The day the cinema stood still.

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.
• Position: REEL WORLD - Robert Wise - Biography

"[Robert] Wise brought a consistent auteur mindset to a wide assortment of genres. However, film history often has given him the lefthanded compliment of simply being a great "craftsman.' Auteur status more readily is apparent if one focuses upon a single genre, such as an Alfred Hitchcock thriller or a John Ford Western.... "

THIS YEAR MARKS the 60th anniversary of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," perhaps the most iconic movie of director Robert Wise. This populist sci-fi classic, sort of Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) meets flying saucers, is a landmark anti-nuclear warning from a Christ-like alien (Hugh Marlowe), who assumes the earthly name of Carpenter. Wise was involved in creating countless watershed films, starting with his Academy Award-nominated editing of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" (1941). Because his initial home studio was the modest RKO, he was allowed to move into directing at a time when a caste-like situation existed at the major film factories.

Wise is best known for producing and directing two of the most memorable movie musicals in cinema history, "West Side Story" (co-director Jerome Robbins, 1961) and "The Sound of Music" (1965), for which he won four Oscars--two each for Best Picture and Best Director. Other than Howard Hawks, Wise arguably is Hollywood's most versatile director of various celebrated genre films. For instance, his roots in horror go back to his tutelage under producer Val Lewton, with Wise directing Boris Karloff's chilling "The Body Snatcher" (1945) for Lewton. Years later, Wise brilliantly adopted a Shirley Jackson novel as a homage to Lewton, "The Haunting" (1963). No less an aficionado than Stephen King later would give Jackson's novel (The Haunting of Hill House) and the film his highest praise in his nonfiction study of horror, Danse Macabre.

Other pivotal pictures by Wise often qualify for unique status in two genres. "The Set-Up" (1949), for instance, is a compelling example of film noir, as well as possibly the best boxing picture ever made. Director Martin Scorsese, a huge fan of Wise's work, made his fight fill "Raging Bull" (1980) distinctly different from "The Set-Up" in order to avoid comparisons with Wise's effort.

Along similar multiple genre lines, Wise's "I Want to Live!" (1958, for which Susan Hayward won an Academy Award for Best Actress) is both a biography film of convicted murderer Barbara Graham, and a gutsy "problem movie" against capital punishment...