SCFZ poll: John Frankenheimer

[rischka]

i miss holymanm

[greennui]

Seconds.

There should be lots of directors left to pick, the last couple of failed suggestions (Wakamatsu, Yoshida, Oshii, Nakahira) suggests that one should maybe reconsider picking obscure Japanese directors.

[wba2]

How about a thread, where we all chime in for suggestions for directors to poll and check out who has seen how many.
Thus we can get a better idea of what to poll.

In my opinion there remain hundreds of "seen" directors" yet to poll.

[Silga]

How about a thread, where we all chime in for suggestions for directors to poll and check out who has seen how many.

^^^ THIS ^^^

I also have a running list of directors that can still be polled. So a thread for all of us to chime in with suggestions is a great idea.

[john ryan]

seen 10

1. Seconds
2. The Train
3. The Manchurian Candidate
4. Ronin
5. Seven Days in May

[RogerTheMovieManiac]

Hello once again, flip (and everyone!) Good to be back! I have missed these micro-polls. I had become logged out on the old board and couldn't for quite some time recall my log-in details.

I've seen 12 from Frankenheimer.

1. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
2. SEVEN DAYS IN MAY
3. BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ
4. THE GYPSY MOTHS
5. THE TRAIN

[flip]

good to see you again roger!

[Mysterious Dude]

I've seen six.

1. The Manchurian Candidate
2. Seven Days in May
3. The Train

[flip]

wba - if you want to start a separate thread for people to check which directors have enough views for our polls, feel free, i'll participate.

it doesn't seem that oshii or nakahira have enough views for a poll. so we need a nomination - i'll take another nomination from wba, or from greg x who posted the next ballot, whoever replies first.

[...]

If wba doesn't have another preference, what could be more fitting for Christmas than a list of best Capra films? It's a Wonderful Poll

[flip]

good choice for xmas time - if wba wanted to nominate someone, i'll let him 'jump the line' any time. the capra poll is up!

[flip]

interestingly, all of the top five were made in the five year period from 1962-1966, even though frankenheimer made films for more than 40 years. i wonder if there are any other prolific directors whose 'best' (by our polling anyway) work was concentrated in such a short window:

results

1. Seconds (1966) -- 30 pts
2. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) -- 22 pts
3. Seven Days in May (1964) -- 15 pts
4. The Train (1964) -- 7 pts
5. Grand Prix (1966) -- 5 pts
5. Black Sunday (1977) -- 5 pts
7. Ronin (1998) -- 5 pts
8. All Fall Down (1962) -- 4 pts
8. Andersonville (1996) -- 4 pts
10. Dead Bang (1989) -- 3 pts
10. The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) -- 3 pts
12. The Gypsy Moths (1969) -- 2 pts
12. Forbidden Area (1956) -- 2 pts
14. French Connection II (1975) -- 1 pt
14. Reindeer Games (2000) -- 1 pt
14. The Island of Dr Moreau (1996) -- 1 pt

[...]

That is kinda interesting, add in the long time critics favorite Birdman of Alcatraz and it does seem like Frankenheimer was working in a completely different vein during those few years than he would again. Makes me wanna see All Fall Down more, but I suspect there is some financial issues that drove the change since a number of those films didn't perform all that well at the box office if I remember right. Might not be too far off from someone like Michael Ritchie, who had a short string of really interesting movies, than turned journeyman, Lewis Milestone who started the thirties strong, but then also ended up moving into more of a studio hand, and some others that seemed to have some bright initial ideas but not a lot behind them. Frankenheimer could be in either boat I suppose, forced to change by financial necessity or someone who burned through their animating inspiration quickly and didn't find a way to wholly replenish it.

[flip]

i noticed it's already happened once in our polls, with budd boetticher, though his output got very sparse in his last twenty years of filmmaking. i wonder if someone like phil karlson (who only worked for 30 years) might also produce similar results with his mid-50s work, and there might be other us genre directors who worked for a long time in tv from the 50s onwards, and whose 'best' work was in the late '40s and early '50s, people like felix feist. robert siodmak would possibly also qualify if you don't count people on sunday.

[...]

It probably would. Some directors seem to just fit the zeitgeist, then as times change, they get left behind. I mean even that sorta fits someone like George Lucas in a popular sense. A couple big ideas then he coasted for decades on the fame and money those ideas (and those of his wife at the time) provided. Bogdanovich, perhaps, though some still like his later work, but there is certainly a noticeable difference in his early films with Polly Platt and his later ones after their divorce. Coppola? His later films have their fans, but does that even roughly compare to his heights of the seventies for influence? The "noir" age of low budget thrillers seemed to buoy the fame of a number of directors, the late twenties and ,much of the thirties before genres were more clearly defined and studios producing to demand, and the late sixties/early seventies between the end of the old studio era/production code and the rise of the blockbuster all had some space for directors to do more unusual works, but only for a short period before the studios took control again.

[flip]

this is up at letterboxd:

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-91/