The Directors: Mark Robson

One might wonder how I became attached to a director who made only one western and no musicals but strange things do sometimes happen.  Mark Robson (pronounced ROBEson) made film noirs and socially-conscious films, tender love stories and war stories that went beyond battle scenes.  He had a knack for finding projects that were based on best-selling books.  He did some blockbusters that were popular with the public but not critics.  I've long thought that overall he had an eclectic and stimulating body of work.

His finest films were in the 1940's and 50's.  His work in the 60's and 70's is spotty but he treated each project as the most important thing he ever did.  He looked for the message, the truth in a piece of work and then decided how to put it out there in an entertaining way.  Actors appeared to love working with him.  He worked twice with a number of actors and three times with a few.  He ran a professional but friendly set and encouraged input from his actors.  He liked being in charge but he cherished collaboration. 

He was born in Montreal in 1913 and I have never seen a scintilla of biographical data on his family life.  I admit I jump to the conclusion that there is something dark there.  He attended secondary school in San Diego and then moved to Los Angeles and attended UCLA studying economics and political philosophy and later enrolled at Pacific Coast University taking law courses.

He wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life when he was hired at 20th Century Fox as a part-time assistant set dresser in the property department.  It wasn't much of a job and paid mere pennies and when he asked studio head Darryl Zanuck for a promotion, he was fired.  

It wasn't long before a golfing buddy got him on at RKO.  He managed to become an uncredited assistant editor on Orson Welles' films, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.  When Welles was unceremoniously dumped by the studio, Robson went to work in the B unit for Val Lewton.  Robson made a name for himself as the full-fledged editor on Cat People (1942) and worked in that capacity on a number of RKO's horror films. 

It wasn't long before Robson knew he wanted to direct.  Editors learn a great deal about film-making and it's not surprising they want to take over the reins of films.  Lewton gave Robson his first directing assignment on The Seventh Victim (1943), a spooky thriller about devil worship in Greenwich Village and a big hit with the public.

Robson made a film a year until 1949 when he hit the big time with four releases... Champion, Roughshod, Home of the Brave and My Foolish Heart.  All were as different from one another as they could possibly have been and Robson established himself as a man  for all genres.

Champion and Home of the Brave put Robson in the company of the king of socially-conscious dramas, Stanley Kramer.  In those days Kramer was only a producer.  He would become a director six years later.  Champion was the first of two boxing-themed movies Robson would make.  Also a film noir, it stars Kirk Douglas as an ambitious poor kid who rises to the top of the boxing world with little regard for the people he steps on.  Douglas and Arthur Kennedy as his lame brother both scored Oscar nominations.  

Roughshod strays from the formulaic western in the best of ways.  It concerns two brothers taking their horses on a journey to their ranch when they come across four dance hall girls who've been run out of town.  Most impressive is smart-mouthed Gloria Grahame (duh) and youngster Claude Jarman Jr. who made a name for himself three years earlier in The Yearling.  Western fans who missed this one need to correct that.

James Edwards, Lloyd Bridges, Frank Lovejoy in Home of the Brave

Home of the Brave was one of the first films to deal with racism.  Arthur Laurents wrote his play with a Jewish protagonist but Kramer changed it to focus on a black soldier who is mistreated by his company on a Japanese-held island.  James Edwards is superb in the lead. 

An extremely popular title song helped put My Foolish Heart over the top as did a terrific star turn by Susan Hayward as a young woman who discovers she's pregnant at the same time as discovering she is going to have a child by a soldier she had not yet married and who has been killed.  The film showcases Hayward in one her best performances and one of the great tearjerkers. 

Arthur Kennedy got another Oscar nod for playing a blind soldier with an attitude problem on the road to recovery in Bright Victory (1951).  Aided immeasurably by Peggy Dow and Julie Adams as his love interests, it had a lot to say about suffering and the human condition.

I Want You (1951) is a dumb title that may have kept this film from being the little gem it was meant to be.  Robson was now at Goldwyn Studios and Goldwyn stars Dana Andrews and Farley Granger were joined by Dow and Dorothy McGuire and superb character actors Robert Keith and Mildred Dunnock.  The well-scripted story concerns a young man who is about to be drafted into the Korean War, his family and his girlfriend, whose father heads the draft board.  I just loved this movie.

