SCFZ poll: WS Van Dyke

[flip]

Polling the films of director WS Van Dyke

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Van Dyke 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 Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to 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: greg x, umbugbene, roscoe

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]

if it turns out some of the people i'm betting will have seen 10+ van dyke have in fact not seen that many, i'll use the 'new rules' for this poll, but for now i'll leave things as normal

[Curtis, baby]

Seen 13

The thin man
It's a wonderful world
Manhattan melodrama
Rose Marie
After the thin man

[flip]

I Love You Again
The Thin Man
Naughty Marietta
The Prisoner of Zenda

seen 9, though not sure if i should count prisoner of zenda? if no, i'll replace it with another thin man

[flip]

Seen 13

you can pick our next director if you want!

[Curtis, baby]

I doubt we have the numbers but I'd love to do Kurt kren

If not Noah Baumbach

[Umbugbene]

Seen 9

1. Rage in Heaven
2. Personal Property
3. Rosalie
4. Forsaking All Others

I have 16 Kurt Krens and 2 Noah Baumbachs.

[Roscoe]

THE THIN MAN
MANHATTAN MELODRAMA
TARZAN THE APE MAN
MARIE ANTOINETTE

I'd include PRISONER OF ZENDA, but he apparently only did some reshoots and is uncredited.

[wba]

Love all 4 films I've seen, so this is very hard.

01. I Love You Again (1940)
02. White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)

Van Dyke seen: 4

PS: I have 5 Kurt Kren logged on letterboxd, but may have seen more. What's the title of the film in which you see asses shitting in close-up? I liked that one a lot.
I also have 1 or 2 Baumbachs.

[Curtis, baby]

PS: I have 5 Kurt Kren logged on letterboxd, but may have seen more. What's the title of the film in which you see asses shitting in close-up? I liked that one a lot.

16/67

Only one I don't like of the 43 I've seen

[Umbugbene]

What's the title of the film in which you see asses shitting in close-up? I liked that one a lot.
I also have 1 or 2 Baumbachs.

Believe you're thinking of 16/67: 20. September. I saw that one too. Not a favorite by any stretch, but I liked it more than Marriage Story.

[wba]

Yeah, that's the one!!
But why didn't you like it?
I thought it was one of the best!
My least favorite was definitely "No Film"...

[mesnalty]

Only seen 4 Krens, but since they're short I'd watch some more if he's polled.

[flip]

Not a favorite by any stretch, but I liked it more than Marriage Story.

i've also seen quite a few kren, but before i was recording what i was watching, so not sure how i'd vote. but i'd be happy to rewatch/watch more. it's been a while since we've polled someone working in a more experimental vein, so let's poll kren next. not sure if baumbach will work unless we have a few baumbach completists around here - looks like he has only 11 features? i've only seen four.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Eskimo
White Shadows In The South Seas

[thoxans]

Yeah [...] "No Film"

this is either the most
seriously ironic post i've read
in a while, or the most ironically serious,
but i can't decide which.....

[grabmymask]

Got 10 Kren

[Umbugbene]

Four dots is actually correct (according to some style guides) when the ellipsis occurs at the end of a sentence. In that case the 4th dot is the period.

[Holymanm]

I don't know who this director is, but I do like how the whole discussion in his thread is on other directors. Also The Prisoner of Zenda is a fantastic book, and I've read The Thin Man as well - so I have no interest in watching old Hollywood adaptations thereof. I am being unjustly punished in this poll

[Roscoe]

The film of THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, directed by John Cromwell with it seems occasional reshoots by Van Dyke, is pure old Hollywood delight, fabulous from start to finish. You may watch it in safety. The Hammett is another matter -- the meanness of Hammett doesn't quite make it to the screen, but the magic of Loy and Powell's chemistry is a winning tradeoff.

[Holymanm]

Oh... actually I had heard the Zenda movie (err... with questionable director status) was quite good, maybe so good as to overshadow the book. Might watch that one day. It's a shame the apparently inferior 50s "remake" is the one with James Mason in it - wouldn't he be delightful as Rupert...

And yeah, watching film noir adaptations on top of already having read the literature noir - that's a level of commitment to modern American art I am just not ready to make.

[wba]

And yeah, watching film noir adaptations on top of already having read the literature noir - that's a level of commitment to modern American art I am just not ready to make.

It's quite rewarding! You just have to expect a waaay different movie, that's all.

