It says something so poignant about both American life in the mid-fifties and American film. Fifties culture seemed so monolithic to the people who wanted to rebel against it: say, a blacklisted writer, or a homosexual kid in a small town. But at the same time it’s so fragile. It has so many fissures in it to begin with, it’s just such a scant invention. Part of that has to do with the need to pretend that our great wealth and our world dominance and our way of life didn’t just land on us as a weird accident of winning WWII but was somehow the American legacy and we’ve always had it and the war was just an interruption and now we’re back to it.
—Novelist Jonathan Lethem, interviewed by Jim Healy, www.cinema-scope.com
1957
THE TRUE STORY OF JESSE JAMES
As director. Sc: Walter Newman, based on Nunnally Johnson’s script for the 1939 film Jesse James. Ph: Joe MacDonald.
Cast: Robert Wagner (Jesse James), Jeffrey Hunter (Frank James), Hope Lange (Zee), Agnes Moorehead (Mrs. Samuel), Alan Hale Jr. (Cole Younger), Alan Baxter (Remington), John Carradine (Reverend Jethro Bailey), Rachel Stephens (Anne James), Barney Phillips (Dr. Samuel), Biff Elliot (Jim Younger), Frank Overton (Major Rufus Cobb), Barry Atwater (Attorney Walker), Marian Seldes (Rowena Cobb), Chubby Johnson (Arkew), Frank Gorshin (Charley Ford), Carl Thayler (Robby Ford), John Doucette (Sheriff Hillstrom).
(CinemaScope and DeLuxe Color, Herbert B. Swope Jr. for 20th Century-Fox, 92 mins.)
The film bears all the hallmarks of a classic 50s Western—De-Luxe color, Cinemascope, day-for-night filters and Brylcreem quiffs. Although the studio interference caused the director to dismiss the film, it is a worthy addition to the Ray canon, reinforcing his reputation as a Hollywood auteur who turned any studio assignment into a thoughtful and personal work of art.
—Paul Huckerby, www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk
BITTER VICTORY
As director. Sc: Ray, René Hardy, and Gavin Lambert, based on Hardy’s novel Amère victoire. Ph: Michel Kelber.
Cast: Richard Burton (Captain Leith), Curd Jürgens (Major David Brand), Ruth Roman (Jane Brand), Raymond Pellegrin (Mokrane), Anthony Bushell (General R. S. Patterson), Alfred Burke (Lt.-Col. Callander), Sean Kelly (Lt. Barton), Ramon de Larrocha (Lt. Sanders), Christopher Lee (Sgt. Barney), Ronan O’Casey (Sgt. Dunnigan), Fred Matter (Colonel Lutze), Raoul Delfosse (Lt. Kassel), Andrew Crawford (Pvt. Roberts), Nigel Green (Pvt. Wilkins), Harry Landis (Pvt. Browning), Christian Melsen (Pvt. Abbot), Sumner Williams (Pvt. Anderson), Joe Davray (Pvt. Spicer).
(CinemaScope, B & W, Paul Graetz for Transcontinental/Robert Laffont Productions/Columbia, 102 mins.)
Bitter Victory is aptly titled, starring Richard Burton condemned to a desert mission with the contemptibly pencil-pusher-risen superior who married his old love. Shot in black-and-white ’Scope on Libyan dunes, it’s akin to the same year’s Paths of Glory in its remorselessness about institutional cowardice, but personalized through Burton’s Captain Leith—beyond cynical, brave, yet on the edge of brittleness.
—Nicolas Rapold, The L Magazine
1958
WIND ACROSS THE EVERGLADES
As director. Sc: Budd Schulberg. Ph: Joseph Brun.
Cast: Burl Ives (Cottonmouth), Christopher Plummer (Walt Murdock), Chana Eden (Naomi), Gypsy Rose Lee (Mrs. Bradford), Tony Galento (Beef), Sammy Renick (Loser), Pat Henning (Sawdust), Peter Falk (Writer), Cory Osceola (Billy One-Arm), Emmett Kelly (Bigamy Bob), MacKinlay Kantor (Judge Harris), Totch Brown (One-Note), George Voskovec (Aaron Nathanson), Curt Conway (Perfesser), Sumner Williams (Windy), Howard I. Smith (George Leggett).
