Jay Woelfel's Tribute to John Frankenheimer

The Applause Did Not Come To Late

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A tribute to late great director John Frankenheimer

By Jay Woelfel

THE APPLAUSE DID NOT COME TO LATE

When director Abel Gance was interviewed about the acclaim and success his 1927 film Napoleon was having when it was restored and finally released widely in 1981 he supposedly said “the applause comes too late.”

The recently deceased Billy Wilder also said he’d trade all of the awards he spent he later years receiving to get to direct a film again.

Alfred Hitchcock, feeling trapped into a bad deal with Universal, spent time buying up Universal stock-rather than making movies- in an attempt to regain control of the films he was making. His last two films were made with much more of his control and were noticeably better, but he then died before he could continue the trend.

Orson Welles spent much of the year leading up to his 70^th year back in the public spotlight in a way that seemed sure to allow him to direct films again – several of which have since been made by others- only to be found dead in his chair after a celebratory birthday appearance on the Merv Griffin show.

The applause came to late, or in Wilder’s case came in place of work, for these great directors but it did not come too late for John Frankenheimer. Though his death surely robbed us of more good or great films which he certainly had in him, he enjoyed a rare rare comeback in Hollywood. Maybe worst of all it ended the possibility once and for all that he might make a film about Robert Kennedy who he knew well and was with the night he was assassinated.

His last film scheduled film would have been a prequel to the Exorcist, so perhaps in an artistic sense he died before making what didn’t sound to be a great movie to be. Then again his William Friedkin impersonation job he did directing The French Connection II was a much better William Friedkin impersonation than Friedkin himself has managed to pull off in recent years.

Though he’d lived most of his film career in the shadow of what was considered to be his great movie THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, a movie which for much of that time wasn’t even available for release, Frankenheimer’s obituaries all, and justifiably put him as sort of a come back kid, or even more accurately as a director who kept fighting to make good and great films, which he frequently did do, regardless of his falling from critical and commercial success.

A friend of a friend of mine worked with Frankenheimer writing a Deliverance-like project to star Richard Dreyfuss that ultimately didn’t get made. He liked Frankenheimer but found him to be rather sad. This was back in the 1980’s when, by his own account Frankenheimer was at sea battling alcoholism and general indifference that greeted his recent films.

Frankenheimer, like a number of now mostly either dead or career dead contemporaries learned his craft perfecting the now virtually dead art, that of live television drama. Composer Jerry Goldsmith, another live television graduate –perhaps the most successful live television graduate ever, said that when he got one of his first jobs in television it was for a show to be directed by Frankenheimer. They met and both admitted they had no idea what to do or how to do it. But both agreed not to tell anybody and then realized that no one else knew either. In fact no one else did in this brand new medium, so they just made it up as they went along. In the process they invented the rules so to speak. These live television dramas were, and are since you can still see many of them and their videotape quality gives them a life unlike what film has, unique. They had theatrical elements to be sure, though the performances were smaller than they’d be in a theater they still had that can’t stop life and vitality of the stage, but they also featured in Frankenheimer’s case some spectacular live camera moves and blocking of actors and camera that are sometimes jaw dropping.

Television then as now, also worked you like a dog, or a very ugly dog back then since most of the shows were taped live where the mistakes were broadcast to be laughed at across the country. Goldsmith credits television with letting and forcing him to learn his craft and Frankenheimer said similar things about the experience.

Frankenheimer moved into theatrical features as did other live television directors like Franklin Shaffner and Sidney Lumet but his films were usually more vivid visually than other live television veterans.

A film that has only recently begun to be considered one of his great films is SECONDS. James Wong Howe shot it and it features a wide and wild variety of angles and lens choices all of which are entirely appropriate and still startling today, though Howe would later find Frankenheimer’s visual interests too extreme for him and actually quit the film THE HORSEMAN for Frankenheimer later.

Aside from his films what Frankenheimer said about his film and the art/craft of directing itself, I personally find to be excellent. I heard him speak at screenings of SECONDS and THE ICEMAN COMETH (a great film that remains almost a lost film due to the chicanery of its producer) and he was wonderfully articulate and able to communicate his ideas verbally. Not all artists can do this, whenever I hear the great composer John Williams talk about film music it’s either so boring or impossible to decipher that I start to doubt his talent. It’s not important that any artist be a good speaker or writer, unless of course they are a speaker or writer, because their best and most perfect expression is in their art. If you could perfectly talk about a movie, or painting, or piece of music then there’d be no reason for them to exist as a movie, or painting, or piece of music. But Frankenheimer could do this. He had a reputation for being something of a screamer on his sets, and there’s always plenty to scream about on a movie set believe me, and if he was as lucid in rage as not, then I’m sure a tirade from him would be withering.

Luckily for us, he leaves a number of his films to us with his director’s commentary tracks now on DVD. There are among the best out there. He doesn’t constantly talk but he’s candid and offers insights that others would not. Most interestingly of all is his now last Theatical feature, the unfairly maligned, REINDEER GAMES. This film was the best of his recent theatrical movies and is available in two version with two different commentary tracks one for each version of the movie. I’d vote it one of the best, if not the best, directors cut available.

