Unsung film directors

Cockney Mackem

Cockney Mackem

Striker
Contributor
John Badham - bet there's a film or two of his that you like without realising he was behind it

1976 The Bingo Long Travelling All Stars And Motor Kings
1977 Saturday Night Fever
1979 Dracula
1983 WarGames
1983 Blue Thunder
1985 American Flyers
1986 Short Circuit featuring the incomparable Steve Guttenberg
1991 The Hard Way

Peter Hyams - another solid director for hire with a decent CV

1977 Capricorn One
1981 Outland
1983 The Star Chamber
1984 2010
1986 Running Scared
1988 The Presidio
1990 Narrow Margin
1992 Stay Tuned
1994 Timecop
 


Cockney Mackem said:
John Badham - bet there's a film or two of his that you like without realising he was behind it

1976 The Bingo Long Travelling All Stars And Motor Kings
1977 Saturday Night Fever
1979 Dracula
1983 WarGames
1983 Blue Thunder
1985 American Flyers
1986 Short Circuit featuring the incomparable Steve Guttenberg
1991 The Hard Way

Peter Hyams - another solid director for hire with a decent CV

1977 Capricorn One
1981 Outland
1983 The Star Chamber
1984 2010
1986 Running Scared
1988 The Presidio
1990 Narrow Margin
1992 Stay Tuned
1994 Timecop
Click to expand...

Not so sure about John Badham (apart from unexpected blockbuster SNF the majority of his films from the 80's onwards were all a bit cheesy IMO)

Peter Hyams on the other hand was an absolute top and original director (and also a very good writer/cinematographer) during 70's and 80's, who seemed to loose his way once the 90's arrived. He actually wrote the script for Steve McQueen's last film 'The Hunter' (from 1980) and should have even directed it but appears to have fell out with McQueen who wanted to direct large chunks of that film himself?
Also, back in mid 70's he made an impressive cop film called Busting (with Elliot Gould and Robert Blake) and a year or so later Robert Blake played pretty much same type of cop in the cult tv series 'Baretta' (ran for 4 seasons in mid 70's, link below)… the bizarre connection here though is that he directed two stars at the time (OJ Simpson in Capricorn One and Robert Blake in Busting) in the 70's who would both later be arrested for killing their own wives! :eek:

Baretta (TV Series 1975–1978) - IMDb


on subject of unsung film directors then I'm going to add Walter Hill... started off as a writer, then the understudy to legendary director Sam Peckinpah, and then broke through himself with films like The Warriors (1979), Southern Comfort, 48 HOURS, and a writer on Alien/Aliens and then recent Alien fims … another one who then seems to have lost his way or touch as a director from the 90's onwards?
 
UZZA_SPARTA said:
Not so sure about John Badham (apart from unexpected blockbuster SNF the majority of his films from the 80's onwards were all a bit cheesy IMO)

Peter Hyams on the other hand was an absolute top and original director (and also a very good writer/cinematographer) during 70's and 80's, who seemed to loose his way once the 90's arrived. He actually wrote the script for Steve McQueen's last film 'The Hunter' (from 1980) and should have even directed it but appears to have fell out with McQueen who wanted to direct large chunks of that film himself?
Also, back in mid 70's he made an impressive cop film called Busting (with Elliot Gould and Robert Blake) and a year or so later Robert Blake played pretty much same type of cop in the cult tv series 'Baretta' (ran for 4 seasons in mid 70's, link below)… the bizarre connection here though is that he directed two stars at the time (OJ Simpson in Capricorn One and Robert Blake in Busting) in the 70's who would both later be arrested for killing their own wives! :eek:

Baretta (TV Series 1975–1978) - IMDb


on subject of unsung film directors then I'm going to add Walter Hill... started off as a writer, then the understudy to legendary director Sam Peckinpah, and then broke through himself with films like The Warriors (1979), Southern Comfort, 48 HOURS, and a writer on Alien/Aliens and then recent Alien fims … another one who then seems to have lost his way or touch as a director from the 90's onwards?
Click to expand...

Most directors have a sell-by date like football managers do. Even the very best can often have only a decade at their peak when do their best work.

Walter Hill - if you just take his directing work because he wrote scripts, produced and created screen stories for other people as well - had a great period from 1975 to 1982 when everything he did was amazing:

The Streetfighter
The Driver
The Warriors
The Long Riders
Southern Comfort
48 Hours

Then he got a bit patchy in the rest of the 80s - I enjoyed Brewster's Millions and Extreme Prejudice, and Crossroads was ok - and he did a couple of interesting westerns in the 1990s.