(Technicolor, Stuart Schulberg for Schulberg Productions/Warner Bros., 93 mins.)
Although the hero is, for once, a rebel with a cause, he is no less confused and helpless than Ray’s earlier, more “negative” heroes. . . . When captured by the outlaws [Christopher] Plummer engages in an all-night drinking bout with their leader (a formidable, red-bearded Burl Ives), and each comes to a certain understanding and appreciation of the other’s values. The range of feelings and moods conveyed in this extraordinary sequence is amazing; few moments in Ray’s work so subtly yet forcefully express his own ambivalence. Where the audience expects a battle of wits ultimately won by the hero, what we actually see is an increasingly befuddled Plummer, and the emergence of a feeling akin, if not to friendship, at least to mutual respect. Ray provides no pat answer, refuses to take sides, and leaves us with a bewildered sense of the relativity of all values.
—Jean-Pierre Coursodon (with Pierre Sauvage), American Directors, vol. 2
PARTY GIRL
As director. Sc: George Wells, based on a story by Leo Katcher. Ph: Robert Bronner.
Cast: Robert Taylor (Thomas Farrell), Cyd Charisse (Vicki Gaye), Lee J. Cobb (Rico Angelo), John Ireland (Louis Canetto), Kent Smith (Jeffrey Stewart), Claire Kelly (Genevieve, Farrell’s Wife), Corey Allen (Cookie La Motte), Lewis Charles (Danny Rimett, Manager of the Golden Rooster), David Opatoshu (Lou Forbes, Farrell’s Assistant), Kem Dibbs (Joey Vulner, Rico’s Manager), Patrick McVey (Detective O’Malley), Barbara Lang (Ginger D’Amour, Party Girl), Myrna Hansen (Joy Hampton, Party Girl), Betty Utey (Cindy Consuelo, Party Girl).
(CinemaScope and MetroColor, Joe Pasternak for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 99 mins.)
Ray’s direction, with its garish, searing streaks of color (red has rarely slashed the screen so violently), sharp diagonals, and quickly jerking wide-screen views, reflects its characters’ raging energies and inner conflicts. A spectacular flameout of a dénouement reveals the self-destructive folly of unchecked ambition.
—Richard Brody, the New Yorker
1960
THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS
As director. Sc: Nicholas Ray. Adaptation by Hans Ruesch, Franco Solinas, and Baccio Bandini from the novel Top of the World by Ruesch. Ph: Aldo Tonti, Peter Hennessy.
Cast: Anthony Quinn (Inuk), Yoko Tani (Asiak), Carlo Giustini (Second Trooper), Peter O’Toole (First Trooper), Marie Yang (Powtee), Marco Guglielmi (Missionary), Kaida Horiuchi (Imina), Lee Montague (Ittimargnek), Andy Ho (Anarvik), Anna May Wong (Hiko), Yvonne Shima (Lulik), Anthony Chinn (Kiddok), Francis De Wolff (Trading Post Proprietor), Michael Chow (Undik), Ed Devereaux (Pilot). Narration by Nicholas Stuart.
(Super Technirama 70 and Technicolor, Maleno Malenotti for Magic Film/Appis Films/Gray Film-Pathe/Rank and Paramount, 110 mins.)
It’s possible to find many faults in Nicholas Ray’s The Savage Innocents but you can’t deny its slightly lunatic courage—gut it’s got. In this respect, it resembles its director, one of the few American filmmakers who genuinely deserves to be called a maverick. Ray was hugely ambitious, willfully awkward, and his work flails alarmingly from the professionally competent and conventional to the utterly bizarre. His work is sometimes dazzlingly impressive and occasionally embarrassingly off-target, but he’s got the obsession of a true visionary and in The Savage Innocents his vision is allowed to hold sway. For many years, it’s been dismissed as an artistic and commercial failure and this is understandable because the film is somewhat removed, even alienating at times. But it’s also madly, wildly beautiful.
