Nicholas Ray
Encyclopedia
Nicholas Ray was an American
film director
best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause
.
Ray is also appreciated by a smaller audience of cinephiles for a large number of narrative
features
produced between 1947 and 1963 including Bigger Than Life
, Johnny Guitar
, They Live by Night
, and In a Lonely Place
, as well as an experimental
work produced throughout the 1970s titled We Can't Go Home Again
, which was unfinished at the time of Ray's death from lung cancer
. Ray's compositions
within the CinemaScope
frame and use of color
are particularly well-regarded. Ray was an important influence on the French New Wave
, with Jean-Luc Godard
famously writing in a review of Bitter Victory
, "cinema is Nicholas Ray."
. In his early years, he went to school and did a brief stint at the University of Chicago
: here he was exposed to the media world through radio. Here he also met two men who inspired his move to films: Frank Lloyd Wright
and dramatist Thornton Wilder
, then a professor.
Ray received a Taliesin Fellowship
from Wright to study under him as an apprentice.
Ray directed his first and only Broadway
production, the Duke Ellington
musical
Beggar's Holiday
, in 1946. One year later, he directed his first film, They Live by Night
. It wasn't released for two years because of the chaotic conditions surrounding Howard Hughes
' takeover of RKO Pictures
. An almost impressionistic take on film noir
, it was notable for its extreme empathy for society’s young outsiders (a recurring motif in Ray’s films). Its subject matter, two young lovers running from the law, had an influence on the sporadically popular movie sub-genre often called 'love on the run'. (Other examples are Gun Crazy
, Bonnie and Clyde
, Badlands
, and Robert Altman
’s 1974 remake of They Live by Night, Thieves Like Us
.)
The New York Times gave the film a positive review (despite calling Ray's trademark sympathetic eye to rebels and criminals "misguided") and acclaimed Ray for "good, realistic production and sharp direction...Mr. Ray has an eye for action details. His staging of the robbery of a bank, all seen by the lad in the pick-up car, makes a fine clip of agitating film. And his sensitive juxtaposing of his actors against highways, tourist camps and bleak motels makes for a vivid comprehension of an intimate personal drama in hopeless flight."
Ray made several more contributions to film noir, most notably the 1950 Humphrey Bogart
movie In a Lonely Place
, about a troubled screenwriter, and On Dangerous Ground
, a police thriller.
Other minor noir films he directed in this period were Born to Be Bad
and A Woman's Secret
.
Ray's most productive and successful period was the 1950s. In the mid-fifties he made the two films for which he is best remembered: Johnny Guitar
(1954) and Rebel Without a Cause
(1955). The former was a Western
starring Joan Crawford
and Mercedes McCambridge
in action roles of the kind customarily played by men. Highly eccentric in its time, it was much loved by French
critics. (François Truffaut
called it "the beauty and the beast" of the western). In 1955, Ray directed Rebel Without a Cause
, starring James Dean
in what proved to be his most famous role. When Rebel was released, soon after Dean's early death in an automobile crash, it had a revolutionary impact on movie-making and youth culture, virtually giving birth to the contemporary concept of the American teenager. Looking past its social and pop-culture significance, Rebel Without a Cause is the purest example of Ray’s cinematic style and vision, with an expressionistic use of colour, dramatic use of architecture
, and an empathy
for social misfits.
Rebel Without a Cause was Ray's biggest commercial success, and marked a breakthrough in the careers of child actors Natalie Wood
and Sal Mineo
. Ray engaged in a tempestuous "spiritual marriage" with Dean, and awakened the latent homosexuality
of Mineo, through his role as Plato, who would become the first gay teenager to appear on film. During filming it was rumored that Ray began a short-lived affair with Wood, who at age 16 was 27 years his junior. This created a tense atmosphere between Ray and Dennis Hopper
, who was also involved with Wood at the time, but they were reconciled later.
In 1956, Ray directed the melodrama
Bigger Than Life
starring James Mason
as a small-town school teacher driven insane by the misuse of a new wonder-drug, Cortisone
. In 1957, he directed The True Story of Jesse James
, which was supposed to have featured Dean but starred Robert Wagner
instead.
; he himself denied this in 1977, but stated that everyone has occasional fantasies or daydreams about same-sex relations.
A heavy user of drugs
and alcohol
, Ray found himself increasingly shut out of the Hollywood
film industry in the early 1960s. He kept on working, but his later films got little attention, and films like The Savage Innocents
and the story of Jesus of Nazareth, King of Kings, were panned by critics. After collapsing on the set of 55 Days at Peking
(1963), he did not direct again until the mid-1970s.
