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Robert Wise: Directors
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Wise, like Robson, started as a director making chillers for Val Lewton. When the low-budget RKO producer became dissatisfied with the work of Gunther von Fritsch on the dreamlike Curse of the Cat People (1944), he replaced him with Wise, who was editing the film. Though he shared the credit with Von Fritsch, Wise directed most of this tale of terror, whose title had little to do with the film.
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The next major figure in cinema history that Wise worked for was horror maestro Val Lewton. A B-unit producer, Lewton gave Wise his first opportunity to officially direct, having him step up from editor to the director's chair on the low-budgeted Curse of the Cat People (1944).
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Some critics have unfairly charged Wise with an inability to create and sustain a personal style. This is an unfair and unconscionable dismissal of his obvious talent. It should come as no surprise that not all directors have their own mark on a film, or a signature that is unquestionably authentic, for the simple fact that not all directors have the luxury of being an auteur. A film by Dario Argento might, at best, be mistaken for Mario Bava, but no one else can possibly be mistaken for David Cronenberg, cinema’s greatest visual scientist. For the most part Argento's visual style is unmistakably his own, and this is definitely the case for Cronenberg. The same is true for Martin Scorsese, a director who has worked almost exclusively with volatile characters and dangerous environments but in later years has softened up a bit. But as both Argento and Cronenberg work in horror and Scorsese works in suppressed emotions, which often explode of course, Robert Wise has worked in many different genres and has suited each one of his films with the style that he felt was best for the story.
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Wise then began to bombard studio executives with requests to direct. In 1943, while he was editing "The Curse of the Cat People," the film's director was removed because the project was behind schedule. Wise was handed the job, and he completed it within the 10 allotted days. The movie went on to become a hit and has since become a cult classic.
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Originally, Wise had wanted to be a journalist. As a director, he often acted like one in his own mindset or imaginative outlet. He would pour research into his projects and it would show in his eyes: "...reporting the truth and the actuality of it,”
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[C]alled as assistant director to shoot additional scenes for Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, Wise took his first directing job with the stylish horror film The Curse of the Cat People in 1944, teaming with Hollywood horror producer/director Val Lewton. Lewton promoted Wise to his superiors at RKO, beginning a collaboration which would produce several notable horror films, among them The Body Snatcher starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, a film which in its acting direction deliberately evoked the groundbreaking horror films of the 1930s, while presenting a psychological horror film more in tune with the uncertainty of the 1940s.
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