—Mike Sutton, homecinema.thedigitalfix.co.uk
1961
KING OF KINGS
As director. Sc: Philip Yordan. Ph: Franz F. Planer, Milton Krasner, Manuel Berenguer.
Cast: Jeffrey Hunter (Jesus Christ), Siobhan McKenna (Mary, Mother of Jesus), Hurd Hatfield (Pontius Pilate), Ron Randell (Lucius the Centurion), Viveca Lindfors (Claudia), Rita Gam (Herodias), Carmen Sevilla (Mary Magdalene), Brigid Bazlen (Salome), Harry Guardino (Barabbas), Rip Torn (Judas), Frank Thring (Herod Antipas), Guy Rolfe (Caiaphas), Royal Dano (Peter), Robert Ryan (John the Baptist), Edric Connor (Balthazar), Maurice Marsac (Nicodemus), Gregoire Aslan (Herod), George Coulouris (Camel Driver), Conrado San Martin (General Pompey), Gerard Tichy (Joseph), Antonio Mayans (Young John), Luis Prendes (Good Thief), David Davies (Burly Man), José Nieto (Caspar), Ruben Rojo (Matthew), Fernando Sancho (Madman), Mi
chael Wager (Thomas), Felix de Pomes (Joseph of Arimathea), Adriano Rimoldi (Melchior), Barry Keegan (Bad Thief), Rafael Calvo (Simon of Cyrene), Tino Barrero (Andrew), Francisco Moran (Blind Man).
(Super Technirama 70 and Technicolor, a Samuel Bronston production for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 171 mins.)
King of Kings is not without flaws. But it has been unjustly marginalized in most examinations of Ray’s work. . . . [While] not one of Ray’s major achievements, it does contain significant features of authorship, cinematic style, and historical verisimilitude.
—Tony Williams, CineAction
1963
55 DAYS AT PEKING
As director. Sc: Philip Yordan and Bernard Gordon. Ph: Jack Hildyard.
Cast: Charlton Heston (Major Matt Lewis), Ava Gardner (Baroness Natalie Ivanoff), David Niven (Sir Arthur Robertson), Flora Robson (Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi), John Ireland (Sergeant Harry), Harry Andrews (Father de Bearn), Leo Genn (General Jung-Lu), Robert Helpmann (Prince Tuan), Kurt Kasznar (Baron Sergei Ivanoff), Philippe Leroy (Julliard), Paul Lukas (Dr. Steinfeldt), Elizabeth Sellars (Lady Sarah Robertson), Massimo Serato (Garibaldi), Jacques Sernas (Maj. Bobrinski), Jerome Thor (Capt. Andy Marshall), Geoffrey Bayldon (Smythe), Joseph Furst (Capt. Hanselman), Walter Gotell (Capt. Hoffman), Ichizo Itami (Colonel Shiba), Mervyn Johns (Clergyman), Alfredo Mayo (Spanish Minister), Martin Miller (Hugo Bergmann), Conchita Montes (Mme. Gaumaire), Jose Nieto (Italian Minister), Eric Pohlmann (Baron von Meck), Aram Stephan (Gaumaire), Robert Urquhart (Capt. Hanley), Lynne Sue Moon (Teresa), Lucy Appleby (Martha), Carlos Casaravilla (Japanese Minister), Michael Chow (Chiang), Felix Dafauce (Dutch Minister), Andrea Esterhazy (Austrian Minister), Mitchell Kowall (U.S. Marine), Alfred Lynch (Gerald), Nicholas Ray (U.S. Minister), Fernando Sancho (Belgian Minister), George Wang (Boxer Chief).
(Super Technirama 70 and Technicolor, a Samuel Bronston production for Rank/Allied Artists, 154 mins.)
