Directors Of The Saddle- John Sturges

[ethanedwards]

JOHN STURGESS

..

Information from IMDB

Date of Birth
3 January 1910, Oak Park, Illinois, USA

Date of Death
18 August 1992, San Luis Obispo, California, USA (heart attack and emphysema)

Birth Name
John Elliott Sturges

Spouse
Dorothy Lynn Brooks (5 January 1945 - ?) (divorced)

Trivia

The Magnificent Seven (1960) was a major inspiration for Stephen King when writing his fifth Dark Tower novel, Wolves of the Calla. In reference to the film's director, King named the beleaguered farming village Calla Bryn Sturgis.

John Sturges was the original director for Wild Is the Wind (1957), but on March 15, 1957, only a week before the shooting was scheduled to begin, he withdrew from the film due to illness, according to contemporary news items. George Cukor took over direction and stated years later in a interview that Sturges left the project to replace Fred Zinnemannon The Old Man and the Sea (1958), but a Cukor biography states that Sturges left the project when it became apparent that the film would be more of a love story than an action picture.

Directed 2 actors to Oscar nominations: Louis Calhern (Best Actor, The Man with Thirty Sons (1950) and Spencer Tracy (Best Actor, Bad Day at Black Rock (1955); The Old Man and the Sea (1958)

Mini- Biography
He started his career in Hollywood as an editor in 1932. During World War II, he directed documentaries and training films for the US Army Air Corps. Sturges's mainstream directorial career began in 1946 with The Man Who Dared, the first of many B-movies. He made imaginative use of the widescreen CinemaScope format by placing Spencer Tracy alone against a vast desert panorama in the suspense film Bad Day at Black Rock for which he received a Best Director Oscar nomination in 1955. Over the course of his career, Sturges developed a reputation for elevated character-based drama within the confines of genre filmmaking. He was awarded the Golden Boot Award in 1992 for his lifetime contribution to Westerns.

He once met with Akira Kurosawa, who told him that he loved The Magnificent Seven (which was a remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai) and presented him with a samurai sword. Sturges considered this the proudest moment of his professional career.

His biography, Escape Artist: The Life and Films of John Sturges by Glenn Lovell (former film critic for the San Jose Mercury News) was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2008.

Filmography

Director
1976 The Eagle Has Landed
1974 McQ
1973 Valdez the Halfbreed
1972 Joe Kidd
1969 Marooned
1968 Ice Station Zebra
1967 Hour of the Gun
1965 The Hallelujah Trail
1965 The Satan Bug
1963 The Great Escape
1962 A Girl Named Tamiko
1962 Sergeants 3
1961 By Love Possessed
1960 The Magnificent Seven
1959 Never So Few
1959 Last Train from Gun Hill
1958 The Old Man and the Sea
1958 The Law and Jake Wade
1958 Saddle the Wind (uncredited)
1957 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
1956 Backlash
1955 The Scarlet Coat
1955 Underwater!
1955 Bad Day at Black Rock
1953 Escape from Fort Bravo
1953 Fast Company
1953 Jeopardy
1952 So Bright the Flame
1951 It's a Big Country
1951 The People Against O'Hara
1951 Kind Lady
1950 The Man with Thirty Sons
1950 Right Cross
1950 Mystery Street
1950 The Capture
1949 The Ford Theatre Hour (TV series) – Kind Lady (1949)
1949 The Walking Hills
1948 Best Man Wins
1948 The Sign of the Ram
1947 Thunderbolt (documentary short) (as Capt John Sturges)
1947 Keeper of the Bees
1947 For the Love of Rusty
1946 Alias Mr. Twilight
1946 Shadowed
1946 The Man Who Dared

Producer
1973 Valdez the Halfbreed
1967 Hour of the Gun
1965 The Hallelujah Trail
1965 The Satan Bug
1963 The Great Escape
1960 The Magnificent Seven

[ethanedwards]

Although John Sturges made only 1 movie with Duke

McQ ..1974

He was to direct some of our favourites and some all time greats like,
Gunfight at OK Corral and others.
Probably his two biggest triumphs being
The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape

Actor Julie Adams (Duke's ex-wife in McQ) said about the new strong director

Wayne didn't try to take over...He appeared to have a great deal of respect
for John Sturges, and they seemed to get along well..

.

[ringo kid]

it's a pity john wayne did'nt make a western with john sturges in the 40's or 50's.all of his westerns in the 50's are high quailty.

[Gorch]

That is one impressive list!
At the end of McQ, the Eddie Albert character offers McQ his badge back if he wants to continue investigating narcotics. Wayne refused to play that scene which implied that city hall was corrupt. He was supposed to say something like - Toms (Clu Gulager) was too small to have plotted on his own, that someone higher up was pulling the strings.
This was during Watergate and Wayne was friends with Nixon. When shooting came, Duke ignored the script and simply said - Let's get a drink.



We deal in lead, friend.