In 1970 at a Grateful Dead
concert at the Fillmore East
, Ray ran into Dennis Hopper, who asked Ray to join him at his ranch in Taos, New Mexico
, where he was editing his new film, The Last Movie
. Hopper helped Ray secure a position at Harpur College of Arts and Sciences at Binghamton University
in upstate New York. From 1971 to 1973, Ray taught filmmaking where he and his students produced We Can't Go Home Again
, an autobiographical film employing multiple superimpositions. In the spring of 1972, Ray was asked to show some footage from the film at a conference. The audience was shocked to see footage of Ray and his students smoking marijuana together. An early version of the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival
in 1973, but Ray, never satisfied with the project, continued editing it until his death in 1979.
With the help of old friends, he secured teaching positions at the Lee Strasberg Institute and New York University
.
Shortly before his death he collaborated on the direction of Lightning Over Water
(also known as Nick’s Film) with German
director Wim Wenders
. He died of lung cancer
on June 16, 1979 in New York City
after a two-year illness.
directors and critics (most notably Jean-Luc Godard
) held Ray in high regard. Wim Wenders' films are indebted to Ray, from the casting of Dennis Hopper
in Rebel Without a Cause and the expressionistic use of colour in his own film The American Friend
, to the title of his science fiction film Until the End of the World
(which were the last spoken words in Ray’s biblical epic King of Kings).
Interrupted, a film about Ray to be directed
by Philip Kaufman
, was announced for 2007.
In the decades after his professional peak, Ray continues to influence directors to this day:
In addition, Godard's films abound in multiple references to Nicholas Ray's films. In Godard's film, Contempt
, the character played by Michel Piccoli claims to have written Ray's Bigger Than Life and in La Chinoise
, a young Maoist defends the politics of Johnny Guitar
to his anti-American colleagues.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
.
Ray is also appreciated by a smaller audience of cinephiles for a large number of narrative
Fictional film
Fictional film or narrative film is film that tells a fictional story or narrative. Narrative cinema is usually contrasted to films that present information, such as a nature documentary, as well as to some experimental films...
features
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
produced between 1947 and 1963 including Bigger Than Life
Bigger Than Life
Bigger Than Life is an American film made in 1956 directed by Nicholas Ray and starring James Mason, who also co-wrote and produced the film, about a school teacher and family man whose life spins out of control upon becoming addicted to cortisone. The film co-stars Barbara Rush as his wife and...
, Johnny Guitar
Johnny Guitar
Johnny Guitar is a 1954 Republic Pictures Western film starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, and Scott Brady.The screenplay was based upon a novel by Roy Chanslor. Though credited to Philip Yordan, he was merely a front for the actual screenwriter, blacklistee Ben Maddow. ...
, They Live by Night
They Live by Night
They Live by Night is a film noir, based on Edward Anderson's Depression era novel Thieves Like Us. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Farley Granger as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell as "Keechie" Mobley...
, and In a Lonely Place
In a Lonely Place
In a Lonely Place is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray, and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, produced for Bogart's Santana Productions. The script was adapted by Edmund North from the 1947 novel In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes.Bogart stars in the film as Dixon Steele, a...
, as well as an experimental
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
work produced throughout the 1970s titled We Can't Go Home Again
We Can't Go Home Again
We Can't Go Home Again is an experimental feature film directed by Nicholas Ray in collaboration with his film students at SUNY Binghamton. Ray and the students play fictionalized versions of themselves....
, which was unfinished at the time of Ray's death from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
. Ray's compositions
Composition (visual arts)
In the visual arts – in particular painting, graphic design, photography and sculpture – composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art or a photograph, as distinct from the subject of a work...
within the CinemaScope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
frame and use of color
Color
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...
are particularly well-regarded. Ray was an important influence on the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
, with Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
famously writing in a review of Bitter Victory
Bitter Victory
Bitter Victory is a 1957 black and white French-American international co-production film shot in CinemaScope, directed by Nicholas Ray....
, "cinema is Nicholas Ray."
Early life and career
He was born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle in Galesville, WisconsinGalesville, Wisconsin
Galesville is a city in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,481 at the 2010 census.Galesville is located where Beaver Creek flows into a wide area of the Mississippi River valley...
. In his early years, he went to school and did a brief stint at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
: here he was exposed to the media world through radio. Here he also met two men who inspired his move to films: Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
and dramatist Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
, then a professor.
Ray received a Taliesin Fellowship
Taliesin (studio)
Taliesin , near Spring Green, Wisconsin, was the summer home of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright began the building in 1911 after leaving his first wife, Catherine Tobin, and his Oak Park, Illinois, home and studio in 1909. The impetus behind Wright's departure was his affair with...
from Wright to study under him as an apprentice.
Ray directed his first and only Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
production, the Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
Beggar's Holiday
Beggar's Holiday
Beggar's Holiday is a musical with a book and lyrics by John La Touche and music by Duke Ellington.An updated version of The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, it focuses on a corrupt world inhabited by rakish mobsters and their double crossing gangs, raffish madams and their dissolute whores, panhandlers...
