The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (267 page)

Even his best Westerns
—Winchester 73, The Naked Spur, Bend of the River, The Far Country, The Man from Laramie
, and
The Last Frontier
—seem in retrospect rather too neatly self-contained. The parable starkness of the stories and the flawless command of the landscape photography tend to sidestep the actual issues of honor, betrayal, violence, and death that the films claim to deal with. What motivates so many of them is the presence of James Stewart and his suppressed neuroses as the adventurer hero. The concept of responsibility in
The Far Country
and of vengeance in
The Man from Laramie
turn on Stewart’s involvement.

As a rule, though, Mann does not touch his actors very much. If they are not well cast he is prepared to ignore them and withdraw his camera to observe some of the most articulated moments of combat in the cinema: the implacable pursuit in
Bend of the River;
the scene at the salt flats in
The Man from Laramie;
the death of Walter Brennan in
The Far Country;
the entire, traveling engagement in
Men in War
, so abstract that the enemy is barely seen, so physical that one could draw a contour map of the terrain. The achievement of this topographical photography is unique in the history of the Western, and at its best it is inseparable from the feeling of peril in the conflict. At times one marvels at the combined visual elegance and emotional exhaustion in a film.
The Man from Laramie
, especially, is filled with pain, and it benefits from the fullest exposition of the friendly treachery in Arthur Kennedy. While
The Last Frontier
has an unusual hero, an Indian scout, and contains, from Anne Bancroft, one of the very few good performances from an actress in all of Mann’s work.

Brilliant as these Westerns are, they remain a trifle neat and complacent. Mann might not deserve his high place on their strength alone. But
Men in War, Man of the West
, and
El Cid
substantially enlarged his commitment to the action he observes so faithfully. In all three, he managed to invest a legendary situation with an extra significance. No one could have doubted that
Men in War
would have a visual exactness beyond criticism, but its argument—that violence must be total if it is to succeed, and that its success is destructive of the man who resorts to it—is applied without any slackening, so that the last scenes of the film are resigned and foreboding.

In
Man of the West
, Mann has a dying Gary Cooper as his hero, an ex-outlaw robbed by former comrades. Whereas some of the Stewart films seem like exercises out of doors, there is no escaping the tragedy of
Man of the West
or the way it affects the Cooper character. Not as clean-looking as his earlier Westerns, it is more cruel and penetrating.

El Cid
was an astonishing departure and a total success. Its treatment of the Spanish hero is based on Mann’s abiding interest in the strains put upon the man of honor and the way that he vindicates himself through trial of arms. The simplicity of the conception does not seem artificial; instead it relates to the cinema’s earliest portraits of the virtuous hero and to the medium’s power to combine physical and moral tension. Austerely devoid of medievalism,
El Cid
’s epic format contains vicious hand-to-hand battles that are made pivotal to the hero’s integrity. Perhaps Mann was the last director able to see a Manichaean struggle within battle and to convey that significance without demur. Real battles are messy—like Fuller’s—but Mann’s are artistically ordered by heroic optimism, the very quality we feel being extinguished in
Men in War
and
Man of the West
.

Daniel Mann
(1912–91), b. Brooklyn, New York
1953:
Come Back, Little Sheba
. 1954:
About Mrs. Leslie
. 1955:
The Rose Tattoo; I’ll Cry Tomorrow
. 1956:
The Teahouse of the August Moon
. 1958:
Hot Spell
. 1959:
The Last Angry Man; The Mountain Road
. 1960:
Butterfield 8
. 1961:
Ada
. 1962:
Five Finger Exercise; Who’s Got the Action?
1963:
Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?
. 1965:
Our Man Flint; Judith
. 1968:
For Love of Ivy
. 1969:
A Dream of Kings
. 1970:
Willard
. 1971:
The Revengers
. 1978:
Matilda
. 1980:
The Incredible Mr. Chadwick; Playing for Time
(TV). 1981:
The Day the Loving Stopped
. 1987:
The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains
(TV).

