5 Directors who should had made it to the top!!

[j7wild]

I found this at another forum;

I agree with her!!

Here are five off the top of my head. Let’s have your suggestions.

Elia Kazan

Once the most famous director of all, today his work is rarely shown, yet Kazan had the longest run of great films of anyone other than Hitchcock, Ford and Kubrick. (Then Kazan got on the wrong side of Hollywood, but that’s another thread…)

These are just the selected highlights of his amazing output:

Panic in the Streets (1950), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), East of Eden (1955), Baby Doll (1956), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Wild River (1960)

Wild River in particular is a film crying out to be reassessed.


Don Siegel

Not so much a fall from grace as Kazan’s, for somehow Siegel never got to the top in the first place. You’ll know the titles, but did you know the director?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) The Killers (1964), Madigan (1968), The Beguiled (1971), Dirty Harry (1971), Charley Varrick (1973)


Robert Aldrich

The man who might have been. Aldrich’s 1950s films were so good it’s painful to watch his later work. Ironically, it is the later films people remember; nothing succeeds like vulgarity. My pick:

Vera Cruz (1954) Kiss Me Deadly (1955)


Jacques Tourneur

Remembered for Cat People and little else, but these two gems were stronger by far. Yeah, they're cheap I know, but B-movie isn’t a dirty word to me.

Out of the Past (1947) Night of the Demon (1957)


John Carpenter

Carpenter’s mojo disappeared when he moved to Hollywood, but they can’t take these away from him. (Having said that, they've already remade and ruined three of them … )

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), The Thing (1982), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), They Live (1988)

[chiv]

keeping true to form, i believe carpenter finally will indeed 'make it', about 10 years after he dies, just like all his films are finally appreciated 10 or so years after they are released

[j7wild]

I watched Don Siegel's "The Killers" (1964) the other day and I tell you, I think Quentin Tarantino (and there is much belief this is true) based Pulp Fiction on it!!

[jmcc]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and all the related films that have appeared after it based on the same idea, are between my favorite movies. I will do a list of all those movies to do a request in the Trailer requests section of the forum

Unfortunately, I have not seen the 1956 movie...