A few quick items in response to that piece.  First, it was not about “bad directors” (although some were plain bad, including Aronofsky), but about overrated directors.  Alfred Hitchcock is nowhere near the worst director ever (I was probably too harsh to label him “slightly better than mediocre”), but it is a travesty to label him the greatest director of all time, as so many have.  The same holds true for David Lean (I appreciate Great Expectations, Brief Encounter, and swaths of Bridge Over the River Kwai, I just think he doesn’t deserve to make the top 20 list). Second, I neglected three directors who clearly should have made the list: Roman Polanski (somebody stop the Chinatown cult!), Spike Lee (how can he make race relations this dull?), and Tim Burton (damn you for ruining Sweeney Todd).  Third, two corrections:

(1) Rebecca and Suspicion are the same film, not Notorious and Rebecca; (2) the Orlando Bloom reference was to Black Hawk Down, not G.I. Jane, and I apologize for the obvious mix-up. 

Now, to the real question: the top-ten greatest directors of all time.  This is truly a rough decision – there are at least two score great directors who could make this list.  Here is my one basic criteria: directors who provide me the most viewing pleasure over the course of their career.  That means telling a great story in the best possible way.  Subjective?  Sure.  Deal with it.  I’ll admit that this list skews toward older directors, not because older movies are generally better than newer movies (though I think they are), but because directors in the period 1920-1960 generally made more movies, which means more opportunities for directors to shine. 

I’ll start by explaining why certain directors are not in the top ten. 

Francis Ford Coppola:  He had a period of unbelievable creative magic.  Within a ten year period, he made Finian’s Rainbow (1968), a charming musical; The Godfather (1972), which requires no commentary; The Conversation (1974), perhaps the creepiest movie ever made; The Godfather: Part II (1974), which matches its predecessor in quality; and Apocalypse Now (1979), a mad journey into the heart of darkness.  Then he was done.  How this talented filmmaker went from The Godfather to the atrocity that was Jack (1996) is utterly bewildering.  It was tough to keep him off the top ten list. It was even harder to boot someone from that list to make room for him. 

Peter Jackson:  I believe Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy to be the finest directorial effort of all time, surpassing even Citizen Kane.  That said, Jackson hasn’t done anything else.  King Kong was overlong and CGI-obsessed.  He has shown that he can produce with the best of them – District 9 is brilliant – but he needs to direct more great movies before he belongs in the top ten. 

Christopher Nolan: I believe Nolan will one day make the top-ten list.  He’s that talented.  Watch one of his early efforts, Following (1998) if you don’t believe me – on a budget of $6,000, he creates a taut thriller.  His last five movies have all been terrific: Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight. He is one of the few modern directors for whom I check the IMDB calendar to see when his next movie comes out.  I look forward to Inception with bated breath.  For now, however, it’s too early to chart his trajectory with certainty. 

Orson Welles:  Citizen Kane requires no explication – it is justifiably seen by many as the greatest directorial job ever.  His Othello is similarly creative and inspired.  The Magnificent Ambersons follows the pattern.  But Welles destroyed himself and his career, and the fates should never forgive him for wasting his unparalleled talent. 

Peter Weir:  I love Weir.  He is always creative and interesting.  Although I didn’t enjoy Master and Commander as much as others, The Truman Show, Fearless, and Gallipoli are all minor masterpieces.  As far as the top ten, my heart says maybe, my brain says no. 

Stanley Kubrick:  Overrated.  Yes, he directed the wonderful Paths of Glory, Spartacus, and Dr. Strangelove, but 2001: A Space Odyssey is an abomination, A Clockwork Orange doesn’t hold up, The Shining is made a parody by Jack Nicholson’s scenery-chewing. He’s inconsistent, and that’s what knocks him off the list, as it should. 

Vincente Minnelli:  The best director of musicals of all time came close to making the list, too.  Meet Me in St. Louis is delightful.  An American in Paris is a joy for the senses. The Band Wagon is the best parody of Broadway ever made; Brigadoon is pretty if unfaithful to the source material (they cut a couple of the best songs from the Broadway version); Gigi is gorgeous; Lust for Life is well-done.  Few directors have Minneli’s grasp of the music that film can be, the vibrancy that film can create.  Again, this is just a case of ten being too few to fit him. 

