John frankenheimer

Born in New York, United States, on February 19, 1930, John Michael Frankenheimer was the son of a Jewish father and an Irish mother who raised him in the Catholic faith. A graduate of Williams College, Williamston, Massachusetts, he got accepted into the Air Force film department for the Korean War. During that time he was commissioned to make documentary films about the conflict.

Back in his country, Frankenheimer got a job as a director at CBS, an emerging television network at the time, and he trained as a director in series like You Are There , Playhouse 90 , Studio One , Climax! or Danger, which were sometimes recorded live. Hence, over time, Frankenheimer is considered a key filmmaker of the so-called Television Generation, along with Robert Mulligan , Arthur Penn , Sidney Lumet , Martin Ritt and others.

He started in the cinema converting a script for an episode of the Climax! , in the film A Strange Young Man , from 1957, with James MacArthur as a rebellious young man who torments his father, a film producer. But the director’s jump to the big screen remained an isolated experience, since he decided to stay on television for a few years.

He returns to the cinema in 1961 withThe young savages , one of his best works, although it hardly had an impact at the box office, since it dealt with the controversial issue of the application of the death penalty to adolescents, specifically three Italians accused of murdering a blind man. The prosecutor begins to investigate on his behalf, because he believes in his innocence. This one was played by Burt Lancaster, who was impressed by the visual imagination of the filmmaker. One afternoon, the actor found the camera on the ground, and tried to pick it up, but the filmmaker told him that he had put it there on purpose to shoot a shot. Lancaster took notice of Frankenheimer’s risk-taking ability, and was so impressed that he would return to command him four more times. The actor was nominated for an Oscar, and although the film was up for three other awards, the Academy completely forgot about Frankenheimer, not only on that occasion, but also for the rest of his career.

It also had a background of criticism, in this case of the prison system, his next work, The Man from Alcatraz, possibly the roundest film of the director. Lancaster does a memorable job as a 43-year prison sentencer whose life is changed by birds to the point that he becomes a respected ornithologist. Then came the vibrant war film The Train , with Lancaster as a resistance hero trying to stop a German colonel (a great Paul Scofield ) from taking valuable works of art from Paris. Perhaps the most poignant and controversial Lancaster-Frankenheimer collaboration was Seven Days in May , about a group of disenchanted military men who, fearful of Soviet dominance, decide to stage a coup (the cast also includes the incomparable Kirk Douglas , Fredric Marchand Ava Gardner ). The tandem with Lancaster ended with the less brilliant film, Los temerarios del aire , although despite being as light as the air itself, it had some truly spectacular skydiving sequences.

Another well-rounded political thriller from the director’s early days is undoubtedly The Messenger of Fear (1962), about a sergeant ( Laurence Harvey ) and a major ( Frank Sinatra ), who are captured in Korea and subjected to brainwashing. The second suffers nightmares and receives the order to assassinate one of the presidential candidates. Especially haunting is the work of Angela Lansbury, as the Machiavellian mother of Laurence Harvey’s character. The film took a long time to be released, according to rumors because it was feared that it had similarities with the plot to assassinate President Kennedy, although the real problem was economic with Frank Sinatra.

Divorced from Carolyn Miller, with whom he had two children, Frankenheimer was married from 1963 until the end of his days, with Evans Evans, an actress with titles like Bonnie and Clyde .

Frankenheimer ended the 1960s with good products like The Man from Kiev –about a Jewish farmer accused of murder in Russia–, the science fiction film Diabolical Plan –with Rock Hudsonwho resorts to a company capable of prolonging his life by changing his body– and the spectacular Grand Prix car film .

Thus, at the time Frankenheimer was shooting I Watch the Road , a drama with Gregory Peck from 1970, he had a brilliant career and promised to become one of the greats. In the 70s he delivered some title of interest, such as The Iceman –adaptation of the work by Eugene O’Neill– , the chilling and essential thriller Black Sunday –about a Palestinian terrorist preparing an attack on the Super Bowl– or French Connection II , pleasant continuation of the film by William Friedkin.

But during the preparation of Cursed Prophecy, the director had serious problems with alcohol, to the point that he reduced his professional activity. In addition, films like The challenge of the samurai , The pact of Berlin , 52 lives or dies and Deadly shot are very far from previous works. He hit bottom with The Island of Dr. Moreau , a poor remake of the HG Wells novel , with Marlon Brando in one of his worst works.

At the end of his career, one can see in Frankenheimer the desire to redeem himself, to demonstrate (like a doctor in La diligencia or a lawyer in Final Verdict) that he could do great things, despite the alcoholism that had destroyed his life. The opportunity comes when he is put in charge of Ronin , a theoretically light action thriller, with a script co-written by David Mamet under a pseudonym, and to which Frankenheimer endows with persecutions and front-line action sequences, recovering the enthusiasm of the most moviegoers. .

He ended his run with the irregular Operation Reindeer , and the proper Road to War , which marked his return to political thriller. He was about to prepare The Exorcist: The Beginning when he died in Los Angeles of complications after spinal surgery on July 6, 2002.