OVP: How the West Was Won (1963)

Film: How the West Was Won (1963)

Stars: Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Spencer Tracy, Walter Brennan, Agnes Moorehead, Thelma Ritter, Russ Tamblyn, Raymond Massey, Mickey Shaughnessy

Director: Henry Hathaway, John Ford, & George Marshall

Oscar History: 8 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture, Original Screenplay*, Film Editing*, Sound*, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Debbie Reynolds: click here to learn more about Ms. Reynolds (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We cannot do a month devoted to Debbie Reynolds without talking about one of the most famous scandals of the Classical Hollywood era, her relationship with Eddie Fisher.  Fisher was a major singer at the time, on-par with acts like Fabian and Elvis Presley in terms of his popularity, and even had his own hit television program.  The two were the equivalent of what today we'd think of as Zendaya & Tom Holland (or for you older people, Brad Pitt & Jennifer Aniston)-America's Sweethearts, the boy and girl next door who had married each other.  Their marriage was rocky when it wasn't on the front pages, though, with Fisher a serial philanderer, including an affair with Playboy Playmate Pat Sheehan.  But it was when he had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor, the rare celebrity at the time on-par with Reynolds & Fisher, that the entire world paid attention.  Taylor, who had recently been widowed after the death of producer Mike Todd, was best friends with Reynolds, but still ended up in bed with her husband.  The scandal was sensational, one of the biggest celebrity news stories of the decade, and it had bizarre implications for all involved.  Reynolds, of course, was canonized as the scorned woman, and would have five movies come out in 1959 alone.  Elizabeth Taylor, the mistress, normally would've been the one to pay the price in the public's eye, but she was fine career-wise.  Within a year she was clutching her first Oscar, and a few years later would become the highest-paid actress in film history (and the centerpiece of an equally-famous affair) on the set of Cleopatra.  Instead it was Eddie Fisher who actually paid a career price, with his show being cancelled and his music career largely being destroyed.  It's hard to grasp now, but at the time Fisher was as big of a deal as Reynolds & Taylor were...now, he's nothing but an asterisk compared to the two women, who famously years after they'd both left Fisher reconciled and even starred in a film written by Fisher & Reynolds' daughter Carrie.

(Spoilers Ahead) During the wake of the scandal, Reynolds got a lot of career mileage and a number of hit movies, one of the biggest being today's film How the West Was Won.  The movie is less a cohesive story, and more a series of vignettes that tell the tale of how the American West began as well as how it ended, but the centerpiece around the film is Reynolds, who despite not getting top-billing (it went alphabetically for all of the main stars) is the movie's main character as Lilith Prescott, a woman dragged to the wilderness by her parents (Moorehead & Malden), and then when they die, she ends up making the west her home, marrying a scoundrel (Peck) who ends up making good, and eventually settling in the West with her nephew (Peppard) after most of the rest of her family dies.  In the meantime, we get pirates (led by Walter Brennan), the growth of the railroad, and, oh yeah, the Civil War.  

The movie is BIG, and it's not afraid of it.  There's a reason it has three directors and 17 (not a typo, I counted) Oscar-nominated actors on the call sheet.  But the thing is-it's not very good.  None of the actors are giving particularly good performances, and given who they are, that's a crime.  The best in the cast might be...Wallach, only because he gets to play a villain?  Honestly, even that feels like a stretch to me.  It's more a cavalcade of cameos, each seemingly doing John Ford a favor by appearing in a movie that would be such a big hit it'd be a weird case of it being one of their signature movies of the 1960's despite only Reynolds being in very much of the picture.  It deals a lot with cliche, and trying to shove what would've been a miniseries today into a couple of hours of celluloid.

The film won eight Academy Award nominations, and they're a mixed bag, but definitely not all bad.  The movie's screenplay win is abject silliness (it barely runs together as a plot!), and the same can be said for the editors, who probably got this nomination because it was a novel concept to have unrelated stories start to blend this way, but just because it's unique doesn't mean it's good.  The art direction & costume nominations are better, but less inspired.  The art direction feels more a tribute to the beauty of nature in the film, which is definitely on-display (also, because this is shot in Cinerama there's a lot more art direction than you'd normally expect), and the costumes are fine though nothing stands out in particular.  It's the last three nominations that worked best and felt most-earned.  The film's cinematography, capturing the beauty of the west (lots of this was shot off a studio lot), and it also works really well in conjunction with the stunt and effects teams (the Civil War & river rapids sequences, in particular, are the stuff that makes you wonder why it's taken so long to get a Stunts Oscar).  This also works for the sound work, with a lot of the action set pieces feeling really in-your-face, and it works well with the film's high musical quotient.  And of course Alfred Newman's score, generally considered to be his best work, is spectacularly grand.  All-in-all, there's a lot of elements of a classic here...if only the movie itself were any good.

OVP: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

Film: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

Stars: John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr., Mildred Natwick

Director: John Ford

Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Cinematography*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on John Wayne: click here to learn more about Mr. Wayne (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

John Wayne's career is legendary for a variety of reasons.  Obviously, the guy made a lot of classic films, which helps.  Perhaps more importantly, especially in establishing his legacy, was that he made so many films.  Because Wayne was the kind of actor who needed to be famous, maybe because he spent nine years after The Big Trail getting bit work, he didn't want to waste his stardom.  From 1939 until the 1970's, Wayne was the lead in at least one movie every year, in most cases multiple films, which is basically unheard of for an actor of his celebrity, and why your dad can watch so many John Wayne movies (which is usually the claim when people talk about Wayne today, that he's someone whom "your dad/grandpa" watched a lot of his movies).  A big part of that run was films he made with John Ford, one of the biggest directors of the era, and the guy who gave Wayne his second big break (the one that stuck) in Stagecoach in 1939.  All told, the two men made 14 films together, spanning from Stagecoach until 1963's Donovan's Reef.  Many of these were westerns, and while a lot of them I'd seen before (and loved), so they weren't eligible for this series (The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance at the top of the list), I couldn't ignore this partnership in a month filled with John Wayne, so we are going to feature today She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, a massive hit the two men achieved for RKO in 1949.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Nathan Brittles (Wayne), who is about to retire from his post in the Frontier Army, but before he does he has to deal with a reservation breakout of the Cheyenne & Arapaho tribes following Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn (they want to prevent a war).  He also is tasked with bringing his commanding officer's wife (Natwick) and niece Olivia (Dru) to a stage going east.  Olivia, beautiful and headstrong, is being bartered over by several of the men in the company as they try to woo her.  The film itself continues with both missions seemingly lost (it appears as if Brittles will not be able to get the women to their destination, and war is inevitable), but with the help of his men, he manages to trick the Native Americans by stealing their horses, and forcing them to return to the reservation.  In the end, Brittles doesn't retire, instead getting a promotion, and continues on in the army.

The movie itself is somewhat lacking.  This doesn't have the finesse in its screenplay that some of Ford's later partnerships with Wayne would elicit, giving us a pessimistic look at what the Frontier could give (this is very much still in the post-WWII drive of patriotism above all else).  Wayne is playing a man twenty-years his senior quite believably, but most of the rest of the cast isn't as impressive.  Dru is in a side love triangle so ancillary you'll be forgiven for not being able to tell her beau's apart, and if she ended up with the right guy.

Where the film gains all of its glory is in its cinematography.  I recently went to Monument Valley on a vacation, and it really is one of the most beautiful places on earth.  I understand why westerns (and Ford in particular) used it as a filming location, and they called out repeatedly on my tour that this is one of the movies that best shows the land.  It really is glorious.  There's a scene in the rain that is actually rain that kind of has to be seen to be believed, and it's not just pretty pictures.  There's a moment where a stationary camera watches as a charge of horses spring across a shallow river that is magnificent, giving us actual build-up until the moment where the horses are so close, you feel like you have to give the audience a rain poncho.  This is one of those times Oscar got it exactly right.