Fritz Lang:  M is the best foreign language film ever made.  Period.  It is tight and tense and incredibly driving.  Metropolis is fantastic too.  Perhaps if I’d seen more Lang, I’d put him up in the top ten (the only other films I’ve seen of his are Fury and The Big Heat), so I’ll claim ignorance here. 

Fred Zinneman: Perhaps the best conventional director of all time – a man who simply puts on camera what needs to be there.  He’s not the artist that any of the top ten are, but he did create The Day of the Jackal, A Man for All Seasons, Oklahoma!, From Here to Eternity, and High Noon, a list to be reckoned with. 

Victor Fleming:  How hard was it to come up with this list?  I had to leave off the guy who directed Captains Courageous, The Good Earth, The Wizard of Oz, some of Gone with the Wind, A Guy Named Joe, and Treasure Island.  He also directed lots of films that ain’t quite as great, so his percentage is what keeps him off the list. 

Stanley Donen: Stylistically, Donen was tops.  He directed On the Town, Singin’ in the Rain, Charade, Damn Yankees!, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Two for the Road.  The pure fun that is Seven Brides could put him on the top ten list.  But Donen just can’t knock anyone else off. 

Robert Rossen: His resume is simply too short.  Three fantastic movies: Body and Soul, All the King’s Men, The Hustler.  A great career.  Not a top ten one. 

John Huston: The best adventure director of all time, responsible for The Man Who Would Be King, Moby Dick, The African Queen, and The Maltese Falcon.  Again, not enough versatility to put him over the top. 

George Stevens:  Tough to keep off the list, tough to make room.  The Diary of Anne Frank, Shane, A Place in the Sun, I Remember Mama, Gunga Din – versatility, certainly, brilliance, certainly, sweetness, certainly.  Off the list?  Hesitantly, yes. 

The Top Ten Greatest Directors of All Time

10.  Steven Spielberg:  This will be the most controversial pick on the list, to be sure.  He’s got big hits, and he’s got big misses.  His hits are clearly terrific – Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler’s List, Jaws, Saving Private Ryan.  His misses are pure awfulness – A.I., 1941, The Terminal, and the misery that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Of late, far more misses than hits.  Still, that early canon of films, plus Schindler’s and Saving Private Ryan puts him over the top.  No better popcorn filmmaker has ever been born.  Yes, I hate his politics.  But his artistry, when he’s at the top of his game and when he’s comfortable with the script, is unmistakable.  Watch this scene again: 

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Nobody – nobody – directs action better.  And Schindler’s List proved he can do drama, too.  Is he the deepest guy on the list?  Nope.  Does he belong here?  I say, yes.  

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9.  Michael Curtiz:  How can I possibly put the man who directed the monstrous farce that is Mission to Moscow on this list?  Because he also directed Casablanca, the best movie of all time; White Christmas and Yankee Doodle Dandy, two of the best musicals; The Adventures of Robin Hood, one of the best adventure movies; Mildred Pierce, one of the best melodramas.  Other films: The Sea Wolf, Angels with Dirty Faces, and Captain Blood.  Renting his film canon, Mission to Moscow aside, is almost entirely wonderful. 

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8.  Ingmar Bergman:  No one made images like Bergman.  The Seventh Seal is easily the darkest movie ever made, and it’s got some of the most stirring pictures ever put on screen.  His version of The Magic Flute is a delight.  Then there are his others, like Fanny and Alexander, Through a Glass Darkly, The Virgin Spring.  Do you watch Bergman for a laugh?  Not unless by laughter you mean suicidal depression.  But no finer image-maker has ever stood behind a camera. 

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7.  Billy Wilder: Nobody ever mixed drama and comedy like Wilder.  And he was a master at getting great performances from his actors.  Jack Lemmon was his muse, and he used him to the fullest: he made the ultimate Matthau/Lemmon comedy in The Fortune Cookie, the ultimate Lemmon comedy, Some Like It Hot, and the beautifully understated The Apartment.  If Lemmon wasn’t his muse, William Holden was – and he’s got masterpieces like Sunset Blvd. and Stalag 17 to prove it.  Or maybe it was Audrey Hepburn – Sabrina, and Love in the Afternoon.  And that isn’t even looking at Witness for the Prosecution and Double Indemnity. The guy was a classics factory.  And all of them are fast-moving and fun to watch. 