In no respect a failure. With strong, memorable performances, muscular but imaginative and lucid direction, and a narrative that moves effortlessly between exciting scenes of battle and quieter, more meditative moments to create a very real feeling of private lives caught up in the huge shifts of history, it remains one of the finest epic spectaculars ever made.
—Geoff Andrew, The Films of Nicholas Ray: The Poet of Nightfall
1980
LIGHTNING OVER WATER
Co-script and direction with Wim Wenders. Ph: Ed Lachman.
Cast (playing themselves): Gerry Bamman, Ronee Blakley, Pierre Cottrell, Stefan Czapsky, Mitch Dubin, Tom Farrell, Becky Johnston, Tom Kaufman, Maryte Kavaliauskas, Pat Kirck, Edward Lachman, Martin Müller, Craig Nelson, Timothy Ray, Susan Ray, Nicholas Ray, Martin Schäfer, Cris Sievernich, Wim Wenders.
(Eastmancolor, Wim Wenders for Viking Film, 91 mins.)
Shot in 1979, as Ray rarely journeyed from his deathbed and as Wenders took a break from shooting his troubled first Hollywood film (Hammett), Lightning over Water is credited as a codirecting job between the two of them. It says more about the moral and therapeutic value of art and work than it does about Ray. Neither documentary nor narrative, it keeps pausing for odd asides and to dwell on Ray’s physical decline and Wenders’ own emotions, when the subject demands a greater focus. Even if it’s not an ideal last testament, it still qualifies as an act of virtue that somebody even attempted to make one. Wenders has said that he would still have made the movie even if his cameras were empty, and the emotions behind every moment of Lightning support that claim.
—Keith Phipps, The Onion A.V. Club
Other Credits
TELEVISION
1954
HIGH GREEN WALL
As director. Episode of General Electric Presents.
SHORT FILMS
1974
WET DREAMS
As director. Episode 12, “The Janitor.”
MOTION PICTURES
1946
SWING PARADE OF 1946
Costory.
Directed by Phil Karlson.
1964
CIRCUS WORLD
Costory.
Directed by Henry Hathaway.
1977
THE AMERICAN FRIEND
Actor (as Derwatt/Pogash).
Directed by Wim Wenders.
1979
HAIR
Actor (as the General).
Directed by Milos Forman.
DOCUMENTARY
1975
I’M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF
Directed by David Halpern Jr. and James G. Gutman.
UNFINISHED FILM
c. 1975
WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN
As director.
Permissions
PHOTOGRAPHS
Kienzle family photographs courtesy of Allen Rindahl.
Ray’s first Christmas, Ray and Jean Evans, and Ray with nonprofessionals while working for the Works Progress Administration courtesy of Bernard Eisenschitz and Nicholas Ray: An American Journey.
Front page of the Racquet courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.
Cast photograph of The Young Go First courtesy of the New York Public Library and Richard Valente and the Alfred Valente Estate. Photograph by Alfred Valente.
Photograph of the cast of Rebel Without a Cause at the first full reading of the script courtesy of Stewart Stern.
Photograph of Ray, Robert Wagner, and Elvis Presley courtesy of Robert J. Wagner from his book Pieces of the Heart: A Life (with Scott Eyman).
Ray and Harpur College students, Ray with Dennis Hopper, and Ray with Susan Schwartz courtesy of Mark Goldstein. Photographs by Mark Goldstein.
Ray on set of Knock on Any Door, Ray filming On Dangerous Ground, Ray with Robert Mitchum, Ray on a date with Joan Crawford, Ray with Natalie Wood, and Ray with Wim Wenders courtesy of Photofest.
All other photographs from the author’s private collection. Many thanks to several helpful sources: Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee, Larry Edmunds Bookshop, Filmoteca Espanola (Madrid), Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Material Store, Alan Rode and the Film Noir Foundation, and the USC Cinema-Television Archives.
MANUSCRIPTS
Melvyn Douglas interview by Thomas H. Arthur, May 31, 1974, quoted with permission of the Center for the Study of History and Memory, Indiana University.