The Wings of Eagles (1957)

Film: The Wings of Eagles (1957)

Stars: John Wayne, Dan Dailey, Maureen O'Hara, Ward Bond

Director: John Ford

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Ward Bond: click here to learn more about Mr. Bond (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

With apologies to Ward Bond, I took a vacation this month, and so while we will get the full gamut of articles for him (he'll have a second film this afternoon), he'll only get two Saturday's.  Maybe this is okay though.  Ward Bond is an unusual star primarily because he wasn't.  We'll talk this afternoon about what it was like for Bond to briefly step into the spotlight in Wagon Train on television, but despite being in over a hundred movies, most of them with marquee stars from big studios, he almost always plays a small part in those films.  This was why I was excited for Wings of Eagles. It isn't because he has a big part (indeed, it's arguably the smallest role he'll have in our four films this month), but instead it was exciting because it might be the best performance we've seen from him all September.  Sadly, the movie that surrounds it is a complete dud.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on the life of real-life naval aviator Spig Wead (Wayne), who is trying to prove that the Navy should value aviation in combat.  He does endurance races to achieve this, which means that his wife Min (O'Hara) and family are left at home, oftentimes for years at a time while he is off pursuing his professional ambitions.  After falling down a flight of stairs, he is paralyzed & rejects his family further, only hanging with his buddies in the navy like Jughead (Dailey), who finally are able to convince him to "move that toe" (seriously-there is a five-minute sequence of Dailey & Wayne singing and chanting "Move that toe" over-and-over to the point where you think it was a running joke or an inside drinking game between the two actors).  After this, he becomes a Hollywood screenwriter, even meeting famed director John Dodge (Bond), before eventually going back into the Navy one last time, before suffering a heart attack and being forced to fully retire from active duty.

The movie is not strong, and it's honestly the dullest John Ford movie I've ever seen (seriously-Ford is almost always a good time as a moviegoer...I'm confused how his name is on the picture save for the call sheet & the last twenty minutes, where we see some decent combat footage that apparently includes some stuff from real-life).  Wayne & O'Hara, movie magic in other films, are barely in the picture together (O'Hara is sidelined for giant swaths of the picture), and it stretches a thin (if heroic) story past the point of patience.  Worst of the bunch is Dan Dailey, an annoying figure and with the possible exception of Mickey Rooney, my most-loathed Classical Hollywood leading man.

The movie is saved briefly by Bond, who gives the film's best performance, albeit in a very small cameo.  He plays a fictionalized version of the director, and it's a riot.  He even dresses like Ford did in real life (with the sunglasses and omnipresent pipe), and given their extremely long working relationship, you can tell this is both accurate and a gas for Bond, who honestly looks like he & Wayne are about to bust into a blooper real the entire time that Bond is onscreen, it's so much fun.  Had we focused on this relationship, this might've been the rare Ford comedy (and one that would work).  Alas, we're stuck with two hours of tepid war cinema around it.

Rio Grande (1950)

Film: Rio Grande (1950)

Stars: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson, Claude Jarman, Jr., Harry Carey, Jr., Chill Wills, J. Carrol Naish, Victor McLaglen

Director: John Ford

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Maureen O'Hara-click here to learn more about Ms. O'Hara (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We are halfway through the month, and I'm going to confess something here.  While I am enjoying getting a Maureen O'Hara retrospective onto the blog (she had good taste in scripts, and occasionally made a big impression onscreen), she might have been a mistake for this kind of format (for two reasons).  The first is that Maureen O'Hara's career was too long to fit into four Saturday's, and I'm going to miss too many chapters with the actress.  After her work with Hunchback, she languished with abysmal parts at RKO, and only after she took on a key role in Fox's smash success How Green Was My Valley, did American films finally start using her properly.  The other problem, though, with O'Hara is that many of her biggest classics I've already seen, and the "rules" of this series are that I can only profile movies I've never seen, so I'm "discovering" the star along with you.  This means that we're going to skip How Green Was My Valley, Miracle on 34th Street, and The Quiet Man, all some of O'Hara's best work & the three films which she's most associated.  Today, though, we are going to look into a chapter of O'Hara's life that would come to define her career throughout the 1950's & 60's with a film I haven't seen-Rio Grande, her first film with director John Ford and actor John Wayne, both of whom she would work with consistently for the next twenty years.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is the third of Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" and is about a troupe of US Cavalry who are stationed on the Texas frontier to guard against Apaches.  They are led by Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (Wayne), whose son Jeff (Jarman) has been kicked out of West Point but still joins up as a private, and is assigned to his father's regimen.  While initially Jeff is mocked by his fellow soldiers (with them assuming he gets special treatment from his father), he is instead held to a higher standard, and they start to respect him.  Things become more tense when Kirby's estranged wife Kathleen (O'Hara) joins them, trying to convince Jeff to get out of the army as she fears for his safety, but she can convince neither father nor son, and she stays on, growing back in love with her husband.  The film's climax involves the Apaches stealing a number of children from the troupes, and them having to get back, with Jeff risking his life on the mission & Kirby being wounded, though not killed, during battle.  The film ends with Jeff receiving accommodation for his efforts (finally making his parents proud), and Kathleen & Kirby happily in love again.

The movie starred Wayne & O'Hara together for the first time, one of five times they'd make a movie together (they would later be remembered as one of the most beloved pairs in Classic Hollywood) and one of three films they made with director Ford.  While it has auspicious beginnings, the movie wasn't one that Ford really cared about.  The studio forced him to make the movie in order for him to secure the funding for The Quiet Man, which the studio (incorrectly) assumed would be a dud & they wanted the western as an insurance policy.  As a result, this is oftentimes the "odd man out" in Ford's Cavalry Trilogy, as the other two films (Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon) are generally considered some of his masterpieces, a reputation Rio Grande doesn't enjoy.

Upon viewing, while there are elements to lend itself, this is correct & the movie doesn't number amongst the best of Ford's career.  The film's finest elements are its moody cinematography from Bert Glennon (making good use of Ford's obsession with Monument Valley, particularly in nighttime scenes), as well as the overuse of old songs; some criticized this at the time, but I quite liked the constant musical interludes where the troupes will sing army songs & love ballads to Kathleen.  The film's chemistry between Kirby & Kathleen is good, but underwritten.  While they have a tense backstory (Kathleen, a Southerner, watched as her husband burned down her plantation when he joined the North in the war), it's not particularly explored, and there are a lot of inconsistencies in their relationship.  It's one of those movies where you thank heavens for the chemistry as this could have been a clunker with actors who didn't work together.  But they do, and next week we'll see how well they interact as we explore one final chapter in O'Hara's epic career.

The World Moves On (1934)

Film: The World Moves On (1934)

Stars: Madeleine Carroll, Franchot Tone, Reginald Denny, Louise Dresser, Stepin Fetchit

Director: John Ford

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Madeleine Carroll-click here to learn more about Ms. Carroll (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

All right, we start out our third season of Saturdays with the Stars with Madeleine Carroll, an actress many probably don't know, despite the fact that she starred in two Alfred Hitchcock films.  We're going to continue doing these chronologically in 2021 (so, as a result, we will hit the Hitchcock films over the next two weeks rather than starting there), and instead go to the movies of a different icon, John Ford.  We'll talk about Carroll's career at this point in a second, but Ford was not yet "John Ford, Screen Icon" but was getting close to it.  Earlier in 1934, he had made The Lost Patrol, which would be a big hit (and critically-acclaimed), and the following year he'd make one of his important movies, The Informer, which would win him his first Oscar for Best Director.

(Spoilers Ahead) The World Moves On is an oddly-plotted movie, but I'll give it a shot here.  Essentially it takes place almost 200 years apart, with the opening scenes being a will reading of a man who gives his empire to his sons, and ensure that each will represent a different country as part of the business.  This works, but 185 years afterward, they run into a situation with World War I, where these men's businesses are at odds with each other.  Two of the family members, Richard from America (Tone) and Mary Warburton (Carroll) play lovers both 185 years later, and as distant cousins, in the 20th Century.  They end up together, but they have to do so through decades of strife, and largely losing the business as the war progresses.