Now this term is sometimes applied to movies where the director had nothing to do with the cut. Or in the case of a film like ORSON WELLES TOUCH OF EVIL, applied where only notes from long ago existed to guide the hands of the well intentioned, though sometimes misguided, people who finish the directors cut somehow without a director. But with REINDEER GAMES you have the real deal with Frankenheimer being very candid about what he was forced to change in the original version in order to chase box office success that eluded the film anyway.

It’s of course ironic, or sad for the film industry really, that Frankenheimer revived his career by going back to doing what was a low budget TV movie, the excellent AGAINST THE WALL. I really feel that Frankenheimer remained a good to great director the whole length of his career, but the industry perception was that he was in decline and that in a real way is all that mattered.

AGAINST THE WALL has all the freshness and energy of a young director, but the craft and coherence that came from his years of education being a filmmaker. Frankenheimer got his shot at doing a big studio film not long after with the not so great ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU which was a commercial hit. It’s most lasting impact is on television’s South Park and the Austin Powers film’s character of Mini Me which take their inspiration from the mini me version of Dr. Moreau that is still one of the funniest, strangest things you’re likely to ever see. Make no mistake it’s intentionally funny in Moreau, you can even see Marlon Brando starting to crack up during one take.

Moreau was a broken record before Frankenheimer came in to try to fix it, and he got the credit for saving it, even though much of it was beyond saving, and from that point on until his recent unfortunate death, he was back on top.

His follow up feature RONIN, was another sort of troubled script that he took over, had rewritten by David Mamet, which opened to big box office before tapering off. It too suffers from a studio imposed ending—the DVD features the only slightly but significantly different and better ending—and suffers from some other script problems, some of which can be scarcely traced to Mamet who’s recent film HEIST has some of the same problems and virtues. But RONIN features one of the all time great car chases and is a spectacular film visually. Again with a coherent style and energy that’s fresh but without the overly chopped up, “what’s in this soup anyway?” kind of after taste that is currently considered and demonstrated in too much action film directing.

Now I’ve almost made it back to REINDEER GAMES which is the best of these final three theatrical films. But let me pause to say that all of these big theatrical features are far dumber than his string of television films, that he smartly continued to make and all of which won him directing Emmy’s during the same time period. We’ll see if he wins again for the recently broadcast telefilm about Lyndon Johnson. It’s too bad that theatrical films couldn’t have offered him the quality and control that he had on these telefilms.

The fact I think is that theatrical films just don’t offer this kind of material very frequently to any director anymore.

Some of the reasons for this state of affairs is expressed on his commentary track to the directors cut of REINDEER GAMES. The studio wanted the lead character, played very well by Ben Affleck, whose first big studio leading man film this was, to be. Before starting the film Affleck reportedly wanted “a better” director than Frankenheimer but the studio refused to change.

At any rate after test screenings of the finished film, and very predictably, the studio wanted Affleck’s character to be more likable and by doing so actually made the character more unbelievable and less sympathetic in that pointless quest. Affleck failed to “open” the film, though he certainly can open a film now as SUM OF ALL FEARS shows. But he’s really miscast in SUM OF ALL FEARS and works much better in Reindeer Games.

REINDEER GAMES is, at it’s core, a Quentin Tarentino type crime film, and one of the best of that mostly awful genre and phenomenon that is Tarentino—who himself has proved to be remarkably un prolific since his one two punch of RESERVOIR DOGS and PULP FICTION. It’s all hip and edgy writing filled with twist and turns, one too many if you ask me, but it actually is all these things while being much more visually alive than Tarantino’s films have been so far.

Some critics thought that Frankenheimer didn’t get the humor, but they obviously weren’t watching Clarence Williams the thirds character at all to think this. Williams owes his own recent career to Frankenheimer who used him frequently and effectively since 52 PICK UP in 1985.

I should say in the midst of my recommendation here to seek out the directors cut on DVD, that I liked the theatrical version of the film, but everything is better in the directors cut which is longer but a much more balanced movie. The violence is more graphic which keeps the reality and tension going and makes the comedic elements work better as well. And if you’re a fan of Dennis Farina you are missing some choice bits of comedy if you don’t see this directors cut. And finally and just as importantly there is more time taken with the all characters in the director’s cut.

And perhaps if you’ve never liked Ben Affleck, and I know a lot of people in this category, give him a chance in this film where his personality and performance works. So give him a chance this time, despite his very unlikable move of wanting someone better before he started the film.

I think REINDEER GAMES is great movie directing and great fun. If you want to see a genuinely great film Frankenheimer made his share of those too but if you’ve got the courage to see recent or more obscure work, rather than wallow in the accepted nostalgia of his accepted great movies like MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and THE BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ here are some other recommendations both of the great and the great fun type that you may not see mentioned in other Frankenheimer retrospectives.