, in 1946. One year later, he directed his first film, They Live by Night
They Live by Night
They Live by Night is a film noir, based on Edward Anderson's Depression era novel Thieves Like Us. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Farley Granger as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell as "Keechie" Mobley...
. It wasn't released for two years because of the chaotic conditions surrounding Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
' takeover of RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
. An almost impressionistic take on film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
, it was notable for its extreme empathy for society’s young outsiders (a recurring motif in Ray’s films). Its subject matter, two young lovers running from the law, had an influence on the sporadically popular movie sub-genre often called 'love on the run'. (Other examples are Gun Crazy
Gun Crazy
Gun Crazy is a 1950 film noir feature film starring Peggy Cummins and John Dall in a story about the crime-spree of a gun-toting husband and wife. The film was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and produced by Frank King and Maurice King...
, Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde (film)
The film was originally offered to François Truffaut, the best-known director of the New Wave movement, who made contributions to the script. He passed on the project to make Fahrenheit 451. The producers approached Jean-Luc Godard next...
, Badlands
Badlands (film)
Badlands is a 1973 American crime drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri are also featured. Malick has a small speaking part although he does not receive an acting credit...
, and Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
’s 1974 remake of They Live by Night, Thieves Like Us
Thieves Like Us (film)
Thieves Like Us is a 1974 film directed by Robert Altman, starring Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall. The film was based on the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson...
.)
The New York Times gave the film a positive review (despite calling Ray's trademark sympathetic eye to rebels and criminals "misguided") and acclaimed Ray for "good, realistic production and sharp direction...Mr. Ray has an eye for action details. His staging of the robbery of a bank, all seen by the lad in the pick-up car, makes a fine clip of agitating film. And his sensitive juxtaposing of his actors against highways, tourist camps and bleak motels makes for a vivid comprehension of an intimate personal drama in hopeless flight."
Ray made several more contributions to film noir, most notably the 1950 Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
movie In a Lonely Place
In a Lonely Place
In a Lonely Place is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray, and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, produced for Bogart's Santana Productions. The script was adapted by Edmund North from the 1947 novel In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes.Bogart stars in the film as Dixon Steele, a...
, about a troubled screenwriter, and On Dangerous Ground
On Dangerous Ground
On Dangerous Ground is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and produced by John Houseman. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the novel Mad with Much Heart, by Gerald Butler...
, a police thriller.
Other minor noir films he directed in this period were Born to Be Bad
Born to Be Bad (1950 film)
Born to Be Bad is a 1950 melodrama starring Joan Fontaine as a manipulative young woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. It was based on the novel All Kneeling by Anne Parrish.-Cast:*Joan Fontaine as Christabel Caine Carey...
and A Woman's Secret
A Woman's Secret
A Woman's Secret is a 1949 film noir. It was based on the novel Mortgage on Life by Vicki Baum. It was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Maureen O'Hara, Gloria Grahame and Melvyn Douglas.-Plot summary:...
.
Ray's most productive and successful period was the 1950s. In the mid-fifties he made the two films for which he is best remembered: Johnny Guitar
Johnny Guitar
Johnny Guitar is a 1954 Republic Pictures Western film starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, and Scott Brady.The screenplay was based upon a novel by Roy Chanslor. Though credited to Philip Yordan, he was merely a front for the actual screenwriter, blacklistee Ben Maddow. ...
(1954) and Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
(1955). The former was a Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
starring Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
and Mercedes McCambridge
Mercedes McCambridge
Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge was an American actress. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress."-Early life:...
in action roles of the kind customarily played by men. Highly eccentric in its time, it was much loved by French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
critics. (François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
called it "the beauty and the beast" of the western). In 1955, Ray directed Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
, starring James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
in what proved to be his most famous role. When Rebel was released, soon after Dean's early death in an automobile crash, it had a revolutionary impact on movie-making and youth culture, virtually giving birth to the contemporary concept of the American teenager. Looking past its social and pop-culture significance, Rebel Without a Cause is the purest example of Ray’s cinematic style and vision, with an expressionistic use of colour, dramatic use of architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, and an empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
for social misfits.
Rebel Without a Cause was Ray's biggest commercial success, and marked a breakthrough in the careers of child actors Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
and Sal Mineo
Sal Mineo
Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. , was an American film and theatre actor, best known for his performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause...
. Ray engaged in a tempestuous "spiritual marriage" with Dean, and awakened the latent homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
of Mineo, through his role as Plato, who would become the first gay teenager to appear on film. During filming it was rumored that Ray began a short-lived affair with Wood, who at age 16 was 27 years his junior. This created a tense atmosphere between Ray and Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
, who was also involved with Wood at the time, but they were reconciled later.