The movie is deeply anti-war from my perspective, and that's its most notable trait other than the meandering (and frequently perplexing) plot.  I was shocked even in 1934 to see a post-Code Hollywood so fervently against World War I in the actions of the family, seeing our main characters like Richard & Mary suffer so much at the hands of a war that few can explain the cause of (this isn't incorrect, it's just surprising coming from John Ford & the studio system).  The movie is also heinously racist, having Stepin Fetchit (then the most famous black man in the movies), playing a bumbling, foolish African-American servant who is constantly procreating.  Fetchit's Dixie is not a large character, but it borders into the obscene how he's treated onscreen, and I would be remiss if I didn't point it out.

As for our star, she's gorgeous, but kind of bland.  Franchot Tone is kind of the textbook definition of "gorgeous but bland" during this era, and he & Carroll make an attractive couple, but they don't bring any fire to these creations.  This did, however, cement her stardom at the time, as this was her first major American film & within two years she'd be the first British leading lady to have a major star contract in Hollywood, and likely draw the attention of a specific director.  After all, her Mary is a tortured woman, icy & beautiful & very, very blonde, something a certain director would make a trademark in his career...

OVP: The Long Voyage Home (1940)

Film: The Long Voyage Home (1940)
Stars: John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Ian Hunter, Barry Fitzgerald, Wilfrid Lawson, Mildred Natwick, Ward Bond
Director: John Ford
Oscar History: 6 nominations (Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Special Effects, Film Editing, Score, Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Sometimes when we're doing these theme week write-ups we're getting arguably the most important nomination for a film (particularly when it's an acting week), or in many cases it's perhaps the only nomination.  That's not the case today.  While The Long Voyage Home was definitely cited for Best Editing, and therefore is a legitimate inclusion in this week's theme, you'll notice nominations for Best Picture & Adapted Screenplay that seem a bit more "headline-y" in terms of this movie.  The film, one of the lesser-known Best Picture nominees from perennial Oscar contender John Ford, the film was a bit of a departure for the director.  After all, it wasn't made at Fox (it was for United Artists), and was a downer compared to some of the major hits he'd had in the previous two years like Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and The Grapes of Wrath, arguably his finest movie to that point.  The Long Voyage Home did not equal these film's successes at the box office (it didn't turn a profit), but Ford would be back pretty quickly with the massive success of How Green Was My Valley to prove his value to Hollywood.  However, financial success isn't always indicative of a film's quality, and Ford never made an uninteresting picture, so I was excited to embark on this viewing.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is based on a series of plays by Eugene O'Neill, and tells the tale of a motley crew of men who are on a British Tramp Steamer, headed from the Caribbean to England during the very early stages of World War II.  The men aboard all have different dreams for themselves, from get-rich-quick-schemes to sex with the women they meet in ports to the most wholesome of the bunch, Ole Olsen (Wayne), who simply wants to go home to his Swedish mother.  The men, though, don't have an easy lot-in-life, or an easy voyage, as they are traveling with dynamite, which could explode in the rough seas, and along the way they will have to travel through English waters that are under attack.  As the film goes, we learn more about the men, and they learn about each other, particularly what they're capable of as one of them dies during a storm (Bond), and another (Hunter) is accused (unjustly) of being a German spy, when in reality his secret alcoholism has caused him so much shame he's been driven to this dangerous life even with a wife begging him to come home (he, of course, dies, as these are based on O'Neill plays).  In the end, happiness is only there for Ole, sent home but in the process dooming the fate of another sailor, and the rest of the men reluctantly return to sea, knowing they do not have the luxury of an escape from its grasp.

It's easy to see why The Long Voyage Home was not a hit in its day despite the presence of both Ford & Wayne.  The film is dark-even Ole, the sweet, lovable man who has women flocking to have sex with him, at one point is drugged in hopes of kidnapping him onto a boat crew before he's rescued, and the movie isn't shy about telling us the tales of these men & their horrors at sea.  The sequence where Thomas Mitchell's Drisk reads Hunter's Smitty's letters, assuming they contain evidence of Smitty being a spy but in reality its from a wife begging her husband to forgive himself & come home to her (and the subsequent moment where Smitty of course dies before he can absolve himself to her), will make you cry, and this is a movie that doesn't indulge sentiment.  The story's a bit broad, the first twenty minutes drag a bit, and Wayne's Swedish accent is, to put it charitably, ill-advised.  But this is pretty much the definition of a hidden gem, the sort of movie that you start watching at midnight & can't put down.

The film received six Academy Awards, and I honestly wouldn't begrudge any of them, even if they're earned to varying degrees.  The Special Effects are cool, though not particularly groundbreaking (the big scenes that got this nomination are the gigantic, swirling storm that kills Ward Bond's character, and the later attacks on the ship that kill Hunter's), and the Score is sturdy but unmemorable.  The screenplay is an achievement, though-even with the sloppy first twenty minutes, it melds together four different O'Neill plays (no easy feat), and the editing helps with that, making the chapters seamless while still connected.  Editing is the "invisible art," which isn't the case here (we know when one script ends & begins more because of tell-tale cuts), but the movie isn't shy about bringing out sequences showing the physicality of this life rather than just dialogue shots, and that wasn't the case even in all of Ford's work, much less most work of the era.

The best nomination was the Cinematography.  I didn't know that this was lensed by Gregg Toland, who was the most important cinematographer of the 1940's, and it was done the year before Toland's masterwork Citizen Kane.  If you've seen Citizen Kane as much as I have, you'll notice similarities in the way that Toland uses deep focus techniques, and really plays with light & size on the screen in a way that we normally attribute to Citizen Kane as being the pioneer of, but it's proved here that Toland was already starting to perfect these techniques in previous movies.  The effect is marvelous-The Long Voyage Home is breathtaking, particularly the way that it uses bright & shadow, where even a man running in the dark can be just staggering (I picked the top photo as an example to exhibit, this, rather than where we'd customarily go with a glossy shot of Wayne in the movie).  If you see this, and you should, notice how glorious the camerawork is here, and pity me for having to pick between this, Waterloo Bridge, and Rebecca when we get to this OVP writeup.

OVP: Cheyenne Autumn (1964)

Film: Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
Stars: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Sal Mineo, Dolores Del Rio, Ricardo Montalban, Gilbert Roland, Arthur Kennedy, Patrick Wayne, Elizabeth Allen, John Carradine, James Stewart, Edward G. Robinson
Director: John Ford
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We conclude a week's worth of all-star films from all walks (horror, musicals) with a western, one that expanded 155 minutes and managed to have time for a plethora of stars crawling out of the woodwork (it also, weirdly, has a connection to The Swarm in that both films feature Oscar-winner Ben Johnson, albeit here he is in an uncredited cameo).  Cheyenne Autumn is a bit of a bittersweet picture not just because it's very somber (plot coming in a second), but also because it's the end of the line for a director we have discussed on this blog a lot through the years-John Ford.  While Ford would make one more feature film (1966's 7 Women with Anne Bancroft & Sue Lyon), this was the final western that the director would make, and as a result is something of a sendoff of Ford's own career.  I love John Ford's westerns as a rule (alongside film noir, the western is my favorite Hollywood genre), so this is definitely right up my alley.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is long, and has a lot of plot, including a completely ancillary to the story middle section.  The main story is about a Cheyenne tribe of 300 moving from Oklahoma territory to Wyoming, led by two chiefs (played by Roland & Montalban in the film).  They are being watched & pursued by Captain Thomas Archer (Widmark), who is sympathetic to their plight, and are joined in their journey by a Quaker woman named Deborah (Baker) who is teaching the tribe's children to speak and read English.  Along the way they get into a battle at Fort Robinson, led by the drunk Captain Wessels (Malden, and in a strange twist for a western, alcoholism isn't meant as a sign of endearment here), and attract the attention of Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz (Robinson), who comes and states that the tribe can return to their home, and he'll work with Washington to ensure that promise can be kept (though he pointedly calls it a "gamble" since he knows "promise" is a broken word to the Cheyenne).  The film ends with the Cheyenne tribe returning home...and with Sal Mineo's Red Shirt being killed for sleeping with another man's wife.

