Michael Curtiz
- movieman1957
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Raining cats and...dogs?
I love the story of Curtiz asking a prop man for a "poodle" to appear in a scene in "Casablanca." The prop man searched for a poodle-while the entire crew waited. He found one and presented it to Curtiz, who screamed, "A poodle! A poodle of water!."
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Yep. Right out of The Charge of the Light Brigade lore.movieman1957 wrote:I've read Niven's book "Bring On The Empty Horses" which is a Curtiz quote.
Curtiz could be a pretty brutal guy - certainly Errol Flynn had his stories to tell about that.
But the fact is that my favorite Flynn films are the ones he did with Curtiz.
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He did run the gamut! Is there another director who worked with Bette Davis and Elvis Presley?
Another one I love is "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn" from 1960...with a fantastic supporting cast-Buster Keaton, Judy Canova, John Carradine,Josephine Hutchinson, Sterling Holloway, Harry Dean Stanton. Andy Devine, et al.
Another one I love is "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn" from 1960...with a fantastic supporting cast-Buster Keaton, Judy Canova, John Carradine,Josephine Hutchinson, Sterling Holloway, Harry Dean Stanton. Andy Devine, et al.
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I really like "Dr. X" and "The Walking Dead," two of his horror movies from Warners in the Thirties.
Look at all the actors he directed. Boris Karloff was in "Walking Dead." Curtiz would later direct Elvis, as someone mentioned. He led John Wayne through "The Commancheros" and Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye through "White Christmas."
Karloff, Elvis, the Duke, Bing, Danny Kaye, plus the traditional Warner Brothers stock company. It might be easier to list those actors who didn't appear in a Curtiz film.
Look at all the actors he directed. Boris Karloff was in "Walking Dead." Curtiz would later direct Elvis, as someone mentioned. He led John Wayne through "The Commancheros" and Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye through "White Christmas."
Karloff, Elvis, the Duke, Bing, Danny Kaye, plus the traditional Warner Brothers stock company. It might be easier to list those actors who didn't appear in a Curtiz film.
I really do love so many of Curtiz' films (although, admittedly, he's had his share of clunkers). As has been pointed out, he worked in many genres and with many great stars. My basic problem with him is that he doesn't (didn't) seem to possess a personal style, like Lang or Hitchcock or Tourneur, Hawks, Ford, Welles and the rest. Rather, he seemed to take a journeyman's approach (detatched, efficient) to directing, which isn't a bad thing at all. It just doesn't allow the viewer to connect emotionally (beyond the immediate content of the film in question) to his work as a whole. One generally doesn't hear "in the Curtiz style" uttered in film conversations as a rule.