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Post by spiderwort on Oct 7, 2019 17:45:36 GMT
Michael Curtiz is famously known for directing his masterpiece, Casablanca, but it sometimes seems that the rest of his 49 year career with 178 directing credits is overlooked - or maybe sometimes people love his films, but just don't realize he directed them. Besides the unbeatable Casablanca, my other favorite Curtiz films include: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
White Christmas (1954)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Young Man With a Horn (1950)
The Sea Wolf (1941)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Four Daughters (1938)
Romance on the High Seas (1948)
Roughly Speaking (1945)
King Creole (1958)
But there are so many more to choose from - everything from swashbucklers to westerns to dramas to musicals; along with Howard Hawk, he was the king of genre swapping.
Side note about Roughly Speaking: It's based upon a memoir by Louise Randall Pierson, mother of Frank Pierson, Oscar winning screenwriter of Dog Day Afternoon and Cool Hand Luke, among others. He's portrayed in the film as a child/young man. |
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Post by TerryMontana on Oct 7, 2019 18:12:02 GMT
Casablanca
Angels with Dirty Faces
Yankee Doodle Dandy
We're No Angels
Mildred Pierce
Of course Casablanca is one of the best movies in film history and by far my #1 of Curtiz.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Oct 7, 2019 19:38:46 GMT
Casablanca (of course)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (though he shared co-credit with William Keightley, Curtis apparently did most of the heavy-lifting by the end)
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Captain Blood
The Sea Hawk
Mildred Pierce
Life With Father
The Charge of The Light Brigade
King Creole
One of the great "studio directors". He was involved with a wide variety of movies over the years. Lots of them with Errol Flynn & Olivia DeHavilland earlier on in his career as well.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Oct 7, 2019 20:39:39 GMT
Casablanca (of course) The Adventures of Robin Hood (though he shared co-credit with William Keightley, Curtis apparently did most of the heavy-lifting by the end) Yankee Doodle Dandy Captain Blood The Sea Hawk Mildred Pierce Life With Father The Charge of The Light Brigade King Creole One of the great "studio directors". He was involved with a wide variety of movies over the years. Lots of them with Errol Flynn & Olivia DeHavilland earlier on in his career as well. Generally speaking, I'm not a big swashbuckler fan, but I have to say that he was really excellent at making those, in addition to all the other genres. Captain Blood and Sea Hawk are very well done and were models for films to come. It helps that worked with such a charismatic classic adventure leading man in Errol Flynn. He and Flynn in total made ten movies between 1935 and 1940, and not a single one of them, that I've seen (around 7), is a true "dud". An unsung director / actor collaboration to say the least. |
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Post by urbanpatrician on Oct 7, 2019 22:37:39 GMT
1. Casablanca
2. Captain Blood
3. Mildred Pierce (although I thought the remake was a lot better)
Some others I personally like:
4. Romance on the High Seas
5. Passage to Marseilles
6. My Dream is Yours
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Post by SeanJoyce on Oct 9, 2019 3:33:20 GMT
Haven't seen anybody mention The Breaking Point yet, which is a damn fine film noir and a more accurate adaptation of To Have and Have Not than the Bogie/Bacall cocktail (which is really just Casablanca 2.)
Speaking of unsung director/actor collaborations, Curtiz and Garfield made a pretty potent pair and The Breaking Point provided the great Garfield with another plum leading man role before he left us far too soon (but not without giving us the cracking He Ran All the Way.)
I also really enjoy The Comancheros, especially Lee Marvin's sparkplug cameo as a drunken, half-scalped scoundrel.
I agree that Curtiz was the king of genre hopping alongside Hawks (though [Robert] Wise also deserves mention.)
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Post by jimmalone on Oct 9, 2019 7:58:20 GMT
That man certainly deserves his own thread. The amount of films he made is incredible. I mean he is one of my most watched directors with me having seen 27 of his films and still this is only a small percentage of his filmography. Of course there is Casablanca, which stands out of this list. I agree that this is one of the best films ever made. But there are few other great films Curtiz has made and which are actually hurt by Casablanca in that way, that they are always overshadowed by it. The The Adventures of Robin Hood is the second film of Curtiz which I'd hail a masterpiece without hesitating. Even today more filmmakers should look at this one when working in that genre for how well Curtiz built his movie around the story. Some other favourites: We're no Angels, a hilarious comedy Angels with Dirty FacesThe Charge of the Light BrigadeI also like a lot: 20.000 Years in Sing SingMildred PierceFour DaughtersCaptain BloodThe Sea Hawk The Comancheros
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