If that last sentence seems out-of-place, well, it does a little bit in the movie too.  The film is gorgeous (cinematography was a well-earned nomination, with William Clothier painting Monument Valley in a wash of sandy color, and really these stand up with films like The Quiet Man and The Searchers in terms of beauty from Ford's filmography), but it's incredibly disjointed.  Mineo's character never actually speaks in English (supposedly this is because Ford was worried that Mineo's thick Brooklyn accent would be impossible to overcome), but as a result you see a very famous actor in a dismissible part, and you put the crux of the film on us connecting to a somber final battle between Mineo & Montalban's Little Wolf.  It doesn't work.

That said, a lot of the film doesn't work that well even if it's all pretty.  Widmark is stoic, Baker angelic, and Robinson wry, but they don't add anything of value to the film-it just sort of meanders.  It isn't often I wish a film starred John Wayne, but one wonders if the natural gravitas Ford could pull out of Wayne would have been a better fit for the lead than Widmark.  As it is, there's nothing truly great going on through two-thirds of the film, and you'd be forgiven for skipping this if you're just skimming through Ford's filmography...

...except the sequence with Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt Earp totally makes up for it.  There's no real point to this long sequence-it's not important to the plot at all, and feels more like a short film buried in the picture than anything else, but it's hilarious & completely awesome.  Stewart is at his fumbling best here, playing the sharpshooting Wyatt Earp so well you kind of wonder why this isn't crowed about more by his fans.  There's a scene where he, John Carradine's Jeff Blair, and Arthur Kennedy's Doc Holliday are playing poker while all hell is breaking loose (and Elizabeth Allen's Miss Plantagenet, a lady of the evening, is trying to convince Wyatt Earp they've met before) and you'll cackle.  The whole chase sequence is great, the ending obvious but still terrific delivery.  I haven't seen enough of 1964's Best Supporting Actor contenders to say this with certainty, but I totally would have considered Stewart for an Oscar nomination here, as this is a triumphant extended cameo.

My Darling Clementine (1946)

Film: My Darling Clementine (1946)
Stars: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Cathy Downs, Walter Brennan
Director: John Ford
Oscar History: Despite the iconic nature of this film and Ford's clear fanbase at the Academy, this wasn't nominated a single Oscar.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Linda Darnell-click here to learn more about Ms. Darnell (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I had hoped to have our Linda Darnell picture this week be Forever Amber, the ill-fated 1947 movie that featured Darnell in full Scarlett O'Hara-mode.  The movie could have been a breaking point in Darnell's career, but it wasn't and she followed up with some of her best-regarded work (plus, that movie is so infamous that it's one I'm going to have to see eventually, if only for the OVP).  Unfortunately, my DVR filmed that in the middle of a blizzard, and as a result I only got 28 minutes of the movie, and because we live in a world where "streaming is replacing everything, but somehow the movies you want are never on streaming" I didn't have another way to catch it.  So we're going to go to a considerably better-regarded Darnell picture, possibly the most well-known and well-loved movie in her filmography, though one I was skipping because I suspected, like most John Ford westerns, that the men would get the heavy lifting in terms of performances, and I was right.  Still, even if this feels a bit unfair to put in a month celebrating Linda Darnell, it's a damn good picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on Wyatt Earp (Fonda), a legendary lawman from Dodge City who comes to Tombstone, Arizona, and is made the marshall after throwing out a drunk man who is trying to shoot the town up.  He takes this job because his sensitive brother was just murdered, the necklace he bought for his sweetheart stolen in the process.  He soon meets Doc Holliday (Mature), an outlaw who is haunted by personal demons (he's clearly ill) and used to be a surgeon.  Two women surround Doc's life, his hot-tempered singing lover Chihuahua (Darnell) and the recently-arrived Clementine (Downs), who used to be his love but is now being pursued by Wyatt Earp.  The film follows their burgeoning friendship until one of Earp's other brothers is killed by Old Man Clanton (Brennan), who also killed Earp's first dead brother.  This results in the legendary "Shootout at the OK Corral," where all of the Clanton's die, as well as Doc Holliday (Chihuahua has already died from a stray bullet from the Clantons, in a movie with a high body count).  The movie ends not with a pursued relationship between Clementine & Earp, but with him riding into the sunset while she stays behind to run a school, letting him pass into legend.

The movie is really good.  It doesn't resemble history even a little bit (Earp wasn't actually the central figure in the shootout despite popular culture making him the star-his brother Virgil was the most important figure in the shootout).  This wouldn't even be worth mentioning in a movie of this era (factual accuracy wouldn't be en vogue for a few more decades), but for the random trivia that John Ford once met the real-life Wyatt Earp, and actually discussed the shootout with him years before this film was made, and used some of the facts of the shootout in the picture.  It's a thrilling scene regardless of its relation to the truth, as Ford does some really marvelous long shots where other directors would have done closeups, and considering how central closeups were to the rest of the movie, I was stunned that this wasn't the case.  The movie is a fun western from start-to-finish; it's not treading new territory, or finding some of the darkness that Ford's westerns like The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance would eventually contain, but Fonda & Mature are both great in the lead roles, and the movie comes along briskly (just under 100 minutes).

As for our star of the month, sadly, she's relegated to basically a supporting part despite her leading lady billing.  The film's stereotypes about Latina women are pretty egregious (she's referred to as a "wildcat" multiple times), and there's nothing here for her to do but be jealous of Clementine, lust after Mature, and then die beautifully, her entire life made more worthy by looking gorgeous while she's on the operating table.  She's so ancillary to the plot that she doesn't even get a proper death scene, and one could argue that Downs gets the bigger role.  At the time, Darnell was a major star in the middle of a comeback while Downs was a nobody who was about to enjoy a very brief period as a leading woman (that ended when, according to Hollywood gossip, she wouldn't sleep with Darryl Zanuck); she'd eventually get rediscovered by film audiences decades later when the Poverty Row films she made in the 1950's (schlocky Sci Fi pictures), were discovered by camp film fans.  So much of Darnell's film career was spent with her playing the beautiful love interest, which is why I was bummed we couldn't put her center stage with Forever Amber this week.  Thankfully, next week (our final film with Darnell), we'll get a treat as she'll be giving her best performance by far we've profiled, and it will be the gentlemen taking the backseat.

The Searchers (1956)

Film: The Searchers (1956)
Stars: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood
Director: John Ford
Oscar History: I don't know how, but somehow in the year Around the World in 80 Days was deemed the best movie of the year, The Searchers wasn't good enough to be nominated in one single category (though weirdly Patrick Wayne's pipsqueak of a cavalryman managed to win the Best Newcomer Golden Globe)
(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

As some of you who follow this blog are aware, 2018 was the year I got into "retro screenings" of classic films, pictures that play as retrospectives at actual movie theaters.  In 2018, I caught On the Waterfront, one of my all-time favorite movies, at a "secret movie night" (where you don't know what movie you're buying the ticket for until it starts), and I didn't think I'd luck out by having a movie I somehow loved even more come up in 2019, but first screening out the gate, I saw the title cards to The Searchers scroll across the screen and I think I might have squealed to my friend sitting next to me "this is one of my favorite movies!"  The Searchers, the finest hour of both John Ford and his longtime muse John Wayne, is a spellbinding western, frequently playing with the cinematic trope that these two men invented, inserting realism and pessimism into the western story, making way for a new series of films in the genre (it's impossible to imagine movies like Once Upon a Time in the West or Unforgiven existing were it not for The Searchers).