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6.  Charlie Chaplin:  It would be a crime to leave Chaplin off this list.  Watch him toss around the globe as Hitler in The Great Dictator and tell me who you’d put in his place.  The Kid is as affecting as any movie ever made.  Modern Times is chock full of amazing sequences, and so are Modern Times, The Gold Rush, and many of his others.  The silent movie era was never so magnificent. 

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5.  Frank Capra:  In my review of the top ten most overrated directors of all time, I wrote this about Martin Scorsese: “In the musical Damn Yankees, a group of hapless baseball players sing the following lyric: ‘You’ve gotta have heart / All you really need is heart!’  Martin Scorsese never saw that musical.  His films are entirely devoid of anything resembling likable characters.  They are cold and calculating and ruthless – and boring.”  If Scorsese is the epitome of the heartless director, Capra is the embodiment of heart on screen.  It’s a Wonderful Life is simply the most heartfelt movie ever made (and it’s Jimmy Stewart’s best performance).  From It Happened One Night to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to Meet John Doe to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, nobody made movie magic like Capra.  If you can sit through all his films without crying and smiling simultaneously, I’m betting there’s something wrong with your tear ducts or your cheek muscles. 

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4.  Elia Kazan:  Reviled by the Hollywood left, Kazan was also one of Hollywood’s greatest directors.  His IMDB reads like a top ten list of films: A Face in the Crowd, East of Eden, On the Waterfront, Viva Zapata!, A Streetcar Named Desire, Gentleman’s Agreement, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  The performances Kazan elicited from his actors are groundbreaking and astonishing.  Unlike some others on this list, Kazan’s films do not date (other than Gentleman’s Agreement, perhaps) – they remain timely and prescient.  And they’re quick-moving and entertaining, which is tough to do with heavy drama.  He does it with ease. 

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3.  John Ford:  The man revolutionized movie making, and is worshipped widely for all the right reasons.  First off, the Western is the American genre, and Ford was the best.  Name the best Westerns of all time, and you’ll be sure to come up with Stagecoach, The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.  The Informer is an early masterpiece, and there’s no movie more fun than The Quiet Man (plus, the cinematography is enough to bring a tear to your eye).  Mister Roberts is a chock full of great performances (Lemmon and Cagney stand out, of course).  How Green Was My Valley is a beautiful film.  The Grapes of Wrath and Young Mr. Lincoln are rightly credited with making Henry Fonda the quintessential American actor. 

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2.  Akira Kurosawa:  Nobody plumbed the depths of human emotion like Kurosawa.  Ikiru is known by few outside the film buff community, but it is a masterful expression of human hope and tragedy.  Ran is exciting and thrilling and brilliant.  Throne of Blood is a wonderful adaptation of Macbeth.  The Seven Samurai is tremendous, an adventurous expose of the best and worst mankind has to offer.  Rashomon is a groundbreaking exploration of perspective.  I could keep going, but there’s no point – few will argue with Kurosawa’s placement on this list.

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1.  William Wyler:  Underrated beyond all rationality, Wyler was a master of all genres.  He covered gothic romance (Wuthering Heights), period pieces (Jezebel) light comedy (How to Steal a Million and Roman Holiday), film noir (The Desperate Hours and Detective Story), epic (Ben Hur), morality tale (Friendly Persuasion), horror (The Collector), western (The Westerner) and wartime drama (Mrs. Miniver and The Best Years of Our Lives).  His first tier films are unmatched (Dodsworth, Ben Hur, and The Best Years of Our Lives deserve to make anyone’s top ten list), and his second tier films (The Big Country, The Heiress) are better than most first-rate directors’ first-tier films.  If you don’t believe Wyler’s range, watch these three scenes back to back:

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That’s not even the best scene from The Best Years of Our Lives (the movie contains perhaps the most beautiful love scene in screen history, between Harold Russell and Cathy O’Donnell – and, in a lesson to Aronofsky and Lynch, he didn’t need to show T&A to do it).

Whom would you put on the list?

No kidding, professor.

No, really, they are. I don’t mean in all the right places, of course, but somewhere else, with movies, in enjoying the things we see in the movies. 

