One and sadly done

December 8, 2014 7:28 AM

12 excellent features from directors who never made another feature
posted by Artw (38 comments total)

I had recently added "Phase IV" to my Netflix queue, but had no idea at the time that Saul friggin Bass directed it. That's definitely moving to the top of the list.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:49 AM on December 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Phase IV I found to be stylish as hell but agonizingly slow and overall boring. Didn't realize it was Saul Bass, saw it several years ago.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 7:56 AM on December 8, 2014

The comments are full of people who were traumatized by Return To Oz. Am I a total weirdo for loving that movie as a kid?
posted by Peevish at 8:00 AM on December 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

I've seen zero point zero of these movies.
posted by chasles at 8:02 AM on December 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

I saw Phase IV as an impressionable teenager and thought it was amazing

I've only seen clips from Johnny Got His Gun on some documentary of other and that was bad enough... horrific (not gory or anything like that... just the idea of it)

Was reading about The Telephone Book only the other day
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:05 AM on December 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've only seen clips from Johnny Got His Gun on some documentary of other

I think it was called "One", and they used to play it on MTV a lot a long time ago.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:07 AM on December 8, 2014 [20 favorites]

"Quick Change" - I think the movie was pretty funny, but it stands out in that list as just kind of different than the rest.
posted by achrise at 8:09 AM on December 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Phase IV looks totally like something BoC would have gotten influence from, especially with their current "Tomorrow's Harvest" feel/sound. That dark synth just added more BoC feel to it, as well. Def on my must watch list, now.
posted by symbioid at 8:10 AM on December 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Total derail, but I just had an idea! Just like Pinterest, Friendface, Twitter, whatever, someone needs to invent a button that adds a movie to your Netflix queue automatically.
posted by Snowishberlin at 8:12 AM on December 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Came in to see that "Night of the Hunter" was mentioned. One of the famous NOTH stills is the illustration for the FPP. All is well. Even better that "Der Verlorene" gets some love too.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 8:12 AM on December 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

Quick Change is so, so good.

Jason Robards [as a police chief]: What the hell kind of clown are you?
Bill Murray [as a clown wearing a vest full of dynamite]: The crying-on-the-inside kind, I guess.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:13 AM on December 8, 2014 [16 favorites]

(Sorry, Bob Elliott as the guard, not Jason Robards' character.)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:15 AM on December 8, 2014

Am I a total weirdo for loving that movie as a kid?

I really liked Return to Oz, too, but I was in college when it came out, so maybe that doesn't count.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:23 AM on December 8, 2014

All is well.

The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I'll show you the story of life.
posted by Artw at 8:31 AM on December 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

I feel like Marco Brambilla deserves honorable mention for Demolition Man, though he also directed Excess Baggage.
posted by sleeping bear at 8:54 AM on December 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was surprised to see that Charles Laughton only directed the one film! Night of the Hunter is outstanding, and Laughton is such an enormous presence on screen in all of his films that I was sure he was a sort of precursor to Orson Welles.

I hadn't heard of Der Verlorene, but that one looks especially promising. I'll seek it out. The Telephone Book sounds interesting as well. This is a great list.
posted by painquale at 9:07 AM on December 8, 2014

The thing about Phase IV -- and I say this as a huge fan of the movie who's seen it several times -- is that it's actually two movies awkwardly conjoined. To be blunt, the first is a talky, poorly constructed monster movie set-up, with unlikeable stock characters (the Scientist Dummy, the Quint-type Scientist Jerk, and the Girl Who Freaks Out) making ill considered decisions in a limited setting. The second is a genuine visionary masterpiece: the macrophotography produces expressive ants -- not anthropomorphized but expressive as themselves, as alien beings with whom we share a planet. It's the greatest movie about Land Art ever made -- beautiful constructions and strange forms on a geological scale. Amazing sound design. A movie about the borderline of humanness and what lies beyond it. This is all to say: don't give up, as some of my friends have, during the slow going! That movie is riddled with crazy genius.
posted by deathmarch to epistemic closure at 9:08 AM on December 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

I love finding out that strange, remarkable films that struck me so profoundly as a kid, but were complete unknown to or unmentioned by my friends, family, or the media of the time (pre-Internet), also touched others so strongly. Phase IV is one of those. Side note - so terrible about Lynne Frederick's early death. Not due to ants.
posted by Auden at 9:23 AM on December 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Carnival of Souls is in the public domain and easily available on Youtube.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:26 AM on December 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Night of the Hunter is easily one of my favorite films. It is the closest film has come to how a nightmare feels - claustrophobic, illuminated by shadows. The last couple minutes of this clip show what I mean.

I was also thinking about it today when someone posted Radio Raheem's Love/Hate monologue from Do the Right Thing. The speech is lifted from Night of the Hunter. Robert Mitchum's preacher had HATE tattooed on one hand and LOVE on the other.

Here's a video showing both scenes intertwined.
posted by vacapinta at 9:35 AM on December 8, 2014

I suspect that a lot of people, including actors, who try their hand at directing don't go back to it because it's a lot harder than it looks. I remember seeing an interview with Henry Winkler in which he talks about how hard it was to adjust to having to stay and work after the actors went home.

