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Robert Aldrich |
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Director
/ Producer |
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| 1918 - 1983 |
| Born August 9, Cranston Rhode
Island, USA |
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Key
Production Country: USA |
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Key
Genres: Action, Thriller, Drama, Western, Crime, War, Melodrama |
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Key
Collaborators: Michael
Luciano (Editor), Frank DeVol (Composer), Joseph Biroc
(Cinematographer), William Glasgow (Production Designer), Ernest
Borgnine (Leading Character Player), Lukas Heller (Screenwriter),
Richard Jaeckel (Leading Character Player), Ernest
Laszlo (Cinematographer), Wesley Addy (Character Player), Burt Lancaster
(Leading Player) |
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Highly
Recommended: The
Big Knife (1955)#, Kiss
Me Deadly (1955)*#, Autumn Leaves (1956) |
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Recommended: Apache
(1954), Vera Cruz (1954), Attack (1956), The Last Sunset (1961), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962),
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965), Flight of the Phoenix (1966), The
Dirty Dozen (1967), Ulzana's Raid (1972), Twilight's Last Gleaming
(1977) |
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Worth a Look: World
for Ransom (1954)#, The Killing of Sister George (1968), The Legend of
Lylah Clare (1968), All the Marbles (1981), The Grissom Gang (1971),
Emperor of the North (1973), The Longest Yard (1974) |
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Duds: The Angry
Hills (1959), Hustle (1975), The Choirboys (1977) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; #
Listed in TSPDT's
250 Quintessential Noir Films
section. |
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Links: [
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Screening
the Past Article #1 ] [
Screening
the Past Article #2 ] [
Classic
Film and Television Home Page ] [
Guardian
Article (2006) ] |
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Books: [
Who
the Devil Made It: Conversations with Robert Aldrich, George Cukor... ] [
Whatever
Happened to Robert Aldrich?: His Life and His Films ] [
Robert Aldrich: Interviews ] [
Body and Soul: The Cinematic Vision of Robert Aldrich
] [
The
Films and Career of Robert Aldrich ] |
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"At his best, Aldrich employed
vicious irony, muscular acting and vivid, sophisticated
compositions to evoke a world divided by self-interest and
forever on the verge of violent anarchy. At the same time those
ingredients, when applied to an ill-focused script, led to
overstatement and vulgarity."
-
Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989) |
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"While
Stanley
Kubrick
(whose 1950s films bear striking stylistic and thematic
similarities to those of Aldrich) found it necessary to retreat
to England, reducing his output to two or three films a decade,
Aldrich chose to fight it out in Hollywood, where his capacity
for money-making allowed him the space to vent his own personal
anger at the compromises we all must make." -
Ed Lowry (International Dictionary of
Films and Filmmakers, 1991) |
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"The decline in Aldrich, in the
sixties especially, was a sad thing to behold. Distinct talent
is no sure defense against the pressures of vulgarization and
commerce, to say nothing of the talent's urge towards
sensationalism." -
David Thomson (The New Biographical
Dictionary of Film, 2002)
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"Started out directing tough
genre films (Vera Cruz, Kiss Me Deadly), which
grew increasingly graphic and satirical with time (What Ever
Happened to Baby Jane?, Ulzana's Raid)." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog,
1978) |
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"I
don't think violence on film breeds violence in life. Violence
in life breeds violence in films." - Robert Aldrich |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director that we
haven't seen include Big
Leaguer (1953), Ten Seconds to Hell (1959), Four for Texas
(1963), Sodom and Gomorrah (1963), Too Late the Hero (1970), and
The Frisco Kid (1979). |
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