I remember seeing Gunga Din (1939) for the first time and knowing from the opening shot that this was my kind of film. This was a guy film. Not a wishy-washy movie filled up with dance numbers and kissing scenes, but a guy flick. Great guy stuff was in this movie, and I was sold on it from the first pounding of that thunderous mighty gong. When Alfred Newman’s score turned from playful to ominous faster than you can say, ‘trouble in Tantrapur’, I knew I was in for a good one. This was the kind of movie you watched on a Saturday afternoon with your dad or with your pals. This was adventure! 

There’s no way, I had always thought, that a girl can appreciate this kind of film, that she can ‘get into’ Gunga Din and get out of it what I got out of it. There’s just no way. Would she be able to feel the same way I did, the way other guys do, when watching Victor McLaglen face quickly turn from stone to fraudulent smile as he tries to trick his buddy? Can she feel the same rush of pride when hearing the trumpet scream the battle cry, or when seeing the Sikh Cavalry charge against the 400 horsemen of Kali? Does she get choked up along with Mac, Cutter and Bal when Montagu Love reads Kipling’s reflective poem in that final scene? Is modern woman capable of this? Or will she be more concerned with the sole female character in the story, trying, naturally, to relate to her instead? These things I wondered. Yet, I was as certain of the answers to these questions as I was of Sergeant Ballantine’s destiny. No woman could do these things, bridge that crevasse away from the familiar into pure guy territory, where it’s always double drill and no canteen. It just isn’t done. 

But guess what? I was wrong. Completely wrong. In fact, I’ll go out on an already shaky rope bridge here and state I’ve never met a woman who didn’t like Gunga Din. That’s right, not one.  Sure, it’s got funny and handsome Cary Grant – what woman doesn’t love Cary? For that matter, what man doesn’t want to be him, including? And it’s got the dashing Douglas Fairbanks Jr. with that infectious smile and shock of hair that falls down great when he lunges with either saber, pistol or right hook into an opponent.  I mean, let’s face it, what female doesn’t like to watch these two guys at rest or in motion? But that’s not it, that’s not the reason they like Gunga Din, well not completely, anyway. 

I believe it’s actually closer to what happens in the scene in the temple when our three British soldiers plus one, are caught and imprisoned in the confines of that locked dungeon, complete with pit of snakes. Comically, with torture and certain death if they don’t figure a way out soon, all the ‘proud ox’ MacChesney can think of is retrieving Sergeant Ballantine’s signed reenlistment form, securing his buddy’s companionship and saving him from what he believes is a death far worse than any pit of snakes could ever inflict: married life.  The means he goes about trying to get his hands on that paper is a joy to behold. His phony fear of snakes and being lashed again is, like so many other Victor McLaglen moments, lovable and priceless.  It really is, I believe, this kind of friendly sparring and not so much the looks and charm of the other two leading men, that is the key. The loyalty, friendship and devotion to one’s chums, the camaraderie replete with fun-loving jabs and good natured mocking is what wins the day for the viewer and makes these kinds of films work so well and on so many personally appealing levels.   

An equally shocking discovery I made about Gunga Din is that not only do the women I know love this movie, but that they dislike the love interest, the fiance, Emmy with equal passion. No, not for the cliched reasons like ‘she’s not a strong character’ and all that baloney. No, that’s not it. And anyway, it’s not true since, under the circumstances, she’s pretty darn strong. So what don’t they like about her? The same thing George Stevens, Ben Hecht and I don’t like about her. They hate what she’s trying to do. The women I know hate the fact that Sergeant Ballantine’s lover wants to take him away from his pals, from the adventure, from life itself, to go into the tea business, of all things. They, like Cutter and Mac, want that siren to fail.

In real life there are not many women who would give up a life of luxury, lucrative profits in a very promising business in order to let a husband run off and reenlist in the thankless job of Her Majesty’s service. Nor are there many women who want their men to go up against elephants on rope bridges or Kali worshiping stranglers as a line of work. Not many at all. Probably not even one. And that makes a lot of sense. So, why do women when watching Gunga Din want Bal to join Cutter and Mac (and Din) and do precisely that in the movie? Is the answer simply to be explained away as yet another unfathomable layer of the complex nature of woman, the incomprehensibility of the fairer sex to the brutish mind of man? 

