Vidor. King Vidor to be specific (not Charles Vidor who directed Gilda) is the #117 best director of all-time. His strength is his depth of quality in his body of work- especially having 6 films that fall into the top 100 of their respective decade. That’s an accomplished career. As you can see here on the page, Vidor was known for big films– superior visuals (or I’d have a bunch of film posters here as I have to resort to sometimes). His weakness is the zero films in the top 350 of all-time.
Best film: The Crowd. I’ve got The Crowd ranked ever-so-slightly ahead of The Big Parade as his best film.
total archiveable films: 12
top 100 films: 0
top 500 films: 2 (The Crowd, The Big Parade)
top 100 films of the decade: 6 (The Crowd, The Big Parade, La Boheme, Stella Dallas, Duel in the Sun, The Fountainhead)
most overrated: Nothing egregious. I’d have to say The Crowd (though it kills me as it’s an excellent film and my #1 Vidor) but I have it at #357 and the TSPDT consensus has it at #234. The Crowd is one of only two films in the TSPDT top 1000- the other is Duel in the Sun which is ranked correctly—they have it at #967.
most underrated: The Big Parade and Stella Dallas are both overrated—these are films that couldn’t find a spot in the TSPDT consensus top 1000 and I don’t understand why. The Big Parade shows the size and scope of The Crowd and Stella Dallas is just about as good as narrative melodrama on celluloid gets.
gem I want to spotlight: War and Peace isn’t Vidor’s finest, far from it, but it has the reputation as an outwardly bad film and that’s just not the case. I ran across it recently (in 2019) so this is a good spot for it here.
- Adapted/written by 6 people— never a good sign
- Music by Nino Rota between his legendary work with Fellini in La Strada (1954) and La Dolce Vita (1960)
- Henry Fonda admitted himself he was too old for the role (and to be paired with Audrey Hepburn she’s 27 here and he’s 51). He’s still good here but how about stealing from another prestige Russian literature adaptation (albeit a decade later) Doctor Zhivago– Tom Courtenay’s role and performance. Not sure who is that equivalent in 1956—maybe like Sal Mineo
- The performances are good and there are fine actors here across the board- but we never get below the surface with any
- Some structure/formal issues with us lazily going into Hepburn’s head via inner-monologue more than an hour into the film and then we go back to the normal narration (albeit with a fantastic shot of a peace treaty being signed in a courtyard)
- Mel Ferrer looks and acts like a young Leslie Howard in Gone With the Wind– virtue
- 128 minutes in we get the big moment in the film artistically. A great use of the wide frame in a spectacle shot of Fonda rotating on a hill to see the battles all around him. It’s a wow moment. Epic- lots of extras. We see him dropping a flower behind him- really special filmmaking—it’s not on that level but part of it reminded me of Kurosawa’s Ran (with the soldiers looking like ants)
- easily the artistic high point sequence of the film
- Not a major achievement for Fonda or Hepburn
- Herbert Lom is really good as Napoleon I thought
- Recommend- not in the top 10 of 1956
stylistic innovations/traits: Stella Dallas (one of the best melodramas of the 1930’s) is a bit of an outlier. Vidor was a director of large set pieces, big epics—scale is important in The Crowd, Big Parade, Duel in the Sun and The Fountainhead– 4 of his best 5 films. Vidor was an excellent director—particularly his work in the 20’s with The Big Parade and The Crowd. Even in a weaker Vidor film- War and Peace– the big events is where he shines. The fox hunt, the duel, and the big sequence with Fonda up on the hill viewing the carnage around him.
Vidor was a director of large set pieces, big epics—scale is important in The Crowd, Big Parade, Duel in the Sun and The Fountainhead–
top 10
- The Crowd
- The Big Parade
- Stella Dallas
- The Duel in the Sun
- The Fountainhead
- La Boheme
- Northwest Passage
- The Champ
- War and Peace
- Show People
By year and grades
| 1925- The Big Parade | MS |
| 1926- La Boheme | R |
| 1928- Show People | R |
| 1928- The Crowd | MS |
| 1931- The Champ | R |
| 1934- Our Daily Bread | R |
| 1937- Stella Dallas | MS |
| 1938- The Citadel | R |
| 1940- Northwest Passage | R |
| 1946- Duel in the Sun | HR |
| 1949- Fountainhead | HR |
| 1956- War and Peace | R |
*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film
MS is Must-see- top 5-6 quality of the year film
HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film
R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives
where is cameron crowe. he is a great director of popular films and his thing isnt as much visual, though he has some great visuals in his masterpiece, his thing is really getting good and iconic performances, iconic moments, (cusack and the boombox, “show me the money”) and really good music choices. mostly though he is just a great storyteller. his masterpiece, vanilla sky, i think is the best movie of the century and one of the best pieces of art ever created. it teaches us a lesson about humility and materialism, consequences, and tom cruise’s expressionist performance in among the greatest ever. thanks for all the work, i dont know nearly as much about film, i do like a lot of film but am stll no expert. this has introduced me to some great films like the searchers (an absolute masterpiece). that is kind of the thing, though: the searchers is a masterpiece about texans in the late 1800s and vanilla sky is a millionare in 2000 being humbled. film has this great ability to touch on peoples lives throughout cultures and histories.
@M. Thanks for the comment here. You’re all in on Vanilla Sky. I think it’s a great film but it didn’t crack my top 100 of the 2000’s so we’re a ways off here. No doubt this is the reason for the two of us differing on Cameron Crowe’s worth as an auteur/director on this list. I’m at #117 here and it’ll be quite awhile before I get to Crowe- I’m sorry.
I don’t think you have a Guru Dutt film in the archives. He is around 240ish in the TSPDT directors list, should be a hundred spots higher at least.
Dutt has currently two films in the TSPDT 1000. Pyassa (1957) at 463, the 10th best film of the year. And Kaagaz ke Phool (1959), at 763, making it the 12th best film of the year. Wrong. Both are 100-200 spots too low and are easily among the Top 5 films of their respective years.
Other than that we have Baazi (1951), Jaal (1952) and Mr.and Mrs 55 (1955) which make the top 10 of their respective years.
You are a better judge of films than I am, but I am sold on Dutt. He was a better filmmaker than Ray, even if he doesn’t have the resume to match him. He acted in most of his films, and his partnership with Waheeda Rehman is very important for Indian Cinema. Rehman is a top 50 actress, more on that some time later. Do check Dutt out while you are doing the directors, though.
While we are it, do watch Chaudhavin ka Chand (1960) and Sahab Biwi or Ghulam (1962), he didn’t direct them but star him and Rehman in the lead roles.
@AP– very interesting. Guru Dutt wasn’t previously on my radar and you’re correct- I haven’t seen a single film. Thanks for the recommendation- I’ll add it to my list.
My ranking of Vidor`s films that I`ve seen:
1. The Crowd MS
2. The Big Parade MS
3. Stella Dallas HR/MS
4. Duel in the Sun HR
5. The Fountainhead HR
6. War and Peace R