.
I’ll give him a great deal of credit for his work on The Sound of Music and West Side Story. Those were two of his biggest hits, both based on popular Broadway musicals. But don’t kid yourself; translating a hit stage musical for the screen is hard. Such things were done routinely previously, but by the Sixties it was getting rockier. Look at this list of top musicals. There are two in the top ten from the Nineties, and they’re both animated. There are only two live-action musicals in the top twenty made after 1970. For every Chicago, there’s an A Chorus Line. So, even though Wise’s two musical hits have a reputation of being sappy, they’re both quite well done and open up the stories into the real world in a very nice fashion.
For me, the best thing about Sound of Music is that opening shot. The camera floats through the clouds, as if we’re in a dream. Then it swoops down out of the mists and across the gorgeous Austrian countryside, finally picking out a figure and zeroing in on her. Julie Andrews swirls, giddy in her solitary pleasure, opens her mouth and sings, “The hills are alive with the sound of music…” That’s it. Turn the movie off. It doesn’t get any better than that.
(Do you know that in Salzburg they have Sound of Music tours, even though most of the film was shot in Hollywood?)
Wise was probably more of a craftsman than an artiste, but he had a consistency of quality that is mind-boggling. I don’t think we’re going to see someone with a career like his ever again.
One Response
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Dan Dorman Says:
Outside of the musical genre, Robert Wise was a phenominally under–rated director. He was truly a master of all genres: musicals, horror, action, noir, drama…My top 10 Robert Wise films (as director) are in this order:
1. West Side Story (61)
2. The Day the Earth Stood Still (51)
3. The Sand Pebbles (66)
4. Somebody Up There Likes Me (56)
5. The Haunting (63)
6. The Sound of Music (65)
7. Two for the Seesaw (62)
8. Odds Against Tomorrow (59)
9. The Set-Up (49)
10. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (79)but let’s not forget:
The Body Snatcher (45)
Born to Kill (47)
The Desert Rats (53)
Run Silent Run Deep (58)
I Want to Live! (58)
Star! (68)
The Andromeda Strain (71)
The Hindenburg (75)
Audrey Rose (77)Some good, some bad – but all completely him. He will be greatly missed. A true Hollywood legend. May God rest his soul.
And if you want to see a “good” list of musicals, check this out.