SCFZ poll: Henry King

[flip]

Polling the films of director Henry King

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the King films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Tuesday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: no one

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

[flip]

nrh will have first chance to nominate our next director, because i was late this time asking for his selection. he has proposed we poll the kuchars, but we need to check views, so if anyone has seen 8+ films by george and/or mike kuchar, please post here!

if the kuchars won't work, nrh can pick a fallback option if he wants to.

[flip]

i thought henry king would be good to do immediately after raoul walsh, my ballot:

The Gunfighter
Twelve O'Clock High
Jesse James
Hell Harbor
Prince of Foxes

seen ten, but will very likely watch more this week

[Umbugbene]

I've seen 5. I'll go with:

1. A Yank in the R.A.F.
2. Alexander's Ragtime Band

[Curtis, baby]

Seen 4

The gunfighter
Seventh heaven

[rischka]

i've got 11 but not some of his best known films lol

captain from castile 1947
state fair 1933
tol'able david 1921
the winning of barbara worth 1926
the gunfighter 1950

also i've got a couple on hand and unseen so thanks for helping me to decide what to watch today

[brian d]

i've only seen 3, and i don't remember how much i liked one of them (the gunfighter), so i'll go with a lesser-seen option:

romola

[oscarwerner]

Seen 14.
Really good idea to remember Henry King after Raoul Walsh. Both created over 100 films:) Long career in 20-30-40ies...
With my respect to Henry King i will be lazy to overlook very old movies and will vote for those of later period. And i must confess -i`m a fan of Gregory Peck.
1. Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
2. The Gunfighter (1950)
3. Prince of Foxes (1949)
4. Jesse James (1939)
5. The Bravados (1958)

[flip]

that's funny, your ballot is almost identical to mine, and i was debating putting the bravados in my last slot, it might make it if i get up to 10 views!

[rischka]

i'm gonna watch the bravados today (i didn't see a cowboy)

edit: ha looks like it was filmed in my backyard

[john ryan]

Seen 9

1. The Gunfighter
2. Romola

[...]

Seen 26, have no strong feelings about King as a director. His movies are fine or a bit better, but there hasn't been any real hook to them that gives me much of an impression on King himself other than of being a good collaborator with a solid sense of craft. He does seem to have a good relationship with his cinematographers, his films tend to look good in somewhat unique ways, but not really in a singular way that one might more easily attribute to King alone, and that's more or less the case with the actors as well. Often interesting performances but varying in why they are so from film to film a bit. I mean as much as that is possible when King regularly worked with actors like Peck for whom variation isn't all that much of a thing, but Power was able to make good use of it, to his somewhat limited but earnest sense.

I've got most of his movies rated about the same, the equivalent I guess of six to seven out of ten, mostly for having enough zing to be enjoyable even when the stories aren't that great on their own, but there are some I'm not so keen on as well. I suspect my memory of some of the sociopolitical aspects may be weak as I haven't seen some of these in decades, but they seemed to mostly lean towards problematic more in the script than on the screen, which is only the faintest of praise where King at least didn't seem to tend towards crude visual caricature even as a number of the stories he filmed weren't so hot. (Well, I guess the Black Swan dips rather heavily towards excess, but in a more unusual way that isn't quite the Hollywood norm I was thinking of.)

Prince of Foxes for that added Wellesian touch
In Old Chicago
The Black Swan
The Gunfighter
David and Bathsheba

[oscarwerner]

Ha-ha. My top five is really identicall to flip`s. I have written Twelve O'Clock High and The Gunfighter at once -they are both on my letterbox top of Henry King. But i started thinkink much longer about other 3 films. I agree Henry King wasn`t an individualist and he just made impressive number of solid films in a studio system. I doubt if many of them would be interesting today. I think Gregory Peck was rather good in his films. I decided to include something with Tyrone Power -another actor of Henry King. Prince of Foxes is an easy choice . Still solid movie and Orson Welles here is the final motive to vote

[greennui]

Zero, though I have been meaning to watch The Gunfighter.

[...]

Oh, I'm not really knocking Peck, he's effective enough much of the time and has some set manners of expression that work well. He can do the righteous anger thing better than most, for example, the lighter comedic thing varies, where some of the time it seems like he's doing professorial amusement, not really laughing at you or with you in the circumstance, but at some private association that somehow vaguely amuses him. Still, better that than Lancaster's laugh, as if he's pleased over deciding on the recipe he'll be using to cook and eat you. Peck is just Peck, sometimes suitable to the role and quite effective, other times seeming out of place. Peck as King David is probably more the latter, but with Susan Hayward as Bathsheba in a Hollywood rendered biblical epic, that isn't so much wrong exactly as all part of the same overall package. It's not something I'd recommend for anyone wanting to invest themselves in the movie, the interest is more in the movie as a movie and what it says about its making, which is often the case with "epic" films, a genre I'm much too fascinated by.