In defence of John Badham's 80s output onwards, Blue Thunder is absolutely brilliant, American Flyers is an overlooked gem imho and WarGames is a cracking teen/kids film. Also the Hard Way is excellent
 
Cockney Mackem said:
Most directors have a sell-by date like football managers do. Even the very best can often have only a decade at their peak when do their best work....
Click to expand...

that's a very good point

Cockney Mackem said:
...In defence of John Badham's 80s output onwards, Blue Thunder is absolutely brilliant, American Flyers is an overlooked gem imho and WarGames is a cracking teen/kids film. Also the Hard Way is excellent
Click to expand...

a fair point, but for me personally somewhat tarnished with films like Blue Thunder and American Flyers... decent enough films right enough, but as a keen cyclist all my life the cycling race scenes in American Flyers were a bit lame :lol: ... while with Blue Thunder I was a huge fan of Roy Scheider back in the 70's(French Connection, Marathon Man, Sorcerer and Jaws were all classics!) and felt at the time he had undersold himself to appear in that film... as it happens even he as an actor had seen his peak during the 70's (I think he was highest paid actor in Hollywood at one stage? He was first choice for lead role in The Deer Hunter that eventually went to De Niro) and the films he began appearing in got worse and worse that by the end it was straight to dvd, which was a shame as IMO he was a top actor. If only he had not had to make Jaws 2 due to a contract agreement who knows what could have happened?

As for films like War Games maybe I was too old by then to appreciate a kids film anymore? ;)
 
UZZA_SPARTA said:
that's a very good point



a fair point, but for me personally somewhat tarnished with films like Blue Thunder and American Flyers... decent enough films right enough, but as a keen cyclist all my life the cycling race scenes in American Flyers were a bit lame :lol: ... while with Blue Thunder I was a huge fan of Roy Scheider back in the 70's(French Connection, Marathon Man, Sorcerer and Jaws were all classics!) and felt at the time he had undersold himself to appear in that film... as it happens even he as an actor had seen his peak during the 70's (I think he was highest paid actor in Hollywood at one stage? He was first choice for lead role in The Deer Hunter that eventually went to De Niro) and the films he began appearing in got worse and worse that by the end it was straight to dvd, which was a shame as IMO he was a top actor. If only he had not had to make Jaws 2 due to a contract agreement who knows what could have happened?

As for films like War Games maybe I was too old by then to appreciate a kids film anymore? ;)
Click to expand...

Fun fact - although not as fun as Peter Hyams' track record of directing future murderers - it is rumoured that Roy Scheider agreed to do Blue Thunder just to make sure he was unavailable for Jaws 3
 
Cockney Mackem said:
Most directors have a sell-by date like football managers do. Even the very best can often have only a decade at their peak when do their best work.

Walter Hill - if you just take his directing work because he wrote scripts, produced and created screen stories for other people as well - had a great period from 1975 to 1982 when everything he did was amazing:

The Streetfighter
The Driver
The Warriors
The Long Riders
Southern Comfort
48 Hours

Then he got a bit patchy in the rest of the 80s - I enjoyed Brewster's Millions and Extreme Prejudice, and Crossroads was ok - and he did a couple of interesting westerns in the 1990s.

In defence of John Badham's 80s output onwards, Blue Thunder is absolutely brilliant, American Flyers is an overlooked gem imho and WarGames is a cracking teen/kids film. Also the Hard Way is excellent
Click to expand...
No Streets of Fire?????
 
Cockney Mackem said:
Most directors have a sell-by date like football managers do. Even the very best can often have only a decade at their peak when do their best work.

Walter Hill - if you just take his directing work because he wrote scripts, produced and created screen stories for other people as well - had a great period from 1975 to 1982 when everything he did was amazing:

The Streetfighter
The Driver
The Warriors
The Long Riders
Southern Comfort
48 Hours

Then he got a bit patchy in the rest of the 80s - I enjoyed Brewster's Millions and Extreme Prejudice, and Crossroads was ok - and he did a couple of interesting westerns in the 1990s.