(Spoilers Ahead...but, come on, you've never seen The Searchers?!?  Get on it!) The movie takes place in Texas (but is clearly filmed in Arizona & Utah), starting in 1868, and follows Ethan Edwards (Wayne), a confederate soldier who is returning home from the war to his brother and sister-in-law's house.  It's obvious he has at least some criminal background, and from the opening scenes is hostile to the adopted son of the couple, Martin Pawley (Hunter), who is part Cherokee Indian.  Chasing after Native Americans who have taken some of the cattle from a neighboring farm, Ethan & Martin trek off after the cows, not realizing that this is a trap, and soon we learn that the Native Americans have killed Ethan's brother and sister-in-law, and kidnapped their two daughters.

The film follows Ethan and Martin as they track these girls seemingly for years, first one of them dying (and the film, as heavily as can be indicated in 1956, saying she was raped by her captors) but the other, younger daughter Debbie (played as a teenager by Wood), still being in the Native American camp.  As the years go by, we come to realize that Ethan has less interest in saving Debbie and is more intent on killing her as retribution for the Native Americans kidnapping her, his blind racism no longer seeing his niece but instead just another Indian woman.

It's this observation that gives The Searchers almost all of its power, even when it strays into more traditional western territory for the 1950's.  The film is littered with the occasional comic set pieces that so frequently adorned Wayne's movies.  We see Hunter having a comedic fistfight with someone who is pursuing his on-again-off-again girlfriend Laurie (Miles), as well as a recurring gag about how Martin accidentally marries an Indian woman who follows he and Wayne around for a while, but Ford has something to say here that would be absent from a lot of his pictures with the Duke, and somehow picks one of the most by-the-book stars in film history to do so.

Wayne has never been better (and Hunter more beautiful) than in The Searchers.  Passionately lit by Winton C. Hoch (who would win Oscars for the Wayne pictures She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and The Quiet Man), Ethan Edwards is the best thing that Wayne ever did, bringing a humanity to a largely inhuman person.  His Ethan is a cruel, racist, but all-too-real man whose bigotry overshadows any humanity that might lie underneath, a fact we see as he abandons his quest for rescue for one of revenge.  Westerns at their very best show men who are so towering, but incomplete that they can rough it through even the harshest of existences, detached from life due to the impossible hardness that life in a perilous country requires; they are not heroes, but simply people put in impossible times.  Ethan Edwards is arguably the quintessential example of a fearless man who was needed to venture into the west, but then must disappear in order for civilization to have a chance.  The final scenes of the picture encapsulate this ethos, with Laurie, Martin, and Debbie all going back into the house, but in a scene shot through a doorway, we see John Wayne saunter back into the wild, likely never to be seen by any of these people again.  It's a bittersweet ending that would be echoed six years later in Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance-the hero who must live on past his purpose, forever a ghost of what he used to be.

Ride away, ride away...

The Living Stars of the Great Directors

Barbara Harris with Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Family Plot

In a month with a lot of obituaries on this blog (here and here), it's worth noting an actor I didn't have time to acknowledge yet, Ms. Barbara Harris.  Harris, a longtime fixture of the New York theater scene, had a brief but glorious tenure as a film star in the 1970's, starring in the original Freaky Friday, getting an Oscar nomination for Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Such Terrible Things About Me?, and earning an Oscar nomination even if she didn't receive one for her performance as Albuquerque in Nashville.  Her passing also means that we have one less actor who has been the lead in an Alfred Hitchcock picture still alive.  Harris starred in the Master of Suspense's final film, Family Plot, and was one of ten living figures who have headlined a Hitchcock film; we profiled all 10 of these people in one of my favorite articles of last year.

This got me to thinking, however, how many actors of other Golden Age directors were still with us, and so I set out to challenge myself to look through some of the bigger Hollywood directors of the 1950's and 60's (many of whom would have been considered Hitchcock's peers) to see how many of them still have leading actors and actresses, and found that Hitch, all-things-considered, is doing rather well in terms of longevity even with just nine.  Perhaps because he had a famous penchant for hiring young women early in their careers (Shirley MacLaine and Tippi Hedren getting their first leading roles from the director), Hitch actually has more living leading players than any of the five directors I'm going to take a look at today.  For this article, I'm profiling the leading players of five noted Oscar-winning directors: John Ford, David Lean, Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, and William Wyler.

(A Quick Note: I will state that when doing these write-ups, "leading" players was a loose term in some cases.  I tried to stick to strictly above-the-line players, but I'll accept quibbles in the comments if there are some actors who might have been the "leads" but weren't famous enough to get top billing at the time).

John Ford with Carroll Baker on the set of
How the West Was Won

John Ford (1894-1973)

Oscar History: Ford would become the most-honored director in the history of the Oscars, winning four Academy Awards for his work in The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Quiet Man.  In fact, the only time he lost the category was for 1939's Stagecoach (no one was getting bested by Gone with the Wind that year).

Final Film: In addition to making narrative pictures, Ford frequently worked on documentaries, so technically his final movie as a director was Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend (about Marine Corps General Chesty Puller), but his final narrative feature was 7 Women in 1966.

Survivors of His Pictures: Ford frequently worked with the same actors in his pictures, and many of them were from his heyday of the 1940's and 50's (look at how long he worked with the likes of Maureen O'Hara or John Wayne).  As a result, he's tied for the least represented director on this list, but he still has four figures that are still with us.  Among them are Sue Lyon (aged 72, from Ford's 7 Women), Carroll Baker (87, from both Cheyenne Autumn and How the West Was Won), Shirley Jones (84, Two Rode Together) and Dianne Foster (89, Gideon's Day).  These four actresses were relatively well-known in their days, but aside from Jones (who gained most of her modern fame from her work in musicals such as Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The Music Man, as well as her tenure on The Partridge Family, though she was also an Oscar-winner for Elmer Gantry), none of them are what you'd consider household names today; Jones is also the only one of the four that is still acting.  However, I think that TCM or AMPAS or AFI should get these four women on a stage to discuss Ford for posterity before it's too late for us to ask questions about working with such a major director (not to be morbid, but I think this should be true for all of these groups, in my opinion).

Julie Christie with David Lean

David Lean (1908-1991)

Oscar History: David Lean won two Academy Awards in his long career, both for Best Director (The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia).  He was also cited for Best Director for Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Summertime, Doctor Zhivago, and A Passage to India, losing in all of those contests, and was nominated for writing and editing at points in his career as well.

Final Film: Lean went out with a bang for his final film (the only director on this list to do so), picking 1984's critically-acclaimed A Passage to India as his swan song, coming back after a fourteen-year hiatus following the critically-panned Ryan's Daughter.

Survivors of His Pictures: Like Ford, David Lean worked frequently with the same players in his pictures (actors such as Alec Guinness and Ann Todd were in multiple Lean pictures), so there aren't as many figures to choose from when highlighting the living leads of Lean's filmography.  That being said, there are once again four figures still alive from Lean's pictures: from A Passage to India both Judy Davis (aged 63) and James Fox (79), Ryan's Daughter's Sarah Miles (76), and Doctor Zhivago's Julie Christie (78).  Sarah Miles is the only one of these figures that is officially retired, though Julie Christie is always threatening to do so.  Judy Davis is surely the most active of the bunch, however, having recently been nominated for an Emmy for her work as Hedda Hopper on Feud.

Billy Wilder with Kim Novak on Kiss Me, Stupid

Billy Wilder (1906-2002)

Oscar History: Billy Wilder's career with Oscar was far more celebrated as a writer than as a director.  While he won for helming a picture twice (The Lost Weekend and The Apartment), he was often-cited for writing, getting trophies for both of those two films as well as Sunset Boulevard.  All told he was nominated 21 times for the Oscars, including eight citations for directing (in addition to his two wins, he was also picked for Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Sabrina, Witness for the Prosecution, and Some Like It Hot).