Also, László Löwenstein is a much more metal name than Peter Lorre.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:39 AM on December 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

This gives me the chance to link my favorite Peter David article, which is about why Return to Oz is superior to Wizard.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:51 AM on December 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Willis Alan Ramsey (previously) made a perfect country record in 1971, and folks have been asking him for a follow-up ever since. His customary response: "Why, was something wrong with the first one?"
posted by stinkfoot at 9:59 AM on December 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

Quick Change is an underrated classic. It's populated almost entirely with great character actors, none of whom are meant to be likeable.
posted by condour75 at 10:26 AM on December 8, 2014

Here in Amsterdam we have a regular monthly cult double-bill, and about a year ago we got Night Of The Hunter and Do The Right Thing back-to-back. Unfortunately, some of the audience found the stylised imagery and the acting style in NOTH a bit hard to relate to - there were some giggles at inappropriate moments.
posted by daveje at 10:46 AM on December 8, 2014

Charles Laughton was also at the center of one of the great "lost films" -- the 1937 version of I, Claudius -- see a list here
posted by PandaMomentum at 10:57 AM on December 8, 2014

I think the Telephone Book is available on Netflix. It's like Putney Swope made by a horny 19-year-old Jean-Luc Godard geek on the day he saw a naked woman for the first time.
posted by jonp72 at 11:07 AM on December 8, 2014

Another vote for the wonderfulness of Quick Change. As a New Yorker, I love that the entire movie revolves around what a pain it is to get from midtown to the airport.

Before I read this article, not only did I not know the great Saul Bass had directed a movie, I didn't know it featured Altman stalwart Michael Murphy!
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 12:48 PM on December 8, 2014

Nthing love for Quick Change, it gets funnier with every viewing. Tony Shaloub steals the show in the few seconds he's on screen: "Bluftoni...*honk*"

I loves me some 70s science fiction so how is it that I've never even heard of Phase IV? Must check out immediately.

Another director that couldn't make this list because he did two features is Paul Brickman. Risky Business is famous for being Tom Cruise's big break, but it's an extremely well-crafted film. Later Brickman wrote and directed Men Don't Leave, an odd and sad story of a widow and her young sons that made no big waves, but is a worthy drama. Then Brickman sort of disappeared and never made another movie.
posted by zardoz at 1:25 PM on December 8, 2014

I was expecting to see Bill Paxton's Frailty (2001) and was disappointed when it didn't show up but ImdB says he directed a golf movie starring Shia LaBeouf in 2005 so its absence from the list is easily explainable.
posted by reuvenc at 1:53 PM on December 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Great list, and man, do I wish I could see this movie:

At the time of her death from breast cancer in 1980, Loden was still trying to realize her directorial ambitions with a never-made film adaptation of Kate Chopin’s protofeminist novel, The Awakening.

posted by languagehat at 2:05 PM on December 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think the standout thing in Phase IV was the editing - the footage of ants really ended up communicating to the viewer what the ants were supposedly plotting and thinking about, and it was all in the editing because it definitely wasn't because the ants were emoting.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:26 PM on December 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Great list, and man, do I wish I could see this movie:...The Awakening

Me too. But Callie Khouri's Thelma and Louise had Chopin's choices at its heart and I've always argued a direct reference as well.
Thelma: You awake?
Louise: Guess you could call it that. My eyes are open.
Thelma: Me too. I feel awake.
Louise: Good.
Thelma: Wide awake. I don't remember ever feeling this awake. You know what I mean?
posted by lazycomputerkids at 9:58 PM on December 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

fearfulsymmetry: "I've only seen clips from Johnny Got His Gun on some documentary of other and that was bad enough... horrific (not gory or anything like that... just the idea of it)"

Yeah, I noped the fuck out of that one after reading the synopsis too.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:02 PM on December 8, 2014

Johnny Got His Gun is ridiculously powerful and should be required watching for everyone who thinks about sending people to war. The last five minutes or so... holy shit...
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:29 AM on December 9, 2014

On a more contemporary note, I continue to be sad that Courtney Hunt, who wrote and directed the excellent Frozen River (2008), and Debra Granik, who directed and adapted the screenplay for Winter's Bone (2010), seem to have both disappeared after their first feature. I think Hunt has been directing Law and Order SVU. I loved both of their films (which, not coincidentally, featured incredible leading roles for women) and keep checking to see if either director has anything coming down the pipeline... but the answer always seems to be no.

The world needs more female 'auteurs'—though by all accounts it's really hard for female directors to get second gigs, no matter how well their first film did.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 5:40 PM on December 9, 2014

ACTUALLY holy shit, I guess I haven't checked for a couple of months? Because it looks like they both finally have new projects. Hunt is doing a thriller starring Keanu Reeves, using someone else's script, and Granik has a documentary about a biker/Vietnam vet. Not quite what I was hoping for in terms of follow-up, but I'm interested regardless.

So... as you were.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 5:42 PM on December 9, 2014

So kinda late to the party here, but I feel for Kerry Conran, who devoted his life to creating that amazing retro-adventure spectacle: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
posted by ovvl at 5:24 PM on December 13, 2014