An actor and a musician, in 1939 he worked in Canada. After the war he directed on Broadway and worked with Elia Kazan. His films were bound by theatrical conventions and an allegiance to overblown female performances. His debut,
Come Back, Little Sheba
, was intended to display Shirley Booth, but although she won the Oscar, her performance was fussy and unfelt beside the anguished restraint of Burt Lancaster. To dispel the idea that Mann might have a good relationship with Lancaster,
The Rose Tattoo
encouraged his worst gloating and viewed Anna Magnani’s feverish emotions rather clinically. Even so,
I’ll Cry Tomorrow
allows Susan Hayward to suffer to her heart’s content and
Teahouse
was one of Brando’s oddest distractions. Mann helped earn a best actress Oscar for Elizabeth Taylor in
Butterfield 8
, one of her splendid, posturing performances. In eight years, Mann led three actresses to Oscar—Booth, Magnani in
Rose Tattoo
, and Liz Taylor. Seen at this distance, that trio stands for the strange fantasies of the fifties.

In the 1960s, Mann’s work hardly moved from a rut of boredom—only James Coburn’s
Flint
lightened the gloom. To judge by
For Love of Ivy
and
Willard
, he was trying desperately to discover novelty.

The wonder was that Mann continued to enjoy respectable projects in an era when Gerd Oswald was driven to TV, and Edgar Ulmer turned into a nomad of the backstreet quickie.

But Mann was very successful, for TV, directing Arthur Miller’s script of
Playing for Time
, and he deserves credit for obtaining (and controlling) such performances from Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Alexander, Shirley Knight, and Viveca Lindfors (among others). It is unthinkable that Mann could have found such an opportunity by working only in theatrical movies.

Delbert Mann
(1920–2007), b. Lawrence, Kansas
1955:
Marty
. 1957:
The Bachelor Party
. 1958:
Desire Under the Elms; Separate Tables
. 1959:
Middle of the Night
. 1960:
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
. 1961:
Lover Come Back; The Outsider
. 1962:
That Touch of Mink
. 1963:
A Gathering of Eagles
. 1964:
Dear Heart; Quick, Before It Melts
. 1965:
Mister Buddwing
. 1967:
Fitzwilly
. 1968:
The Pink Jungle
. 1970:
David Copperfield
. 1971:
Jane Eyre; Kidnapped
. 1975:
Birch Interval
. 1977:
Tell Me My Name
. 1978:
Love’s Dark Ride
(TV);
Home to Stay
(TV);
Breaking Up
(TV);
Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
(TV). 1979:
All Quiet on the Western Front
(TV);
Torn Between Two Lovers
(TV). 1980:
To Find My Son
(TV). 1981:
Night Crossing
. 1983:
Bronte; The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story
(TV). 1984:
Love Leads the Way
(TV). 1986:
Death in California
(TV);
The Last Days of Patton
(TV). 1986:
The Ted Kennedy Story
(TV). 1988:
April Morning
(TV). 1991:
Ironclads
(TV). 1992:
Against Her Will: An Incident in Baltimore
(TV). 1994:
Incident in a Small Town
(TV);
Lily in Winter
(TV).

Mann was educated at Vanderbilt and Yale universities, and after war service in the air force he worked in stock as a director. In 1949 he joined NBC and became a director on Philco Playhouse and many other series, handling the original productions of
Marty
and
The Bachelor Party
.

It is a long way from the TV originality of Paddy Chayefsky’s
Marty
and
Bachelor Party
to Mann’s hollow adaptations of nineteenth-century classics. Delbert Mann was among the most welcomed of directors who broke into movies from TV in the mid-1950s.
Marty
was a modest artistic achievement, but a popular novelty, given Oscars as tokens of Hollywood’s good intentions.
Marty
was already flawed by the sentimentality that has increased in Mann’s work—not least in the casting of Ernest Borgnine, a stock heavy only able to work through pathos. But
The Bachelor Party
was a far better film, beautifully acted and with an accurate sense of American middle-class anxieties, such as only John Cassavetes has since explored.