Final Film: Wilder's final picture was 1981's Buddy Buddy, starring his longtime friends and co-collaborators Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, a film that was reviled by critics (Roger Ebert, in particular, found it an abomination).  Wilder notably disliked the picture, and despite living another two decades, never sat in the director's chair again.

Survivors of His Pictures: Despite working with similar collaborators in the vein of Lean and Ford, Wilder has a bit more luck when it comes to his leading actors, with six of them still with us today.  They include Fedora's Marthe Keller (aged 73), Avanti's Juliet Mills (76), Kiss Me, Stupid's Kim Novak (85), One Two Three's Pamela Tiffin (75), Ace in the Hole's Kirk Douglas (101), and 84-year-old Shirley MacLaine, who starred in Wilder's The Apartment and Irma la Douce, winning Oscar nominations for both of them.  Novak and Tiffin have been retired for a while, and while Kirk Douglas frequently makes appearances still, he hasn't acted professionally in ten years, so really it is Keller, Mills, and MacLaine who you can still see working from Wilder's era.

Elia Kazan with Kirk Douglas 

Elia Kazan (1909-2003)

Oscar History: Kazan won two Best Director trophies (for Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront), while losing three of them (A Streetcar Named Desire, East of Eden, and America, America).  Kazan was also cited for producing and writing in his career, and won a controversial Honorary Oscar in 1998.

Final Film: Like Wilder, Kazan retired from making films decades before his death after a major flop.  Despite having major stars at the time, The Last Tycoon was a critical and (in particular) financial flop that caused Kazan not to make another picture for the final 27 years of his life.

Survivors of His Pictures: Here we have a more robust list of actors that almost approaches the list of survivors of Hitch's films at this point.  Among the final living stars of Kazan's films are Man on a Tightrope's Terry Moore (aged 89), On the Waterfront's Eva Marie Saint (94), Baby Doll's Carroll Baker (87), Splendor in the Grass's Warren Beatty (81), America, America's Stathis Giallelis (77), The Arrangement's Kirk Douglas (101) and Faye Dunaway (77), and The Last Tycoon's Robert de Niro (75).  It's worth noting that Baker and Saint both got Oscar nominations for their work with Kazan (Saint won the trophy), and that most of these people are still working (save Douglas and Baker).  De Niro presented Kazan with his Honorary Oscar in 1998, while Beatty was among the actors who stood and applauded (other actors such as Nick Nolte, Ed Harris, and Amy Madigan famously refused to stand or clap due to Kazan's involvement as a friendly witness during HUAC).

(From Left) Audrey Hepburn, William Wyler, and Shirley MacLaine
on the set of The Children's Hour

William Wyler (1902-1981)

Oscar History: Few directors come close to William Wyler's tenure with the Academy, as he is the only person in history to direct three Best Picture winners: Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Ben-Hur.  In addition to these wins he'd gain another nine nominations for Best Director for a total of twelve (still a record): Dodsworth, Wuthering Heights, The Letter, The Little Foxes, The Heiress, Detective Story, Roman Holiday, Friendly Persuasion, and The Collector, as well as three citations for producing.  He'd take the Thalberg in 1965.

Final Film: I had always thought his final film was Funny Girl, but in the course of researching this article realized it was The Liberation of LB Jones, a drama from 1970 with an all-star cast.  Has anyone seen this-is it any good, cause I might check it out?

Survivors of His Pictures: Wyler, like Kazan, has eight living stars from his films, with two coming from his final picture: Lola Falana (aged 75) and Anthony Zerbe (82).  The other six are Funny Girl's Barbra Streisand (76), The Collector's Terence Stamp (80) & Samantha Eggar (79), The Children's Hour's Shirley MacLaine (at age 84, she's the only living person to have worked with William Wyler, Alfred Hitchcock, AND Billy Wilder), Detective Story's Kirk Douglas (101, as a result the only living person to work with Wyler, Kazan, and Wilder)) and The Heiress's Olivia de Havilland (102).  Wyler, famously an actor's director who was very good at getting Oscar nominations for his performers, directed both Streisand and de Havilland to trophies among these nominees, and Eggar was nominated for her work.  Streisand, Stamp, MacLaine, and Zerbe are all still working of this bunch (the rest have retired, and in Falana's case, has had an extremely interesting series of career turns since her work with Wyler).

There you have it-five famous directors and the actors who still remain from their work.  In the comments, let me know if there are other directors you'd like me to feature in a sequel to this column.

My Dozen Favorite Directors

Eons ago, I started two-thirds of a project about my dozen personal favorite actors and actresses.  I had intended at the time to do my dozen favorite directors, but life got in the way, as did my ability to rank directors.  The reality is that movie stars, and actors, quite frequently you see the best and leave the rest behind, but with directors it's different.  After all, with fine "auteur"-style directors, you get some of their most interesting pictures on the lists of films that aren't as prevalent.  Additionally, I find that comparing director to director in terms of overall careers is extremely challenging.  Do I pick a director like Federico Fellini with a distinctive style, or do I go with someone consistent with less of a visible imprint like William Wyler?  Elia Kazan made two of my all-time favorite movies, but the rest of his filmography I'm just ambivalent toward.  John Huston is one of the most consistent major directors of his era, but I never really loved one of his pictures even if I admire all of them.

So this is even more subjective to my whims today than the other two lists were, and on another day Fellini, Wyler, Kazan, Huston, along with Kurosawa, Cameron, Truffaut, Reed, Preminger, Frankenheimer, Miyazaki, Lee (Spike or Ang), Bertolucci, Polanski, Almodovar, Coppola (Francis or Sofia), Campion, Lumet, Haneke, Capra, Stevens, or Woody Allen may well have made the list (in fact, listed all together I feel like a crazy person discarding them all, particularly in Woody's case as he was 13th).  But anyway, here are my dozen favorites, in alphabetical order, as of this exact moment in time..  Fight away in the comments.

Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

Oscar History: 9 nominations/0 wins (Bergman received three citations as a director (the rest as a writer), and won the Thalberg, but somehow never won a competitive Oscar.
First Impressions: I will always remember the first time I saw an Ingmar Bergman movie.  I was 20, and out with a guy named Eric whom I had a crush on (he was a senior, I was a sophomore-it was very chic), and he wanted to go out for ice cream and an old movie house which was playing Wild Strawberries.  I spent the entire night wondering if it was a date (I kind of suspect in hindsight that it was, in which case it was my first with a guy), but was mesmerized by both what was happening off-screen as well as on, as I'd never seen a movie quite like this.
Why the Love: I'm not ranking these directors, but if I'm being honest-Bergman's my favorite, with potentially Kubrick sneaking around the corner.  His movies are wonderfully-specific poems, beautiful odes to cinema and the human experience, in particular our complicated relationship with death as a human species.  Gorgeously shot and felt, I treasure every new Bergman experience I encounter, as it's like experiencing the ocean for the first time.
My Favorite Film: I think I'd have to go with The Seventh Seal.  I genuinely love every Bergman movie I've seen so far, so going with the cliche may seem a bit of a cop-out, but it's so raw and fascinating-the visuals, particularly the knight playing chess with death-it's haunting and still effortlessly fresh.
Missing Piece: There's a few (Bergman made a lot of pictures), though perhaps most egregious is Persona, which I hear is spectacular but somehow has never crossed my path.