[nrh]

even more than his cinematographers king must have had a good relationship with the film labs; i can't think of any other director of that period who could get such absolutely stunning results time and time again. some of those films on a good print are just amazing.

he does seem to genuinely struggle with bringing coherency of thought or a personal world view to trickier scripts. something like chad hannah is so full of amazing moments and scenes but (even beyond fonda miscasting) there's a certain void at the center, where you wonder not only who the character is but what the director thinks about him and his place in the world.

not seen any of the earlier black and white or silent films though.

captain from castile

[Roscoe]

THE GUNFIGHTER.

[flip]

as yet doesn't seem much support for a kuchar poll - would you like to choose a fallback nrh?

[...]

he does seem to genuinely struggle with bringing coherency of thought or a personal world view to trickier scripts. something like chad hannah is so full of amazing moments and scenes but (even beyond fonda miscasting) there's a certain void at the center, where you wonder not only who the character is but what the director thinks about him and his place in the world.

Yeah, that's pretty much my take, most of the Hollywood directors with long careers usually at least had a couple movies that seemed to have a personal flair to them that tied in to their body of work, even when a lot of it might be work for hire that was otherwise more generic seeming. If King has something like that or some other individual point of view that shows up in some way, I haven't been able to clue into it yet aside from his competent professionalism. That isn't necessarily a bad thing if he was working to let the movie tell its own story best by suiting a style to it. Wyler kinda does that in a way, where it's hard to put your finger on a specific thing that defines his style, but you still get a fairly strong sense of the movies being his by point of view.

LeRoy, on a film to film basis, wasn't as good a director as King in a lot of ways, but he had some movies that feel more charged with personality than I've seen from King. King gets the movies to work well enough, the viewer isn't usually bored, confused, or distracted in a bad way, but the films don't really amount to much more than that. They just are what they are. Sort of like a slightly better Ron Howard in that regard perhaps, but then even Howard has an attitude of status quo genteel liberal sameness to his movies that kinda works like a signature of sorts and King lacks even that.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Seen two. I can go with

Tol'able David

[kanafani]

Only 2 for me

Twelve O’Clock High

[nrh]

as yet doesn't seem much support for a kuchar poll - would you like to choose a fallback nrh?

we've not done anthony mann, right?

[wba2]

01. The Black Swan (1942)

King seen: 3

[flip]

we have not done mann, he'll definitely work, so unless we have some kuchar viewers chime in over the next couple of days, i'll start up a mann poll on friday

[thoxans]

awww yeah luv me sum anthony dude

[St. Gloede]

Seen 7 from Henry King. Sadly the only film I found great was:

1. Twelve O'Clock High

(Seen 23 from Anthony Mann however, looking forward to that one)

[Caracortada]

Seen 5.

1. The Song of Bernadette
2. Carousel

[karl]

Seen 26, have no strong feelings about King as a director.

Why would you watch 26 films by a director you have no strong feelings about?

Anyway, 13 says LB. A very likable director who probably has several gems I haven't seen:

1. Wait Til the Sun Shines, Nellie
2. The Gunfighter
3. Twelve O'Clock High
4. Seventh Heaven
5. Deep Waters

[...]

The movies are more or less fine, King just doesn't have much of a personality or point of view. He's an extremely accommodating director, which isn't what one normally looks for as a key strength in an artist. But more directly, I didn't watch the movies because King directed them, but because I was interested in other things about them or just saw them because they were available at the right time. Tyrone Power's odd battle with his own stardom in his desire to act, Wells and Sloane stealing the show in Prince of Foxes, Shamroy's lurid cinematography in Black Swan, the truncated career of Alice Faye, Peck and Hayward wildly out of place in biblical times, the manner of historical approach taken in Stanley and Livingston, Jesse James, and all the other "history" movies, how they translated Carousel to the screen. And, yeah, King's competence can lead to fine movies when the other elements fall into place. The Gunfighter, for example, is a strong piece of work all around. Directors are obviously important, but the attention they get really can overshadow a lot of other equally interesting stuff sometimes. I mean among serious cinephiles, stardom and genre hold the same place among more casual fans.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Directors are obviously important, but the attention they get really can overshadow a lot of other equally interesting stuff sometimes. I mean among serious cinephiles, stardom and genre hold the same place among more casual fans.

Agreed. For me one of the pleasures of diving into the careers of mid-tier studio-era Hollywood directors is less an auteurist fandom than using their filmography as a heuristic means by which to follow the fortunes of other interesting things their career intersected with, such as stars, genres, studios. In the case of Henry King, what comes to my mind are the star personas of Tyrone Power and Gregory Peck, changes in what kind of prestige pictures were popular, and of course the life story of Twentieth Century-Fox.