[nrh]

It's a shame the apparently inferior 50s "remake" is the one with James Mason in it - wouldn't he be delightful as Rupert...

there's a really fun bengali remake from the '60s with the great uttam kumar and soumitrya chatterjee called jhinder bondi. the thorpe version is incredibly dull if i remember correctly...

[Curtis, baby]

The thin man is not really a noir

[...]

The 50's remake of Prisoner of Zenda is pretty much just that in some major ways with entire scenes of dialogue being repeated verbatim from the earlier film, but the tone of the two version is wildly different, with the earlier one being the much more light and enjoyable and the latter stodgily earnest and blandly colorful in the scenery before sense fashion of some MGM fifties technicolor extravaganzas. It's not awful exactly, and makes for an interesting comparison given the scripts similarities, as in seeing how Mason and Fairbanks Jr take radically different approaches to the same character and lines, for example, and it is better than the 70s take on the story, but the 30s version is easily the best. It'd be my favorite Van Dyke movie if he actually directed a significant part of it, but he only polished up some action scenes I gather and as I think Cromwell is the better director of the two anyway and deserves his credit on the movie, I'm skipping it for this poll. (I'm also skipping the Thin Men since they don't need any added votes.)

San Francisco
I Love You Again
Tarzan the Ape Man
Love on the Run
Rosalie

[Caracortada]

Seen 6

1 Manhattan Melodrama
2 Tarzan the Ape Man
3 The Thin Man

The special eefects in Tarzan remain unequalled.

[john ryan]

Seen 8

1. The Thin Man
2. White Shadows in the South Seas
3. Penthouse
4. Another Thin Man

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

1. Guilty Hands (1931)
2. Rose Marie (1936)
3. After the Thin Man (1936)
4. Journey for Margaret (1942)
5. It's a Wonderful World (1939)

Seen 10.

I would say of Van Dyke that he's a perfectly satisfactory, reliable Lightly Likable director, but that his talents are limited: he needs good material to work with and can't be expected to elevate a shoddy script into entertainment. Definitely one of MGM's favoured hands while he was alive, and that makes his filmography track nicely onto a broader history of MGM's product from the late 1920s to the early 1940s.

[wba]

I would say of Van Dyke that he's a perfectly satisfactory, reliable Lightly Likable director, but that his talents are limited: he needs good material to work with and can't be expected to elevate a shoddy script into entertainment. Definitely one of MGM's favoured hands while he was alive, and that makes his filmography track nicely onto a broader history of MGM's product from the late 1920s to the early 1940s.

Well, I've only seen a meager 4 films by Van Dyke, but his direction in all 4 of them was outstanding! And all 4 were in completely different genres. I LOVE YOU AGAIN for example is one of the best directed screwball comedies I've had the pleasure to watch. So I'd personally put him up there in the pantheon of Hollywood greats of the classic era - with reservations of course, cause I might just have seen his 4 best films and that's that, but I seriously doubt it.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Well, I've only seen a meager 4 films by Van Dyke, but his direction in all 4 of them was outstanding! And all 4 were in completely different genres. I LOVE YOU AGAIN for example is one of the best directed screwball comedies I've had the pleasure to watch. So I'd personally put him up there in the pantheon of Hollywood greats of the classic era - with reservations of course, cause I might just have seen his 4 best films and that's that, but I seriously doubt it.

Success in a variety of genres is a definite virtue, but One-Take Woody in the same class as Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Lubitsch, and whoever else one fancies? You have 100% jurisdiction over your taste, but as for me, I don't know, I can't imagine classing Van Dyke anywhere but 'Lightly Likable' (to fall back on the old Sarris terminology I grew up on). For me, Van Dyke in the 1930s is indistinguishable from MGM in the 1930s, which just makes him feel like a talented but limited journeyman more than a distinctive personality I can rely on to be interesting even in his failures. (Though in fairness, I'm not actually much of an auteurist anymore, anyway, so studio contract players are increasingly interesting to me even in their failures, too.) I will say that had Van Dyke lived longer he might be spoken of in the same breath as Michael Curtiz, whose career is in some ways indistinguishable from the career of Warner Bros. product but who nonetheless stands as a major name for his interesting prolificness if nothing else. I imagine that if Van Dyke hadn't died relatively young he would have been a comparable figure for MGM, and he probably would have tried his hand at even more genres!