Alfonso Cuaron (1961-Present)

Oscar History: 6 nods/2 wins (his two trophies were both for Gravity, for editing and directing, which is to date the only time he's been cited as a director)
First Impressions: This is actually pretty unusual, but the first time I saw one of Cuaron's films, I actually didn't care for it very much.  I was thrilled by the prospect of finally seeing Y Tu Mama Tambien, as it had been celebrated by a film critic I enjoy, and it looked "naughty" and at that point in my life I hadn't really experienced a lot of saucy pictures.  But I wasn't blown away by it, even if I feel like I should revisit as I wonder if I'd like it better on revisit.  It was, indeed, "naughty" (that penultimate scene between Bernal and Luna being a sensational payoff to what the film was building toward), but I was meh until then.  Thankfully, I didn't give up on Cuaron at that point, though, as he eventually paid off in a major way.
Why the Love: Cuaron is a strange beast as he's one of the least prolific directors on this list, and as a result it feels weird to put him here when, say, Wyler or Allen have a much more quantitative filmography (unless you die tragically young, this isn't the case with actors, which is perhaps why it's easier to compare them side-by-side as they work so consistently).  Still, Cuaron can find so much magic in how a film is built (it helps that he's an editor), and the end product is so rich and rewarding, it's impossible not to list him as one of my favorites, even if I desperately wish he'd work more.
My Favorite Film: This is easy-Children of Men is a triumph, one of the finest films ever made, and a wonderful essay on the greatest headlines of the human experience: birth, life, love, and death.  That it wasn't heralded as the monument that it was is still baffling to me in an otherwise lackluster cinematic year.
Missing Piece: A Little Princess, which I can't actually remember if I saw (or if I saw the PBS miniseries, which part of me believes is accurate).  Either way, this is the only major Cuaron film I've never caught.

John Ford (1894-1973)

Oscar History: 6 nods/4 wins (Ford picked up a quartet of Best Director trophies for The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Quiet Man)
First Impressions: Ford has made so many movies I honestly have no idea which one I saw first.  I'm going to guess it was The Grapes of Wrath, a picture I've seen several times and which never loses its potency.  I distinctly remember being in awe of the way that Henry Fonda was filmed (so beautiful in the moonlight), and that marvelous set of final monologues from Fonda (who deserved the Oscar-let's be real here) and Jane Darwell at the end of the picture.  It isn't my type of film, exactly, but every time I see it I'm reminded that genre is only a framing device, and good movies can be made in any such circumstance.
Why the Love: When Ingmar Bergman AND Orson Welles are calling you the greatest director of all-time, you're doing something right.  Ford's films, easily dismissable as westerns or as hokum, have a lot more going on below the surface than meets the eye.  Whether it's the technical virtuosity of The Quiet Man or the lonely indictment on wealth in The Informer or the nasty pessimism of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Ford's take on the movies are passionate to his vision, artistic, and eminently watchable.  No director before or since has put so much richness and thought into an almost completely commercial set of movies.
My Favorite Film: Oh, The Searchers, surely.  While Ford has made many superb pictures, this stands apart as the greatest.  John Wayne has never been better, and Ford frames this tale of hatred, bigotry, and revenge in such a way that you feel Ethan Edwards for weeks afterwards, realizing truths that both actor and director packed into the film.  That neither was even nominated for an Oscar for such a film is insanity.
Missing Piece: I mean, I've actually seen pretty much every major picture in Ford's career, but he made so many movies there's obviously a number of missing pieces.  Perhaps The Long Voyage Home, the rare Ford Best Picture nominee that I've never caught.

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)

Oscar History: 5 nominations/0 wins (though he won the Thalberg, Hitch never actually got a competitive trophy despite five nominations for Best Director)
First Impressions: I'm sure my first impression of Hitchcock was Psycho, initially seeing the famous shower scene repeatedly in clip shows, and then actually catching the movie, and realizing A) that shower scene is ridiculously effective in the movie, and B) it's got a lot of other nearly as perfect scenes.
Why the Love: It's impossible to like the cinema and not like Hitchcock, in my opinion.  The way he moves the camera, the way he indulges the senses (the chills, the women, the music-it's all sensationalistic in the best way).  When he's at his best you forget you're watching a movie and just sort of are transported into what is happening onscreen.  Few directors consistently made such superb pictures and adapted to the times so well as Hitch did-his films of the 1954-1963 era are arguably the most popular, but he made interesting work his entire career.
My Favorite Film: I'd have to say Vertigo, which feels like a cliche (because everyone says Vertigo in a way of avoiding the cliche of everyone saying Psycho), but it's incredible.  Stewart has never been better, truly, and the movie's descent of one man is spellbinding.
Missing Piece: My brother has assured me on multiple occasions that I'm a fool for not having seen Strangers on a Train yet, and I know it's coming up on my Netflix queue so perhaps quite soon I'll correct this?

Richard Linklater (1960-Present)

Oscar History: 5 nominations/0 wins (Linklater has yet to take a trophy, and actually has only one Best Director nomination, for Boyhood)
First Impressions: I didn't grow up quoting Dazed and Confused, and quite frankly my impression of Richard Linklater was hardly impressive until I actually caught one of his movies, Before Sunrise, and was in awe of how masterfully it was filmed and how beautiful the picture before me was.
Why the Love: Linklater's an odd director to adore, and the newest addition to this list in terms of my viewing him, but I always seem to find something new to admire about his work, and how naturalistic the writing is.  Though he lacks the stylistic visual cues that made Bergman famous, the way he focuses the camera on a group of actors and waits until something magical happens is remarkable.  I am still getting to know his filmography, but have genuinely loved every single picture of his that I've seen.
My Favorite Film: Before Sunset will probably remain here forever, though I mean it when I said I loved every single picture so far (including the wildly underrated Everybody Wants Some!!!).  But Before Sunset is that rare romantic drama film with a ticking clock where you can't tell if the chief protagonists will realize that they're soulmates in time.  It spoke to me in a big way when I first saw it, and I'm just in awe even still.
Missing Piece: I still haven't actually watched Dazed and Confused, which feels bizarre as it's such a big reason why people recognize his pictures.  It's on the Netflix list, however, so someday it'll happen.

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)

Oscar History: 13 nominations/1 win (two shocking things here: one, I never knew that Kubrick won an Oscar for Visual Effects, assuming that he was Oscar-less, but instead that was just for Best Director where he went 0/4, and secondly-the 2001 VFX Oscar wasn't shared with Douglas Trumbull-how'd that happen?)
First Impressions: I was debating quite loudly with myself, and then realized that it was The Shining (if not, I'd have to share a very odd experience about being in the closet and watching Eyes Wide Shut with a very straight man in tenth grade).  I remember being scared and fascinated, and particularly wondering what the hell "here's Johnny" was from (Carson was before my time).
Why the Love: Kubrick films are at once decidedly and completely Kubrick films, and then somehow very different stylistically.  It's hard to imagine that the guy who made Dr. Strangelove also made 2001 and Barry Lyndon and A Clockwork Orange.  His movies are always thought-provoking and interesting-it's impossible not to have a visceral reaction to his pictures, and for me, that usually was a positive thing as his reputation grows personally with me over time (case in point-I hated 2001 the first time I saw it...and now it's on my 100 Favorite Movies list).
My Favorite Film: 2001 may someday get there, but right now it's still A Clockwork Orange, a difficult sit but a shockingly effective, violent picture that feels so bundled with raw energy I spent the entire first time through it sitting on the literal edge of my seat.
Missing Piece: Weirdly I've never seen Full Metal Jacket.  I say weirdly because my first college roommate actually liked this movie, and it was perhaps the only one of his films that I legitimately wanted to see, and somehow I never did.

David Lean (1908-1991)

Oscar History: 11 nominations/2 wins (Lean weirdly enough won both of his trophies for directing, which hasn't been the case so far here for writer-directors, taking trophies for Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia)
First Impressions: Hmm, probably The Bridge on the River Kwai.  My grandfather after his stroke would watch this movie incessantly, so I got to see bits of it all the time.  I remember liking parts, but not really getting it properly until I was much older and could appreciate the "madness" angle of Alec Guiness' haunting work.
Why the Love: Lean's films are that rare combination of big, huge, gargantuan cinema combined with delicate treasures of performances.  It's hard to fathom, after all, the subtle shifts in Peter O'Toole's performance as he drifts into madness amidst the backdrop of the gargantuan Lawrence of Arabia or how beautiful Julie Chrisie's romance is amidst the ice castle wonder of Doctor Zhivago.  I frequently say my favorite films are well-done romantic epics.  When I say that, I'm thinking of Lean.
My Favorite Film: Part of me wants to say Brief Encounter, one of those underrated classics that just gets better with each passing year, but I spent a year of my life in college devoted to Lawrence of Arabia, and so I have to pick that, one of my all-time favorite pictures.
Missing Piece: Here's where we actually get pretty odd, as I've seen virtually everything David Lean has ever directed (even obscure titles like Hobson's Choice or This Happy Breed), so I'll go with In Which We Serve which I hear is wonderful but haven't caught yet.