Jean Evans is quoted by permission of Anthony (Tony) Ray and the Esther McCoy papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Elia Kazan’s August 9, 1944, correspondence with Molly Day Thacher quoted with permission of the Elia Kazan Collection, Wesleyan University Cinema Archives.
Reminiscences of David Kerman courtesy of the Oral History Collection of Columbia University.
Oral histories from Viveca Lindfors, Norman Lloyd, and Edmund North are quoted with permission of DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.
Myron Meisel is quoted with his permission from “Portrait of the Artist Buried in Film,” L.A. Reader, Nov. 16, 1979.
Willard Motley’s journal and other writings are quoted courtesy of the Motley Estate, Christine Calhoun, and Denise LaMonte Smith.
Budd and Stuart Schulberg quoted courtesy of the Budd Schulberg Papers, Dartmouth College Library.
Frederick Sontag is quoted with permission of the Oral History Collection, Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.
George Wells is quoted with permission of Eric Monder.
Ray’s correspondence with Frank Lloyd Wright quoted courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Taliesin West.
Index
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
20th Century-Fox studio: anti-Communism and, 228; Ray’s contract with, 106, 110–11, 335, 356; Ray’s drinking and, 356; reputation of, 324. See also specific person or film
55 Days at Peking (film), 317n, 419–38, 449
Acade
my Awards: Losey’s staging of, 118, 124. See also specific person or film
Adler, Buddy, 324, 325, 327, 335, 336, 341, 344
Allen, Corey, 292, 294, 298, 299, 301, 377
Almanac House (New York City), 84–85, 87–88, 89, 90n, 94, 97, 276
Almanac Singers, 84, 87, 89, 94, 95, 230
Amateau, Rodney, 177, 184, 190, 204, 214
American Friend, The (film), 486, 489–91
American School of the Air (CBS radio), 77–78, 79
Anderson, Edward, 117, 121, 128, 132, 135
Androcles and the Lion (film), 234–35, 422
Another Sky (film), 320, 321
Archer, Eugene, 387, 389, 454–55
Ardrey, Robert, 100–101, 103
Aria da Capo (play), 27, 47
auteurism, 413–16, 418, 454–57, 471, 479–82, 492–93
Axmann, Hannelore “Hanne,” 241–42, 248, 316, 319, 447, 449, 451
Bacall, Lauren, 140, 151n, 170, 181, 221, 345
Back Where I Come From (CBS), 79, 80, 81–84, 86, 87, 92, 97
Backus, Jim, 76, 293, 301, 302, 303, 306
Bandini, Baccio, 382, 383, 384, 386
Barzman, Ben, 412–13, 418, 431, 433
“Bazaar Bizarre” (Ray newspaper column), 29–30
Bazlen, Brigid, 400, 400n, 416, 462
Beach, Guy, 13, 14, 133, 185
Becker, Frawley, 443, 444, 450–51
Bed of Roses. See Born to Be Bad
Beggar’s Holiday, or “Twilight Alley” (musical), 119–20, 121, 122–24, 250
Ben-Hur (film), 401, 403–4, 408, 413, 419, 436
Berg and Allenberg (Ray’s agents), 138, 170, 189, 233
Bessie, Connie Ernst. See Ernst, Constance “Connie”
Bezzerides, A. I., 191, 192–93, 194–95, 271
Bigger Than Life (film): casting for, 328, 329, 346; Cinemascope/color production of, 328–29, 332; in Criterion Collection, 493; ending for, 329, 331–32, 340; European release of, 340; fatherhood comment in, 76; filming of, 329–32, 333, 342; influence of Ray’s personal life on, 9, 12, 76, 330, 340, 348; influences on, 2; Monroe appearance in, 333; Production Code and, 324; and Ray’s drinking and drug abuse, 343; Ray’s views about, 340, 479; release of, 339; religion and, 389; reviews of, 339–40, 352; script for, 323–28, 329, 330–32; as success, 358; Venice Film Festival and, 339–40. See also “Ten Feet Tall”
Nicholas Ray Page 63
