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Robert Wise

 

TSPDT Rating

 Key Noir Filmmaker
 
 Strained Seriousness 
 
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Jack Arnold
Jack Clayton
George Cukor
Edward Dmytryk
Henry Hathaway
Anatole Litvak
Otto Preminger
Mark Robson
Jacques Tourneur
Orson Welles
View video clips relating to this director at YouTube.com
Director / Editor / Producer
1914 - 2005
Born September 10, Winchester, Indiana, USA
Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Drama, Film Noir, Crime, Crime Drama, Thriller, Science Fiction
Key Collaborators: Albert S. D'Agostino (Production Designer), Nelson Gidding (Screenwriter), Ernest Lehman (Screenwriter), Walter E. Keller (Production Designer), Boris Leven (Production Designer), Val Lewton (Producer/Screenwriter), William H. Reynolds (Editor), J.R. Whittredge (Editor), Roy Webb (Composer), Cedric Gibbons (Production Designer)
Highly Recommended: Born to Kill (1947), The Set-Up (1949), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
Recommended: The Curse of the Cat People (1944) [co-directed by Gunther von Fritsch], The Body Snatcher (1945), Blood on the Moon (1948), Three Secrets (1950), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), The Captive City (1952), Executive Suite (1954), Tribute to a Bad Man (1956), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), I Want to Live! (1958), The Haunting (1963), The Sound of Music (1965)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Film Reference ] [ Bright Lights Film Journal Interview ] [ Conversation with Robert Wise ] [ DGA Article ] [ Reel Classics' Pages ] [ Classic Movies' Page ] [ Film Journal Article Written by Robert Wise ]
Books: [ Robert Wise on His Films: From Editing Room to Director's Chair ] [ Robert Wise: A Bio-Bibliography ]
DVD's: [ Amazon ]  
1,000 Greatest Films: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), West Side Story (1961) [co-directed by Jerome Robbins], The Sound of Music (1965)
250 Quintessential Noir Films: Born to Kill (1947), The Set-Up (1949), The Captive City (1952), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
 
Born to Kill (1947)The Set-Up (1949)Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)The Sound of Music (1965)
 
     
  "After directing a number of routine B pictures in the late 40s, Wise made what many consider the best boxing drama ever filmed, The Set-Up (1949), a mercilessly candid portrait of the seedy world of the professional ring...Wise followed this in the 50s with such high quality films as The Day the Earth Stood Still, Executive Suite, Somebody Up There Likes Me, I Want to Live and, Odds Against Tomorrow." - (The MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994)  
     
  "While he never found a personal cinematic style or displayed a taste for any special theme or genre, Robert Wise made a number of films that may be described as superior entertainment. He was in fact a solid, conscientious craftsman and a fluent story-teller mercifully free of grandiose pretensions...Wise's finest work reveals that technical proficiency, and sensitivity to performance, pace and setting may result in highly watchable, even memorable cinema." - Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989)  
     
  "Although Robert Wise's most celebrated film was The Sound of Music (1965), shot in splendid Todd-AO and De Luxe Color, his forte was gritty, small-budget, black-and-white realistic dramas. Robert Wise became one of Hollywood's leading directors by moving from genre to genre, from style to style, in a workmanlike manner. Although he did so without imposing any discernible personal stamp on his films, he directed some of the finest boxing dramas, sci-fi movies, and horror films." - Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)  
     
  "A much maligned director who has a good pictorial sense and the ability to integrate a hint of realism and an interest in social issues into all types of projects." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)  
     
  "I think one of the major things a director has to do is to know his subject matter, the subject matter of his script, know the truth and the reality of it. That's very important." - Robert Wise  
     
 

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"A film is a petrified fountain of thought." - Jean Cocteau   "If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed." - Stanley Kubrick