50 Facts About John Frankenheimer

1.

John Frankenheimer became a pioneer of the "modern-day political thriller", having begun his career at the height of the Cold War.

2.

John Frankenheimer was technically highly accomplished from his days in live television; many of his films were noted for creating "psychological dilemmas" for his male protagonists along with having a strong "sense of environment," similar in style to films by director Sidney Lumet, for whom he had earlier worked as assistant director.

3.

John Frankenheimer developed a "tremendous propensity for exploring political situations" which would ensnare his characters.

4.

John Frankenheimer was born in Queens, New York City, the son of Helen Mary and Walter Martin John Frankenheimer, a stockbroker.

5.

John Frankenheimer's father was of German Jewish descent, his mother was Irish Catholic, and Frankenheimer was raised in his mother's religion.

6.

John Frankenheimer recollects his early apprenticeship with the Air Force photography unit as one of almost unlimited freedom.

7.

John Frankenheimer's first film was a documentary about an asphalt manufacturing plant in Sherman Oaks, California.

8.

Lieutenant John Frankenheimer recalls moonlighting, at $40-a-week, as writer, producer and cameraman making television infomercials for a local cattle breeder in Northridge, California, in which livestock were presented on the interior stage sets.

9.

John Frankenheimer's earnestness impressed Columbia Broadcasting System television executives, landing him a job in the summer of 1953 to serve as a director of photography on The Garry Moore Show.

10.

John Frankenheimer would tell you what he wanted and you would get it from the cameraman.

11.

In late 1954 John Frankenheimer replaced Lumet as director on You Are There and Danger under a 5-year contract.

12.

John Frankenheimer is widely considered a preeminent figure in the so-called "Golden Age of Television".

13.

John Frankenheimer's later fame, and his oft-repeated nostalgia for live television, have designated him as the quintessential exponent of the form: this is a crucial misconception.

14.

John Frankenheimer sought material and visual strategies that expanded the boundaries of what could be done in live television.

15.

John Frankenheimer recalled that he found his first film experience unsatisfactory:.

16.

John Frankenheimer initially adopts a cynical hostility towards the youths he investigates, which serves his own career aims.

17.

In 1962, the production and filming of Birdman of Alcatraz was already underway when United Artists enlisted John Frankenheimer to replace British director Charles Crichton.

18.

John Frankenheimer emphatically rejected the offer when he learned that Piaf's songs would be sung in English, rather than in the original French.

19.

John Frankenheimer became the first filmmaker to acknowledge television's roles in modern society as an intrusion upon privacy and as a tool by which the powerful manipulate others.

20.

Biographer Gerald Pratley offers this appraisal of John Frankenheimer's handling of the complex series of train sequences, discerning the influence of Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein:.

21.

John Frankenheimer acknowledged his difficulty in casting for the elderly and demoralized Arthur Hamilton, which required the director to convincingly show his metamorphosis, both surgically and physiologically, into the youthful and artistic Tony Wilson.

22.

At John Frankenheimer's urging, Paramount executives agreed to enter Seconds at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, hoping the film might confer prestige on the studio and enhance box office returns.

23.

John Frankenheimer incorporated split-screens to juxtapose documentary-like interviews of the racers with high-speed action shots on the track.

24.

John Frankenheimer approached his film adaption of Bernard Malamud's The Fixer with alacrity, obtaining the galleys for the 1966 novel in advance of its publication.

25.

John Frankenheimer should have shown us his hero's suffering, and the Kafkaesque legal tortures of the state, without commenting on them.

26.

In 1968, Kennedy asked John Frankenheimer to make some commercials for use in the presidential campaign, at which he hoped to become the Democratic candidate.

27.

The film failed to find an audience, but John Frankenheimer claimed it was one of his favorites.

28.

John Frankenheimer followed this with I Walk the Line in 1970.

29.

The film tested very highly, and Paramount and John Frankenheimer had high expectations for it, but it was not a hit.

30.

John Frankenheimer is quoted in Champlin's biography as saying that his alcohol problem caused him to do work that was below his own standards on Prophecy, an ecological monster movie about a mutant grizzly bear terrorizing a forest in Maine.

31.

In 1981, John Frankenheimer travelled to Japan to shoot the cult martial-arts action film The Challenge, with Scott Glenn and Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune.

32.

John Frankenheimer told Champlin that his drinking became so severe while shooting in Japan that he actually drank on set, which he had never done before, and as a result he entered rehab on returning to America.

33.

In 1985, John Frankenheimer directed an adaptation of the Robert Ludlum bestseller The Holcroft Covenant, starring Michael Caine.

34.

John Frankenheimer directed two films for HBO in 1994: Against the Wall and The Burning Season that won him several awards and renewed acclaim.

35.

John Frankenheimer was said to be unable to stand Val Kilmer, the young co-star of the film and whose disruption had reportedly led to the removal of Stanley half a week into production.

36.

John Frankenheimer earlier had an uncredited cameo as a TV director in his 1977 film Black Sunday.

37.

John Frankenheimer was scheduled to direct Exorcist: The Beginning, but it was announced before filming started that he was withdrawing, citing health concerns.

38.

John Frankenheimer was born into a politically conservative family and attended a Catholic military academy.

39.

John Frankenheimer served as a junior officer in the US Air Force during the Korean War.

40.

John Frankenheimer came of age during the height of the Red Scare and the Anti-Communist House Un-American Activities Committee investigations during the early 1950s, a period that saw the blacklisting of left-wing filmmakers and screenwriters by the Hollywood studios.

41.

John Frankenheimer really wanted the status quo, and I didn't want the status quo.

42.

John Frankenheimer worked and apparently thrived within this overall artistic and ideological framework.

43.

When John Frankenheimer began pre-production on his political thriller Seven Days in May in the summer of 1963, he approached Kennedy's press secretary, Pierre Salinger, to arrange to film a segment on location in vicinity of the White House.

44.

Kennedy approved the picture and accommodated John Frankenheimer by withdrawing to his home in Hyannisport for the weekend during the White House shoot.

45.

John Frankenheimer was devastated by RFK's assassination in June 1968, due in part to his proximity to the event.

46.

John Frankenheimer had first been scheduled to accompany Kennedy through the Ambassador Hotel after the candidate's victory speech in the California primaries.

47.

Traumatized by the event, John Frankenheimer withdrew from politics, and after completing The Gypsy Moths moved to France to study the culinary arts.

48.

John Frankenheimer became identified more and more as an "action director" with competent and uninspired works such as French Connection II and Black Sunday.

49.

The moving image collection of John Frankenheimer is held at the Academy Film Archive.

50.

John Frankenheimer is a member of the Television Hall of Fame, and was inducted in 2002.