Andrews, McGuire, Granger and Dow from I Want You

The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), based on a James Michener book, also concerns the Korean War.  Its central character is a navy bomber pilot recalled to active duty much to the dismay of his wife.  I don't usually talk like this but I found the all the military sequences very exciting while the action on the home front is a stale.  William Holden and Grace Kelly star and there's a standout  Mickey Rooney performance.

Trial (1955) is another of those hard-hitting social dramas about a young Mexican-American who is charged with rape and murder that he did not do.  Glenn Ford is hired by a law firm (headed by Arthur Kennedy) that has secret motives.  Both actors, along with McGuire, Katy Jurado and Rafael Campos, deliver searing performances.

Long considered one of the great boxing films, the noir The Harder They Fall (1956) concerns a down-on-his-luck sportswriter whop hires on with a fight promoter who is crooked.  It is famous for being Humphrey Bogart's final film.  Robson had his hands full keeping Bogart and Rod Steiger from jumping into the ring themselves.  They did not get along.

The Little Hut (1957) was a rare comedy for Robson (he only made two) and it's apparent why he didn't do more.  This little menage a trois about a horny trio stranded on a small island was so dull, despite the presence of three real-life good friends, Ava Gardner, Stewart Granger and David Niven.

Peyton Place (1957) was Robson's first foray into soap opera but this one was so stylish that one tends to forget the bubbles.  We won't say more since we just did a posting on it.

Coaching Ingrid Bergman

One of my favorite Robson offerings is 1958's The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.  Based on a true story, Ingrid Bergman stars as Brit Gladys Aylward who works as a domestic in China and fulfills her noblest ambitions when when shepherds a large group of Chinese children to safety and away from invading Japanese troops.  Some carped about the film's length but I was engaged from start to finish.

I liked Robson's second stab at soap opera, From the Terrace (1960), based on a John O'Hara novel but, while beautiful to look at, turned out to be little more than an empty boast.  Newman stays in a faithless marriage to Joanne Woodward (never more beautiful) rather than sabotage his career.  Myrna Loy was the most fun to watch as Newman's alcoholic mother.

Apparently the Indian government disliked the fictional treatment of Nathuram Godse's plan to assassinate Gandhi in Nine Hours to Rama (1963).  I enjoyed the film, primarily due to Horst Buchholz's dynamic performance as Godse.

That same year Robson and a glamorous international cast encamped to Stockholm to film a superb mystery-thriller, The Prize.  Starring Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Elke Sommer and Diane Baker, this sleuthy, fun opus could easily have been directed by Hitchcock.  In fact, I've always considered it to be an homage to the great director.  We know Newman will save the day in this murder and mayhem saga of the Nobel Prize ceremony but what a hoot it is tagging along.

The four stars of  The Prize

Von Ryan's Express (1965) is one of Frank Sinatra's best films and another of those war films in the same vein as The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare and other WII escapist flicks.  This one involves wresting control of a German train.

The director's third soaper was the lurid Valley of the Dolls (1967) from another of those critically-damned but publicly-loved best-selling novels.  It couldn't have been a pleasant experience dealing with the firing of Judy Garland or the bipolar Patty Duke or that smarmy script.  Lordy, what a nasty movie.  I saw it three times.

Earthquake (1974) is a disaster movie that is, well, a disaster.  The story of the demise of Los Angeles due to an earthquake might well be used as a training film for the future.  Otherwise, it was a lot of high-paid stars running around crumbling sets mumbling idiotic dialogue.  To think it won an Oscar for special effects is a joke.  I wonder if Robson was thinking of calling it a day.  

Avalanche Express (1979) was his final film, but no doubt he didn't expect it would end the way it did.  It was another war film and another train opus.  It concerns a Russian official who wants to defect and a CIA sent to get him out.  The whole thing had a choppy, patched together, truncated feel to it.  Robson had his hands full with Lee Marvin and Robert Shaw, two egotistical, warring, alcoholic actors who were constantly out to get one another.

Two days before the film was finished, Robson died of a heart attack in London.  His cameraman and a former director himself, Jack Cardiff, finished the filming.  Two months later, Shaw also died of a heart attack.

Robson was 64 years old.  He left behind his wife of 42 years and three children.

He directed seven actors to Oscar nominations:  Arthur Kennedy (three nominations), Kirk Douglas, Susan Hayward, Lana Turner, Hope Lange, Diane Varsi and Russ Tamblyn.   Robson himself was nominated for best director for Peyton Place and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.

I was extremely fond of around a dozen of his films.  In my mind, that made him a good director.


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