Beats me. 

So, I asked myself, why do women want a fellow woman’s plans stopped, granted not in the same feverish way Eduardo Ciannelli’s high priest wants to stop the British Empire with his much copied crescendo-building “Kill for the Love of Killing” speech, but definitely stopped. Why do women want Cutter and Mac to succeed in their scheme to reenlist their friend and take him away from the woman in the story?  This question puzzled me. It nagged at my inner man. Then, one day, quite unexpectedly,  I had an epiphany, a stroke of genius. It was one of those ‘eureka moments’, the kind you hear about, the kind that make you jump out of the bath, covered in soapy suds and run out into the street yelling at the top of your lungs, “I’VE GOT IT!! I’VE GOT IT!!” 

For the record, I’d suggest not expressing yourself in that way, exactly. Unless, of course you have a very good lawyer or a burning desire to see the inside of a psychiatric ward.  I have neither, so it’s fortunate that I came to my senses before I cleared the door jam and therefore was not forced to scribe this article onto a thick stone wall with a dull spoon. 

What I figured out amongst the bubbles was this: Women want men. Again, no kidding. No, hold on. That’s not it, exactly. Women want other men. Wait a minute, that’s not quite right, either. Let’s try again. Women want what other women want and that includes men. Yeah, that’s what I mean, sort of. 

Or to put it another way, in the form of a question, I came up with this: What woman, besides Joan Fontaine’s Emmy, would desire a domesticated Douglas Fairbanks who does very little else aside from selling tea and reading the paper? None. What woman would want a Douglas Fairbanks riding a horse, crossing swords with bad guys, getting trapped, imprisoned, escaping “by sheer strategy alone” and saving not only his chums, but the whole bloomin’ regiment, king and country, with a little help from his friends? 

Every woman, that’s who! At least I think so. 

Because, that’s the figure of a man. A man acts. He doesn’t necessarily think. For good or bad, he just does. And then another revelation occurred to me, not at the same time, thankfully, and not involving suds, but still noteworthy. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I have a theory about men and women and it sort of ties in with all of this. I’ll restate part of it here briefly:

Men are simple. Women are complicated. 

Men live in the past. Women live in the future.  

(I have a sneaking suspicion children are the only ones who live in the present)

Here’s the big one: 

Women plan. Men dream.

When men become more like women – no not that way -  but when they stop dreaming as men dream, stop being reckless, stop living the adventure, stop thinking anything is possible (even if it clearly isn’t), stop acting, stop doing, when they cease to do these things, be these things, something has happened to them. 

They’ve grown old.

What I mean is, they’ve given up the ability to dream. They may not be old in years, but in spirit they are dusty cobwebs. They may not even know it happened to them until much later, well after the woman in their lives knows it. That’s something I’ll have to remind myself of from time to time, no doubt. 

When I think on other films that are called ‘guy flicks’ or ‘buddy movies’ there are so many that I love that I won’t even attempt to begin to list them. I will say, though, that along with Gunga Din (1939), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Sea Hawk (1940), The Thing from Another World (1951), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Sahara (1943), and Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) are some of my favorite guy movies of all time, which honor things like honor, duty and the undying capacity to dream large, even when all around them is a nightmare. These are films I never get tired of watching, nor ever will. There are others, lots more, and even some that are more recent, that have similar appeal. Braveheart comes to mind. But for the most part, these newer films are missing something that their predecessors have.  Maybe it’s the technicolor, or the monochrome for that matter, or just maybe, it’s the writing, the way in which dialogue plays such a dominant role in shaping the characters. I tend to think that’s the reason. Then again, maybe it’s just because I saw most of them as a kid. Who knows? Not me, and frankly, I don’t think I really want to know.  Because I’d rather dream. 

But, yes, these are some of my favorites, and it’s interesting that all of them, yes, all of them, are some of my female friends’ favorites as well. What does that say? That I hang around a bunch of butch chicks? No, I hope it doesn’t say that. It says that there are films about men, that don’t get all mushy, that women truly love for the same reasons men do. It says that women can sit and watch a film about men with no female character they can associate with, or even like in the story and come away thoroughly thrilled at the outcome. 