In defence of John Badham's 80s output onwards, Blue Thunder is absolutely brilliant, American Flyers is an overlooked gem imho and WarGames is a cracking teen/kids film. Also the Hard Way is excellent
Click to expand...
Couldn't agree more with any of this. It's like you have invaded my mind
 
Cockney Mackem said:
Fun fact - although not as fun as Peter Hyams' track record of directing future murderers - it is rumoured that Roy Scheider agreed to do Blue Thunder just to make sure he was unavailable for Jaws 3
Click to expand...

Then that would actually make sense :lol:

On subject of fun facts and killers though... Hyams directed two future murderers of their own wives. But jumping now from Roy Scheider to director William Friedkin (who directed Scheider in both Sorcerer and French Connection) - and I'm sure I've mentioned this bizarre fact on here in a film thread before? - there was a bloke who turned out to be a real life killer who Friedkin had cast as a lab technician in his film The Exorcist, then years later Friedkin made the film Cruising with Al Pacino (based on true story) as cop going undercover to find the so called 'body in the bags killer' who was active in New York City... years later it turns out that this 'body in the bags killer' was in fact a bloke called Paul Bateson - the same bloke who had played lab technician in The Exorcist years before he made Cruising :eek:
 
UZZA_SPARTA said:
Then that would actually make sense :lol:

On subject of fun facts and killers though... Hyams directed two future murderers of their own wives. But jumping now from Roy Scheider to director William Friedkin (who directed Scheider in both Sorcerer and French Connection) - and I'm sure I've mentioned this bizarre fact on here in a film thread before? - there was a bloke who turned out to be a real life killer who Friedkin had cast as a lab technician in his film The Exorcist, then years later Friedkin made the film Cruising with Al Pacino (based on true story) as cop going undercover to find the so called 'body in the bags killer' who was active in New York City... years later it turns out that this 'body in the bags killer' was in fact a bloke called Paul Bateson - the same bloke who had played lab technician in The Exorcist years before he made Cruising :eek:
Click to expand...

f***ing hell
 
Cockney Mackem said:
John Badham - bet there's a film or two of his that you like without realising he was behind it

1976 The Bingo Long Travelling All Stars And Motor Kings
1977 Saturday Night Fever
1979 Dracula
1983 WarGames
1983 Blue Thunder
1985 American Flyers
1986 Short Circuit featuring the incomparable Steve Guttenberg
1991 The Hard Way

Peter Hyams - another solid director for hire with a decent CV

1977 Capricorn One
1981 Outland
1983 The Star Chamber
1984 2010
1986 Running Scared
1988 The Presidio
1990 Narrow Margin
1992 Stay Tuned
1994 Timecop
Click to expand...

I’ve seen Short Circuit, quality film

UZZA_SPARTA said:
Not so sure about John Badham (apart from unexpected blockbuster SNF the majority of his films from the 80's onwards were all a bit cheesy IMO)

Peter Hyams on the other hand was an absolute top and original director (and also a very good writer/cinematographer) during 70's and 80's, who seemed to loose his way once the 90's arrived. He actually wrote the script for Steve McQueen's last film 'The Hunter' (from 1980) and should have even directed it but appears to have fell out with McQueen who wanted to direct large chunks of that film himself?
Also, back in mid 70's he made an impressive cop film called Busting (with Elliot Gould and Robert Blake) and a year or so later Robert Blake played pretty much same type of cop in the cult tv series 'Baretta' (ran for 4 seasons in mid 70's, link below)… the bizarre connection here though is that he directed two stars at the time (OJ Simpson in Capricorn One and Robert Blake in Busting) in the 70's who would both later be arrested for killing their own wives! :eek:

Baretta (TV Series 1975–1978) - IMDb


on subject of unsung film directors then I'm going to add Walter Hill... started off as a writer, then the understudy to legendary director Sam Peckinpah, and then broke through himself with films like The Warriors (1979), Southern Comfort, 48 HOURS, and a writer on Alien/Aliens and then recent Alien fims … another one who then seems to have lost his way or touch as a director from the 90's onwards?
Click to expand...

Shame about that Hill because I like both 48 Hours and The Warriors.
 
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Not sure how unsung they are in the scale if things but I'm going to hoy in:

Joe Dante
Sidney Lumet
Larry Cohen
Paul Schrader
Michael Ritchie
Arthur Penn
Sydney Pollack
Richard Franklin
Philip Kaufman
Donald Cammell
Ben Wheatley
 

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