FSU Student Life Cinema

When master-class directors are celebrated for their career, it’s usually concentrated towards their entire body of work, or at the very least, their most-acclaimed films. Kubrick has 2001, Dr. Strangelove…, and A Clockwork Orange, Hitchcock has Vertigo, Rear Window, and North by Northwest, Spielberg has Jaws, Schindler’s List, and Saving Private Ryan, and so on and forth. This also means that certain gems in their filmography slip through the cracks. Since the Entertainment Weekly and blog culture dictates everything should be in lists, here’s my take on a few of those lesser-known, yet rewarding films in a director’s repertoire. Trailers will be attached on the titles:

After Hours (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1985)

At this point in his career, Scorsese was dealing with the commercial flop of The King of Comedy and trying to find the funding for his project, The Last Temptation of the Christ. In the meantime, he worked on this $2 million film as a creative exercise, churning out arguably the oddest film in his career. It effectively takes the Hitchcock “wrong man” trope and transplants it in the ’80s New York underground, also acting as a comedy of errors for the hapless word processor who only wants to find a way home.

Trivia: This was originally offered to Tim Burton, who moved on to Pee-wee’s Big Adventure after Scorsese became attached to the project.

The Hudsucker Proxy (Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, 1994)

As is the case with the following films, Hudsucker is sandwiched between two more popular movies in a director’s filmography; in this case, it’s Barton Fink and Fargo. The first time the Coens worked with a budget, this sprawling comedy tries to evoke the feel of ’30s and ’40s screwball comedies, like His Girl Friday, but with the usual Coen sensibility. Co-written by Sam Raimi, and like After Hours, there’s a less-accessible oddball vibe throughout, with the performances, filmmaking style, and story structure, where characters stop time and others come from the heavens to dispel wisdom to others. On a related note, this was the biggest bomb in the Coens’ career.

Trivia: This opened the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.

Love and Death (Dir. Woody Allen, 1975)

Released between the more acclaimed sci-fi spoof Sleeper and Academy Award-winning romantic comedy Annie Hall, this marks Woody’s last foray into zany comedy, and like those two films, also stars Diane Keaton. With its focus on the Russian novels of Dostoyevsky and films of Ingmar Bergman, Love and Death features some of my favorite gags in any of Woody’s comedies, with the battle sequence, silent film-inspired bottle breaking scene, and ill-fated Napoleon assassination.

Trivia: Allen claims that of all the movies he’s done, this is his favorite and most personal.

Manhunter (Dir. Michael Mann, 1986)

Most of Mann’s attention was directed towards television, with Miami Vice at its prime and Crime Story starting out when he embarked on this film, the first adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter series (which was later re-adapted by Brett Ratner into Red Dragon). It functions more as a pure crime thriller then the later Silence of the Lambs, as Mann delves into the procedural element as Jonathan Demme put greater focus on the psychological aspect. This is also notable for having another actor as Hannibal Lecter, British character actor Brian Cox, and in the opinion of this blogger, gives a more menacing, less over-the-top performance. While the film is mired by a truly awful synth score and mid-’80s production value, it’s worth a watch for anyone who enjoys the Hannibal series or likes Mann’s later films like Heat or Collateral.

Trivia: This is the only Hannibal movie where his last name is spelled Lecktor. In all future movies, it’s spelled Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Prince of Darkness (Dir. John Carpenter, 1987)

After the box office failure of the kung fu action comedy Big Trouble in Little China, Carpenter was no longer able to command the budget of his previous films, leaving him to go back to his microbudgeted roots with this film and the later, more-revered They Live. Some of the cast from Big Trouble, like the guy who played Egg-Shen and the dude who played Wang come over, along with Halloween’s Dr. Loomis, Donald Pleasance, in his usual scenery-chewing self. The blend of science vs. faith come into play here, along with Carpenter’s fascination with quantum physics. What results is a more modern re-telling of the ’50s haunted house films, where characters get picked off one by one by an evil force, this time being a batch of “liquid Satan.” Does that make any sense? Probably not, but you’ll just have to see it.

Trivia: This is the second film in what John Carpenter calls his ‘Apocalypse Trilogy,’ following The Thing (1982) and preceding In the Mouth of Madness (1994).

Until next time,

Jake