The Films of Robert Wise by Richard C. Keenan

Abstract

The Films of Robert Wise Richard C. Keenan, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007. One can easily find reasons to embrace this book that discusses the career of one of Hollywood's most dependable-and likable-directors. And what a career it was! Robert Wise was handpicked by Orson Welles, no less, to edit Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, two of the most celebrated films of the American cinema. Wise's next assignment at RKO was to edit films for Val Lewton, which then led to his first directing assignment in 1943 - The Curse of the Cat People. Not all of his subsequent pictures were so remarkable as his earlier work with Welles, but The Body Snatcher of 1945 featured both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) was to become a cult science-fiction masterpiece. Later science-fiction films he made would include The Andromeda Strain (1971) and an even bigger cult hit, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Wise made good fight films, not only Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956, starring Paul Newman as Rocky Graziano), but The Set-Up (1949), a neglected masterpiece, which Keenan seems determined to rescue from obscurity. But even more famous were the Wise musicals-West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), perhaps the ultimate cult movie by 2005 and winner of multiple Academy Awards at the time it was made, including Best Director and Best Picture, after garnering an amazing ten nominations. And yet, to my knowledge, this is only the third book published concerning this brilliant career, and that in itself, surely, is reason enough to value this book. The project began as an study for the Twayne Film Directors Series edited by Warren French, but critics at the time were not especially enthusiastic about Wise as an auteur director, since his films were not especially or distinctively personal. Of course, by the time the book was finally published, the auteur craze had long since passed. Keenan addresses the auteur issue in his evaluation of the career of the ultimate Hollywood company man, a director who made loads of movies without leaving an apparent signature with his camera stylo, even though Wise made many excellent and popular films. That could be part of the problem: directors are not supposed to be likable and cooperative and popular, but cantankerous and innovative and prickly. But would anyone think for a moment that Bob Wise would have made better or more successful pictures if he had been an old grouch wearing a slouch hat and an eye-patch, answering to the name of Fritz or Nick or Jack? I don't think so! Richard Keenan, first and foremost a very knowledgeable film buff, began work on this project nearly thirty years ago. After many setbacks and delays, he was finally moved to complete it in 2006, after the death of Robert Wise on September 14, 2005, at the age of 91. The book rests upon a framework of some thirty hours of interviews with the director, a process that started on the closed set of Star Trek: The Motion Picture during the summer of 1978. A six-page extract from this interview material appears in the book's Appendix, followed by a twenty-six-page Filmography. With regard to the thirty hours of interviews, Scarecrow Press has certainly done a service by rescuing this research for posterity, but, in truth, the reader may want more. …