And much like Sidney Lumet, director John Frankenheimer (1930 - 2002) would spend most of the 1950s directing live televisual drama and with his contribution of standout episodes for the series Climax! and Danger it was clear there was a thoroughbred at the helm. His film career would commence in earnest with 1961's The Young Savages;a hysterical study of teenage angst and juvenile delinquency. This would inspire a quintet of films association with Burt Lancaster who just so happened to be an avid fan of Frankenheimer himself and would even entreat him as replacement director for Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and the subsequent The Train (1964).
Frankenheimer's most notable period would come in the 1960s which yielded a number of films each with a distinctively contemporary edge - All Fall Down (1962) would revisit the teenage theme with a side-swipe at American maternal possessiveness, undoubtedly personified by Angela Lansbury. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) again starred Angela, this time as a communist agent who uses her son (Laurence Harvey) in a devious stratagem to kill the President and take over the White House; and Seven Days in May (1964), which portrayed a right-wing military coup.
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| Warren Beatty and Eva Marie Saint in Frankenheimer's All Fall Down (1962) |
Frankenheimer's career sadly declined with an over long motor racing film; Grand Prix (1966) despite its ambition of featuring real-life Formula One drivers, Saul Bass' contribution to its cinematography,an omnipotent cast and three Oscars awarded for technical achievements. Seconds, which was released the same year - a seemingly telepathic vision of the consumer society which a touch of Bacchanalia starring a psychedelic Rock Hudson. A thoughtful adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh in 1973 was perhaps one of his most achieved efforts of the 1970s; a decade which consisted of the underwhelming sequel to the French Connection in 1975, a capable thriller Black Sunday, a pretentious horror film, Prophecy (1979) and a tardy addition to the martial arts genre with 1982's The Challenge.