SECONDS

Frankenhiemer felt the studio threw this film away selling it as a horror film. But it is a horror film and a science fiction film of the best type. A rich but aging man is encouraged to be remade as a young man and is then given a new life, and second chance at life to live his dreams. It’s written by the great Lewis John Carlino and Hudson is perfect as the ideal perfect man – Frankenheimer said he had no idea from working with him that Hudson was gay.

Initially, Frankenhiemer wanted one man to play both parts, (redone second man and worn out original man) and thought that only Laurence Olivier could play it. He talked Olivier into doing it and then the studio said they didn’t want him. But Frankenhiemer was probably right the part should have been played by one man. Also Hudson, great as he is in it, of course carries image baggage now that gives the movie kind of cheesy factor that might make you stay away from the film, but don’t.

I heard Frankenheimer talk about the film both before and after a screening at a time when the film was pretty much unavailable in any form. Before the screening he said he hadn’t seen the film in a long time but loved it, but when he spoke afterwards he seemed to have a some negative opinions. A later book interview offers up other thoughts as does the DVD commentary track. The ending Frankenheimer said after seeing it again at the screening I was at, he felt was too strong and he’d change it if he had it to do over again. I don’t agree and Frankenheimers own opinions of this film shifted with time, which just shows what a key film it is in his filmography. That ending is one of the most powerful in all of film and the film’s message is more and more important each day that we come closer to the possibilities offered up tragically to the main charcter in SECONDS.

THE GYPSY MOTHS

You’ll be hard pressed to find this film anywhere as the rights to it are tied up with the original novel’s author’s estate, but Frankenheimer thought it was one of his best films. It features some spectacular sky diving footage (sort of the aerial equivalent of his Ronin car chases) and completely convincing small town atmosphere of the Midwest. It’s about the lives, loves, egos and tragedies, of traveling sky divers. This film shows that Frankenheimer could do almost any type of film well. Other reasons to seek out this film are Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster reteaming in a rather graphic in a love scene and a fine performance from under rated actor Scott Wilson and a very early performance from Bonnie Bedelia and oh yeah that Gene Hackman guys pretty good in this film too. The film features one major plot turn that may have left audiences at the time lost, but is quite powerful now.

BLACK SUNDAY

The best terrorist film yet made. A riveting and perfect example of what is now a mostly forgotten type of film, the action drama, rather than the action comedy which dominates currently, though SUM OF ALL FEARS (which is very similar to but inferior to BLACK SUNDAY) and some others may hopefully revive it.

It’s based on a novel by Thomas Harris who creates for the first time here a central and very compellingly creepy but sympathetic villain, the type that he would take to further extremes and perfect with Hannibal Lector years later. The villain here is a very sympathetic damaged Vietnam Vet who is enlisted in a plan to kill everyone at the superbowl—which by the way is what they succeed in doing in SUM OF ALL FEARS though in a far less creative way. Bruce Dern is the veteran, before Slyvester Stalone came along and turned this same type figure into a true hero and a cliché with his popular Rambo films. At a recent screening an audience member commented that she identified with Dern so much by the end of the film that she wanted to light the fuse to blow up the super bowl herself. Frankenheimer admitted that this might be true and perhaps this is why it didn’t connect with an audience the way it was expected to. The film was expected to be bigger than JAWS, which had just made a star out of BLACK SUNDAY’S star Robert Shaw, at the time JAWS was the biggest movie ever and when it only did okay box office was unjustly considered to be a box office bomb. Robert Shaw is very good here and of course the issues of Palestine and Israel are still to be ignored only at our own peril.

THE CHALLENGE

A film written by John Sayles with stunt work by Steven Seagal directed by John Frankenheimer and with music by Jerry Goldsmith. How couldn’t it be great! To me this pretty much works on two vastly different, should be impossible, levels at the same time. It’s a modern day samurai film and heady cultural examination of both east meets west but also past meets present in modern day Japan. The usually good Scott Glen in the lead is a bit disappointing –or maybe it’s just that silly hair cut he has. But Toshiro Mifune is great in a return to his roots performance as a samurai warrior. The climactic sword and office stapler fight scene in the modern office building is brutal and exciting while at the same time a perfect symbolic combination of all the things the film is about. Like the film BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, I think this good film was way ahead of its time and didn’t find a western audience for such eastern subject matter. That time only recently arrived with CROUCHING TIGER AND HIDDEN DRAGON and though THE CHALLENGE is pretty well hidden itself you may find it deep in a video store waiting to be enjoyed.

52 PICKUP

If REINDEER GAMES is Tarantino-esque this film is also, only before Tarantino ever made movies. This is a very tough invigoratingly stylish crime film that was produced unfortunately by Cannon films who had made so much garbage that few people noticed this gem. The use of steady cam here is very exciting and the threat the villains pose is very real and occasionally very darkly funny. Yes the lead characters are somewhat bland but you certainly root for them in these grim circumstances anyway. It’s a great film noir that should have put Frankenheimer back on top years before he eventually, if perhaps still a bit too briefly, got back there.