So, are these guy flicks, or not? I guess not. They’re more than that. They’re great flicks. They speak to both men and women as loud and clear as Din’s trumpeting. But how are they able to do that? What do they have in common? They were all written by people who could write. Sure they are genre, but they aren’t hackneyed, formulaic. And most of all, they weren’t supposed to appeal to just men, or just women, or just kids, or just adults. They were meant to be enjoyed by everyone. Their message however politically incorrect some may find it, is universal.  And that’s why they are hard to find nowadays. Because today, it’s all about pitching to a niche. Everything has to have a target audience, a market to aim for, a demographic to appease, please and all to often, pander to. 

Great films don’t do that. Not guy flicks, not chick flicks, not any flicks. Great is great. And great films charge ahead into the breech not caring what this or that group thinks is proper or offensive. We’re missing that kind of courage today.  And our culture is suffering because of it.  These days, we hear a lot about so-called controversial films. Yet no filmmaker seems daring enough to take a chance at being great, at dreaming large. Why should they when it’s so much easier to pander? 

There’s a scene in another great, though entirely different film that captures and defines the essence of what a man is, what he wishes he was, and what he wants other men to see him as. 

At the end of The Right Stuff, Chuck Yeager takes his Lockheed F-104 Starfighter up to where the sky ends and space itself begins. He’s so far up that there isn’t enough oxygen in the air to fully power the turbine anymore. His engine quits. He spins out of control amongst the vast stars and great heavens above, falling to earth like Icarus with melted wings. 

But unlike the Greek, there is no ocean to catch him. Only the brutally harsh and unforgiving desert of Edwards. 

With frantic eyes peering past hope at the funereal black smoke on the horizon, the ambulance driver suddenly spots a lone figure in the distance walking toward them, shimmering in the blurry heat like a mirage – or a god. We see he is burnt, bloody and limping. It’s Yeager, and he’s carrying his helmet and parachute. 

“Is that a man?”, the driver asks Ridley, fellow test pilot and Yeager’s best friend. 

Grinning ear to ear, Ridley replies, “You’re damn right it is!”

Something tells me Emmy would agree.

7:30am PST - A Place in the Sun (1951) – An ambitious young man wins an heiress’s heart but has to cope with his former girlfriend’s pregnancy. Cast: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere Dir: George Stevens BW-122 mins, TV-PG

When you hear the word “nuanced” from Hollywood today, dollars to donuts they mean “immoral,” as in, we’re going to appease some terrorists and sexualize young children and call it “sophisticated.” Whether they know it or not (and I think they do), those particular plot points don’t represent “subtle shades of meaning,” they represent appeasing terrorists and sexualizing young children.

True dramatic nuance, the idea of exploring the complexity of the human condition (as opposed to excusing repugnant behavior), can be found, not too surprisingly, in those old-fashioned, black and white flickers – and today’s pick is one of the finest examples you’re likely to come across.

The power of George Stevens’ masterpiece is that no matter how many times you’ve seen it, you keep hoping a fit of cinematic magic will force events to unroll differently. Based on Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 novel “An American Tragedy,” which itself was inspired by a true story, “A Place in the Sun” would win six Oscars, including screenplay, cinematography, and director.

In other words, Montgomery Clift wuz robbed.

As George Eastman, Monty Clift performs a miracle on screen, retaining our sympathy even as he paints himself further and further into a dark corner with increasingly desperate and ultimately monstrous acts. The genius of the film is that while we’re never asked to excuse his behavior, by the time Eastman’s gone too far he’s so captured our sympathy we can’t help but hope for some kind of fate to step in and give him a do over.

Part of our sympathy may also arise from the fact that the idea of committing terrible deeds  in order to be with Elizabeth Taylor at the pinnacle of her raven-haired beauty doesn’t seem altogether unreasonable, especially when the alternative is dowdy, grasping, needy Shelley Winters. Both actresses are terrific, especially Winters, who was actually something of a sex symbol at the time. In her entertaining autobiography. Winters blames this role (which she aggressively pursued) for typecasting her forevermore.

A one of a kind film. Not exactly Valentines Day material, unless your idea of celebrating the holiday is with a knot in your stomach slowly tightening over 122 expertly paced minutes.