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Michael Ritchie |
Richie never recaptured the glory of his amazing start in movies
By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
IT'S ALWAYS a shock when you learn that someone your own age has died--especially when that someone always seemed so young and vital, like the director Michael Ritchie, who died April 16 at age 62 after battling prostate cancer.
Ritchie was the first successful filmmaker my own age that I befriended during my years as a journalist covering movies and television. We met in 1972 when we got together for lunch to discuss his new film "The Candidate" in San Francisco and hit it off. He was an enormously tall man, very genial and extremely intelligent.
After we'd talked out his new film, we got to schmoozing about film in general and I told him about meeting Alfred Hitchcock, who was one of Ritchie's directorial inspirations. When he learned I was going to a critics screening of Hitch's new film, "Frenzy," that afternoon, Ritchie asked if I could get him into the screening.
We wound up seeing "Frenzy" together and disagreeing sharply over its quality. I thought it was the best thing Hitch had done in years, but Ritchie thought it was a lesser work and lacked in too many areas. Ritchie told me he'd always wanted to pay his respects to Hitchcock on the screen--and he certainly didn't waste any time fulfilling that ambition: His very next film was "Prime Cut" (1972), a Hitch-style thriller with Gene Hackman and Lee Marvin that included Ritchie's own salute to Hitchcock--a brilliant suspense scene in a large field filled with waving sunflowers.
My respect for Ritchie's opinion was very high then because I thought he was on the way to becoming one of the best new directors in Hollywood. I wasn't the only one who thought that after seeing his debut film "Downhill Racer" with Robert Redford, "The Candidate," also with Redford, and then "Smile," the wickedly satirical comedy about a teen beauty contest in small town America (actually Marin County and its environs).
But I think it's now generally recognized that Ritchie's greatest successes were his small personal films like those mentioned above. As soon as he began to get major film assignments and had box office hits like "The Bad News Bears" and "Semi-Tough," his style seemed to become more conventional and the bloom suddenly was off his rose. It didn't help that he also made some truly awful films like "The Island" and "The Survivors."
The last time I spoke with Ritchie was in 1993 when he returned to television, where he'd begun his Hollywood career, and directed one of the wittiest, most entertaining films of its day--"The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom" with Holly Hunter for HBO.
At that time, Ritchie wasn't inclined to be too philosophical about the way his career had gone and, out of respect for him, I didn't exactly grill him on the question most critics wanted to ask him: "What the hell happened to you in the 1980s and does this great new film mean you're going back to basics?"
Now that he's gone, "Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom" seems more like the coda for his career, a bookend with "Downhill Racer" at the other end, setting the boundaries for a career that ultimately never fulfilled its early promise.
What Ritchie did better than any of his contemporaries in the 1970s was blend reality with fiction in a very naturalistic, almost semi-documentary style. There was nothing else like "Downhill Racer," "The Candidate" and "Smile" in their day--and they still seem remarkably original and fresh. Each is a genuine classic.
Ritchie began directing at Harvard and launched his professional career auspiciously by doing the first stage production of Arthur Kopit's "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad," a sensation in its day. He directed for TV's "Omnibus," did episodic TV shows like "The Big Valley," "Dr. Kildare" and "The Man from UNCLE" as well as a few TV movies.
The bonding of actor Redford and Ritchie was fortuitous for both. Redford always has been a supporter of promising new filmmakers, but Ritchie returned the favor by giving Redford two showcase films that helped convince many critics this was a formidable actor and not just a pretty boy leading man-type.
"Downhill Racer" is memorable for its hard-nosed look at an obsessed Olympic skiier, played by Redford. My favorite remains "The Candidate," though, which I consider the best political film ever made. Redford is sensational as a young Kennedyesque senatorial candidate in this very insightful film, one of the first to take us behind the scenes of a very credible election campaign.
For those two films, for "Smile" and for "Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom," Ritchie was working with really creative and unconventional screenplays, written by people who weren't part of the Hollywood crowd. The more successful he became, the more Ritchie began to direct "star vehicles" for comics like Eddie Murphy ("Golden Child"), Chevy Chase ("Fletch") and Dan Ackroyd ("The Couch Trip"), with pedestrian results.
Still, anyone who directed the classic films Ritchie made, continues to deserve our attention. I hope his great films will be revived time and again because I guarantee they'll reward any audience that sees them.
© 2001 by Ron Miller.
You can comment on this column or contact Ron Miller with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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