Okay, trying to do a mea culpa for my last thread attempt.


Many film directors passed away with their final work being somewhat lackluster compared to previous ones. I would like to see what we think would have been a fitting end to the careers of late directors as well as what was their actual last film.

Sam Peckinpah

Actual: The Osterman Weekend (never seen this, but I thought it might have been Convoy, which would have been a true disgrace).

Should Have Been: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia- kept his trademark style and didn't seem like a money grab

John Frankenheimer

Actual: Reindeer Games- I think this says enough

Should Have Been: Ronin- same as above, it would have been a great cap off to his work

Stanley Kubrick

Actual: Eyes Wide Shut- not a bad note, but kind of lackluster IMO

Should Have Been: Full Metal Jacket-while I was happy to see a Kubrick movie in the theater, the way this ends with the Stones' "Paint It Black" after the soldiers march into the darkness makes it a perfect ending to more than just a movie. At least IMO.

Sorry but IMO Eyes Wide Shut is 10 times the movie Full Metal Jacket is.
I don't mean to denigrate FMJ, it is a great film, but EWS is in a different league.
One day EWS will be recognized for the masterpiece that it is.

I agree that EWS is gorssly underrated. Man, the mood that movie creates alone is worth it. I think it got dragged down by all the Cruise-Kidman tabloid BS at the time and people just decided they didn't want to like it. I've loved it since the first time I saw it.

I have to agree that Eyes Wide Shut is a much better film than Full Metal Jacket.

Like all Kubrick movies, Eyes Wide Shut benefits from repeat viewings, and I think it benefits the most from a second viewing than any of his other movies. But I would have preferred to see A.I. be his final film. He was working on it for so long. It would have been something to see him finally get it onto the screen. I think his vision would have been better than what we got from Spielberg, though I don't hate his version of it.

As far as another filmmaker, I will mention Hitchcock. I think Frenzy would have been a far better end to his career than Family Plot. It was a great film that had many classic Hitchcock touches but also showed him updating his style a little bit for the changing times. The violence was more graphic than his other films, and he even included nudity for the first time. It showed that even a master filmmaker like Hitchcock wasn't afraid to grow later in his career. Plus, the film represented a return to England for Hitchcock. It would have been fitting to have his final film made there. I've always been a really big fan of Frenzy and have been surprised it never seems to get more attention.

This was my example as well, except I am glad that A.I. was not his final film.

When I saw the thread title, Frankenheimer was the first to come to mind. I wish Ronin was his last, alas he did Reindeer Games. Sad endcap to a great career.

John Hughes

Actual Final:

Curly Sue. (Absolutely unfunny and godawful)

Should Have Been:

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. (An absolute comedy masterpiece)

Completely agree. If A.I. was a film directed by Stanley Kubrick, I think it would've been a sci-fi masterpiece. As a film directed by Steven Spielberg, it's an interesting film, but a bit too sentimental in execution.

(I think only the teddy bear came across as being Kubrick-like.)

actually...it was probably going to be more sentimental if Kubrick did it from what the features say. Spielberg was the one that made it a bit more serious and darker. He kept peppering more serious stuff in it.

Tony Scott-I think Man on Fire would have been a great ending to his career. Pretty much all of his non-Bruckheimer produced stuff seemed a bit edgier.

I think William Friedkin will go out on a high note with Killer Joe.

His last, UNSTOPPABLE, is my favorite film of his (after TRUE ROMANCE).

Other directors:

John Ford
Actual: SEVEN WOMEN
Should have been: CHEYENNE AUTUMN

Howard Hawks
Actual: RIO LOBO
Should have been: EL DORADO

Billy Wilder
Actual: BUDDY, BUDDY
Should have been: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

Robert Aldrich
Actual: ...ALL THE MARBLES
Should have been: THE CHOIRBOYS

Don Siegel
Actual: JINXED
Should have been: ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ

Unstoppable was terrible.

Crimson Tide would've been a better last movie.

Sydney Lumet had a vast filmography, and Before the Devil Knows Your Dead seems like a somewhat fitting end, but I think it would have been better if he hung it up after 82's The Verdict. Most of his stuff from then until his last was crap.

Except for Q & A and Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, I have to agree that after The Verdict the quality of his material dropped.

Ash Ketchum picked most of the ones I would have been after - Ford and Hawks particularly had rather desultory ends to their careers. With regard to Ford I don't have a great regard for Cheyenne Autumn. Some of the performances are good but it just goes on forever. I think as an elegic finale The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance would have been a better end for Ford.

Anyway, a few other directors who I feel did not do their best work at the end of their careers;


Frank Capra

Actual: Pocketful of Miracles
Should Have Been: It's a Wonderfyl Life (sad that he lived until 1991 but did nothing worthwhile after 1946).


William Wyler

Actual: The Liberation of L.B. Jones
Should Have Been: How to Steal a Million (I know not many like this film but it has long been a personal favourite of mine.)


Fritz Lang

Actual: The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
Should Have Been: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt


Elia Kazan

Actual: The Last Tycoon
Should Have Been: America, America


Charles Chaplin

Actual: A Countess From Hong Kong
Should Have Been: Limelight


Orson Welles
Actual: Filming Othello
Should Have Been: Chimes at Midnight


Richard Brooks
Actual: Fever Pitch
Should Have Been: In Cold Blood


David Lean
Actual: A Passage to India
Should Have Been: Doctor Zhivago

You should see The Osterman Weekend. I've only ever seen it once and it's been many years ago, but I remember liking it enough that I still want to add it to my collection. Not a bad spy movie. -kd5-

Jean Pierre Melville

Actual: 'Un Flic' - not terrible, but not up to Melville.
Should have been: 'Le Cercle Rouge' - one of the best films ever made, and my favorite Melville. A true master like Melville should have gone out on 'Rouge'.

Even this many years later I still want to punch that little girl in the face.

No one listed Geoge Lucas? Star Wars (1977) should have been his last film. That way he wouldn't have raped your childhood with the many incarnations after it or the prequels.

This is what Curly Sue looks like now, kinda meh.

http://www.people.com/people/article...576998,00.html

The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is pretty great. A fitting end IMO.

George Lucas isn't dead.

He is to me.