It never occurred to young Robert Wise, watching three or four dime-matinees a week while growing up in Indiana, that he might become a part of the magical world of the movies.
“I grew up in a small town called Connorsville, population 12,500,” Wise recalls. “We had three movie houses. The cheap one had westerns and melodramas, and the biggest one — where they used to do vaudeville in the old days — had an orchestra pit. I loved films and used to go as often as I had change in my pocket. My favorite was Doug Fairbanks.”
He entered nearby Franklin College with aspirations to be a journalist, but fate had other plans. That passion for movies had taken permanent root and would grow into a legendary, 65-year Hollywood career.
Now 83, the director has received almost every major industry honor and the president’s National Medal of the Arts. In February, he added the crown jewel of film prizes to his collection when he received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. The 39 films he directed have earned 69 Academy Award nominations and won 19 Oscars. That includes four Oscars he personally won for producing and directing “The Sound of Music” and “West Side Story.”
The immense popularity of Wise’s musicals has sometimes overshadowed the wider scope of his work. There are the socially trenchant dramas “I Want to Live!” and “The Sand Pebbles.” The sci-fi classics “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “The Andromeda Strain.” The cult favorite “Curse of the Cat People.” The classic film noir fight film “The Set-Up,” based on a narrative poem that takes place in real time.
His cutting-edge western “Blood on the Moon,” starring Robert Mitchum, will be screened at 10 p.m. Tuesday on the AMC cable channel, preceded at 9 p.m. by “Moviemakers: Robert Wise,” a documentary airing as part of its “Reel to Reel” series. The AMC tribute comes on the heels of Wise’s unique achievement on the AFI’s recent list of the best 100 films of the century. “The Sound of Music” and “West Side Story” made the cut, and Wise also edited the list’s No. 1 film, “Citizen Kane,” a feat that established his reputation in Hollywood.
Yet despite this wide-ranging success, the word modesty seems to recur whenever Wise’s name is raised.
“His modesty is monumental,” said screenwriter Nelson Gidding in Sergio Leeman’s book “Robert Wise on His Films.”
“With all his fame, he’s remained rather humble,” Victor Kemper, former president of the American Society of Cinematographers, said when presenting Wise with the society’s Governors Award for “extraordinary influence on the art of filmmaking.”
So it seems fitting that although his films made inroads technically, marking the first time a director used location filmmaking and hand-held cameras in a musical, it was the humanity of the movies that endeared Wise to the hearts of moviegoers.
He also has the respect of his peers.
Director Martin Scorsese, who won the American Film Institute’s award in 1997, calls “The Set-Up” extraordinary. “It influenced `Raging Bull’ because of the fight scenes,” he said.
Like Scorsese, Oliver Stone actively campaigned for Wise to receive this year’s honor. “I respect Robert because he’s done every genre,” he said. “I supported him because he represents the American tradition of excellence and honesty and integrity. He’s been a lifelong practitioner of those virtues. In a sense, he was the Steve Spielberg of his
time.”
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In 1933, the nation’s failing economy forced the grocery store owned by Wise’s father out of business. That meant 19-year-old Wise had to leave college to earn a living. He drove west with his older brother David, who had nailed down a job in the accounting department at RKO Studios in Hollywood five years earlier. Wise soon began working as a film porter, an imaginative euphemism for messenger.
“Somebody decided he could use a kid to carry the prints from the projection room up to the executives. That was my break,” Wise recalled recently.
Wise’s 15-year apprenticeship at RKO during its glory days proved invaluable. He learned his craft within the studio system in the midst of a creative environment that produced film greats Orson Welles, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and George Stevens. Quickly advancing from messenger to assistant sound and music cutter, he became renowned for his hard work.
Next the studio made him an apprentice to one of the masters of the editing room — Billy Hamilton. Hamilton taught Wise that “pace is not necessarily just length, it’s interest.”
His work editing “Citizen Kane” and other films later would serve him well as a director. “I think editors know so much about how to tell a story with pictures,” said Scorsese. “It’s such an important facet of becoming a film director to know how footage can be controlled and manipulated. Every one of his films betrayed that wonderful beginning that he had.”
Wise got the chance to cut his directing teeth with Val Lewton’s famous production unit on “Curse of the Cat People.” Gradually, he moved on from this moody fantasy to his realistic films with a social conscience and then the famous roadshows. These movies established his trademark: infinite versatility. No one ever accused Robert Wise of repeating himself.
The director’s work ethic is governed by “three P’s”: patience, passion and perseverance. Collectively, they result in a famed thoroughness which, along with his attention to detail, resulted in his consistent credibility.
When he made “I Want To Live!,” he witnessed an execution at San Quentin to prepare for the chilling portrayal of Barbara Graham’s execution. Such authenticity, he says, is the key to capturing an audience.
“It’s important to get the audience hooked on the story and the characters as early as you can and never let them go,” he said.
While he chaired AFI’s Center for Advanced Film Studies, Wise advised students that story is more important than technique. It is a valuable lesson in a field where elaborate special effects often mask weak content.
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How does the man behind such a long and rich career want to be remembered?
“I hope for the consistently fairly high quality of the films I made over the years,” he said. “I still get letters,” he added, pointing with pride to the fan mail on his desk.
The sizable stack of letters–like his awards–is a testimony to the director’s ability to make films with lasting appeal. According to those colleagues closest to him, the reason for that endurance is inextricably linked to Robert Wise himself. His films are a true outgrowth of his beliefs, and that gives them staying power.
“Bob really cares about a fair and wonderful world, moral values, and the rights of artists,” writes Arthur Hiller, current president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in the forward to Leeman’s book. “And not only does he care, he does something about it. Bob is the definition of `one of a kind.’ It would be a gain for all of us if we had more Robert Wises in the world.”