Perhaps Mann was warned off such mundane subjects. For he switched disastrously to stage adaptations, the first hopelessly inadequate, the second shamelessly ticking off every cliché in Rattigan’s original—the wellmade film.
Middle of the Night
was Chayefsky again with touching performances from Fredric March and Kim Novak. But Burl Ives and Sophia Loren
Under the Elms
were hopelessly shaded by the looming poetry of O’Neill’s language.

In the 1960s, Mann lost interest and submitted to facile romances. Only
Dear Heart
and
Mister Buddwing
are watchable—for the sake of Glenn Ford and Geraldine Page in the first and Jean Simmons in the latter. Mann has since turned to devour himself. Once the prophet of TV realism, he makes bland TV versions of Great Novels. His
David Copperfield
is drab beside Cukor’s, and
Jane Eyre
, despite George C. Scott and Susannah York, is not as enjoyable as the Orson Welles–Joan Fontaine haunted house version.

Mann became a stalwart of TV movies, versatile but anonymous, known for his proficiency. He did a version of
All Quiet on the Western Front
that used Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine;
Bronte
was Julie Harris doing her one-woman show on Charlotte Brontë;
The Gift of Love
was schmaltz;
The Last Days of Patton
lured George C. Scott back to his best-known role.

Michael Mann
, b. Chicago, 1943
1979:
The Jericho Mile
(TV). 1981:
Thief
. 1983:
The Keep
. 1986:
Manhunter
. 1992:
The Last of the Mohicans
. 1995:
Heat
. 1999:
The Insider
. 2001:
Ali
. 2004:
Collateral
. 2006:
Miami Vice
. 2009:
Public Enemies
.

No one has done more to uphold, extend, and enrich the film noir genre in recent years than Michael Mann. He is a director and producer, an organizer of TV series, a visionary of modern style who somehow integrates the fluency of Max Ophuls with the iconic poise of the most hip TV commercials. His theatrical movies come years apart, but his work for television has filled the time and been just as vital and creative a part of what he does. For Mann,
The Last of the Mohicans
was a conscious breaking of new ground, and instinctively he found not just an atmosphere and a sound but a style to fit the primeval forest and man’s struggle to survive with dignity. As for civilization, in Michael Mann’s eyes that has always been a tenuous extra.

He was educated at the University of Wisconsin and the London Film School, and he went on to write for the TV series
Police Story
and
Starsky and Hutch
. He was cowriter, as well as director, on
The Jericho Mile
, which had Peter Strauss as a Folsom Prison inmate who tries to make the Olympic team. Within the bounds of a TV movie, Mann brought out both the ferocity and the absurdity of the attempt to find redemption in hell.

Thief
is, in many ways, another version of that same theme, with James Caan as an increasingly hopeless criminal whose grasp on integrity is canceled as the story unfolds.
The Keep
does not work nearly as well, but it has a group of German soldiers who stick to a benighted mission. Nothing matters in Mann’s world so much as that ultimate resolution. It is the most interesting, quietist form of male dedication in our movie landscape crowded with macho posturing.

Manhunter
is an unfairly neglected picture, largely because its Hannibal Lecter is less spectacular than that of Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Demme. But
Manhunter
knows the dread with which the questing mind of the cop comes close to occupying that of the serial killer. Its puzzle is engrossing, and Mann’s use of vivid supporting players can scarcely be rivaled today.

Nevertheless, it is Mann’s TV work that looms largest. He has been the creator, and steady controller, of two series:
Miami Vice
(1984–89) and
Crime Story
(1986–88). The first is by far the better known. It recognized the potency of Miami (was Mann inspired by De Palma’s
Scarface?);
it employed the drive of pop music and the patina of modern design; it was a racial melting pot, very sexy and violent; and it recovered the career of Don Johnson, while making a bizarre Hispanic cult out of Edward James Olmos.
Miami Vice
is pulp, but full of ideas, often gorgeous, rarely dull, and hugely influential—not only Miami aped it; TV ads picked up on Miami’s electric colors.