Terrence Malick (1943-Present)

Oscar History: 3 nominations/0 wins (two nods for directing The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life)
First Impressions: I will never forget my first experience with a Terrence Malick movie.  It was The New World, and to be honest I'd never seen one of his films, or wasn't even familiar with them, and my parents wanted to go because it was about John Smith and Pocahontas, and that sounded fun.  About a third into the film, and we had seen this intense, lush green cinematography but nothing much more than that, my mom reached over and said, "I don't know what's going on," and I said "it's supposed to be artsy," to which she replied "okay" and went back to playing with her Indiglo watch for the remainder of the picture.  Suffice it to say, I haven't taken them to a Malick film since.
Why the Love: Because Malick tackles his films in a way no one else does.  I get sick of all films looking exactly the same or needing the same structure.  When he's at his best, Malick can create something haunting and riveting on the screen.  Yes, he can be indulgent (the sparseness of language in something like Knight of Cups occasionally borders on the frustrating), but when he's on there's literally no director I'd rather sit in a theater and let his movie wash over me in the same way.
My Favorite Film: His Tree of Life is one of my all-time favorite pictures, period, so most assuredly it would be that.  I never don't like a Malick film though, even when other people hate them.
Missing Piece: Somehow I've never caught Badlands through the years, which is so strange considering both my penchant for Malick and what a towering achievement this film is considered (one of those rare classics I've never caught).

Martin Scorsese (1942-Present)

Oscar History: 12 nominations/1 win (I remember standing and applauding when Marty finally took that Oscar for The Departed)
First Impressions: My first impression of Marty was probably GoodFellas.  As he didn't really make children's films prior to 2011 (Hugo being an obvious entry point for younger cinephiles now), it was an edited down version of the film, but I was enthralled initially, particularly by the famous walk through the club and how cute a young Ray Liotta was.
Why the Love: Scorsese's films are an ode to movie-making, and how much he loves to self-reflect and share his love of the cinema onscreen.  You see in his movies a deliberation, someone working through his world artistically and narratively, trying to make sense of his life and religion itself.  Scorsese is a deeply personal filmmakers, but makes universal pictures that anyone can relate toward-that's a pretty impressive achievement.  Plus, who doesn't like Marty?  He's one of my absolute favorite celebrities to hear interviewed.
My Favorite Film: The strange thing about Scorsese is that he's the only director on this list to not have a film on my 100 Favorite Movies list, so I actually had to think on this one.  I suspect it would be Taxi Driver, though.  The film has one of the best performances de Niro ever turned in, and it's shockingly vibrant forty years after it was made.
Missing Piece: This won't be a missing piece for long as literally the disc is on my counter right now, but Mean Streets has somehow eluded me all of these years.  Can't wait to catch what some consider to be his finest work (it might even be tonight).

Steven Spielberg (1946-Present)

Oscar History: 16 nominations/3 wins (two of those trophies for directing Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan...he also won the Thalberg quite early in his career)
First Impressions: Unlike most of these directors, Spielberg makes films that are appropriate for children (and he made them when I was, indeed, a kid).  That being said, I wonder if my first introduction to Spielberg might have been Hook, not one of his finer moments, even though I was enchanted at the time.  I tend to love the Neverland stories, though (PJ Hogan's Peter Pan being the best by a country mile), and particularly Spielberg's ability to world-build (which even in his least pictures, he can succeed in accomplishing).
Why the Love: To grow up when I did and to love cinema is to love Spielberg.  No, he's not always as artistic or challenging as some of the other men on this list, but he is surely the most cinematic, and when he's on is creating an adventure that transcends the movies.  Jaws, ET, Schindler, AI, Minority Report, Raiders of the Lost Ark-the man has more genuine classics than pretty much any other director.
My Favorite Film: While those are all classics, the one that makes me tremble with joy the most is still Jurassic Park.  It's not his most ambitious work (AI) or his tightest (Jaws) or his most moving (Schindler) or even the most inventive world-building (Minority Report), but it is the one where I genuinely have the most fun.  And sometimes the movies should be about the most fun (plus, let's be honest-it's peak popcorn fare).
Missing Piece: Like David Lean, I've seen pretty much everything (I've caught 77% of Spielberg's filmography, missing only 7 pictures).  Of the seven, I'd say that Amistad is the one that's the highest on my "to view"list.

Orson Welles (1915-1985)

Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Welles' only competitive win was for writing Citizen Kane, the film that won him his only directing nomination, though he did win an Honorary Oscar quite late in his career)
First Impressions: It's a weird film to see first of a director (usually there's a more juvenile entry point), but Citizen Kane has to have been my first Welles film, and the first one I think I even saw him act in (give or take an appearance with the Muppets).  I left doubly-impressed (the ending hadn't been ruined for me at that point), and clamoring for more.
Why the Love: It's worth noting that Welles appeared not only on this list, but my actors list as well, the only person to do so despite so many men who have tried their hand successfully at both.  Perhaps this is because Welles the director was so driven and matter-of-fact in the way that he brought his universe to life.  His films are rife with wonderful acting, dialogue, and terrific lighting-Welles never stopped being that young man who took on William Randolph Hearst, at least as a director, continually challenging himself while occasionally selling out his name as a performer.  As a result, we got some of the most original movies of the era from Hollywood's bad boy.
My Favorite Film: Again, cliches be damned-Citizen Kane is, truly, one of the best movies ever made and in an era of Trump, perhaps more appropriate than ever (oh how the mighty fall in trying to recapture something that will never be).  Still, Touch of Evil comes close behind, and is in its own way a masterwork.
Missing Piece: The Other Side of Wind?  Hee hee, but seriously, I'd probably say that if it counts...otherwise maybe Chimes at Midnight?

Billy Wilder (1906-2002)

Oscar History: 21 nominations/6 wins (Wilder pulled off two directing trophies for The Lost Weekend and The Apartment...like several of these men he'd also go on to win the Thalberg Award)
First Impressions: I'm not sure, once again, but my gut says it was The Lost Weekend, which I saw at a relatively young age, and quite frankly, wasn't impressed by it.  Considering the lavish praise for the film at the time (it's a Best Picture winner, after all), I will surely revisit at some point in the future but it's not what you'd consider "in my wheelhouse."
Why the Love: First off, who doesn't love at least one Billy Wilder movie?  I don't think you can call yourself a fan of the cinema and not profess to being head-over-heels for one of his pictures.  They're so damn good.  Wilder isn't really an auteur in the vein of many of these men (I like those guys with a consistent vision), but he consistently wrote and directed some of the cinema's best movies.  That in-itself should warrant a spot on this list, even if he's a less traditional way to end this than, say, Woody Allen or Akira Kurosawa.
My Favorite Film: I love so many of his pictures, but it'd likely be Sunset Boulevard.  Buoyed by a greatest-of-all-time level performance from Gloria Swanson, the movie is a shattering look at how Hollywood worships and then destroys its stars, and the way that we as a larger society treat our elders.  It's a nasty bit of work with some truly biting wordplay.  Absolutely sensational.
Missing Piece: Perhaps The Seven Year Itch?  I've seen all of the A-Pictures in Wilder's filmography, but Monroe at her height would be something I'd like to see, particularly considering he got her best performance out of her in Some Like It Hot.

And there you have it-the long-awaited Directors list!  Weigh in below on whether you agree or disagree, who should be added/deleted, and your favorite films/missing pieces from these twelve men!