In 1956, Ray directed the melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
Bigger Than Life
Bigger Than Life
Bigger Than Life is an American film made in 1956 directed by Nicholas Ray and starring James Mason, who also co-wrote and produced the film, about a school teacher and family man whose life spins out of control upon becoming addicted to cortisone. The film co-stars Barbara Rush as his wife and...
starring James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
as a small-town school teacher driven insane by the misuse of a new wonder-drug, Cortisone
Cortisone
Cortisone is a steroid hormone. It is one of the main hormones released by the adrenal gland in response to stress. In chemical structure, it is a corticosteroid closely related to corticosterone. It is used to treat a variety of ailments and can be administered intravenously, orally,...
. In 1957, he directed The True Story of Jesse James
True Story of Jesse James
The True Story of Jesse James is a 1957 American Western drama film adapted from Henry King's 1939 film Jesse James, which was only loosely based on James' life. The remake was directed by Nicholas Ray, with Robert Wagner portraying Jesse James and Jeffrey Hunter starring as Frank James. Filming...
, which was supposed to have featured Dean but starred Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...
instead.
Later life
Biographers state that Ray was bisexualBisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
; he himself denied this in 1977, but stated that everyone has occasional fantasies or daydreams about same-sex relations.
A heavy user of drugs
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
and alcohol
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, Ray found himself increasingly shut out of the Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
film industry in the early 1960s. He kept on working, but his later films got little attention, and films like The Savage Innocents
The Savage Innocents
The Savage Innocents is a 1960 film, adapted from the novel Top of the World by Swiss writer Hans Rüesch.The screenplay was mainly written by its director, Nicholas Ray, who shot the film in the Canadian Arctic...
and the story of Jesus of Nazareth, King of Kings, were panned by critics. After collapsing on the set of 55 Days at Peking
55 Days at Peking
55 Days at Peking is a 1963 historical epic film starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven, made by Samuel Bronston Productions, and released by Allied Artists. The movie was produced by Samuel Bronston and directed by Nicholas Ray, Andrew Marton , and Guy Green...
(1963), he did not direct again until the mid-1970s.
In 1970 at a Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
concert at the Fillmore East
Fillmore East
The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time...
, Ray ran into Dennis Hopper, who asked Ray to join him at his ranch in Taos, New Mexico
Taos, New Mexico
Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, incorporated in 1934. As of the 2000 census, its population was 4,700. Other nearby communities include Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, and El Prado. The town is close to Taos Pueblo, the Native American...
, where he was editing his new film, The Last Movie
The Last Movie
The Last Movie is a 1971 drama film from Universal Pictures. It was written and directed by Dennis Hopper, who also played a horse wrangler named after the state of Kansas. It also starred Peter Fonda, Henry Jaglom and Michelle Phillips...
. Hopper helped Ray secure a position at Harpur College of Arts and Sciences at Binghamton University
Binghamton University
Binghamton University, also formally called State University of New York at Binghamton, , is a public research university in the State of New York. The University is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York system...
in upstate New York. From 1971 to 1973, Ray taught filmmaking where he and his students produced We Can't Go Home Again
We Can't Go Home Again
We Can't Go Home Again is an experimental feature film directed by Nicholas Ray in collaboration with his film students at SUNY Binghamton. Ray and the students play fictionalized versions of themselves....
, an autobiographical film employing multiple superimpositions. In the spring of 1972, Ray was asked to show some footage from the film at a conference. The audience was shocked to see footage of Ray and his students smoking marijuana together. An early version of the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in 1973, but Ray, never satisfied with the project, continued editing it until his death in 1979.
With the help of old friends, he secured teaching positions at the Lee Strasberg Institute and New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
Shortly before his death he collaborated on the direction of Lightning Over Water
Lightning Over Water
Lightning Over Water is a 1980 documentary film by Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray about the last days of Ray's own life; the director was most famous for his 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. It was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.- Summary :The film is a collaboration...
(also known as Nick’s Film) with German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
director Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
. He died of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
on June 16, 1979 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
after a two-year illness.
Personal life
Ray was married to:- Jean Evans, journalist, married 1930, divorced 1940. They had one son, Anthony (aka Tony, born 1937).
- Gloria GrahameGloria GrahameGloria Grahame was an American Academy Award–winning actress.Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life , MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios...
, actress, whom he married in 1948. They separated in 1950 and divorced in 1952 after the director discovered Grahame in bed with his son, Tony, who was then 13 years old. (She and Tony Ray would marry in 1960.) Grahame and Nicholas Ray had one son, Timothy Ray. - Betty Utey, dancer, married 1958, divorced 1964; two daughters, Nica and Julie.
- Susan Schwartz, married 1969.
Influence
Certain French New WaveFrench New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
directors and critics (most notably Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
) held Ray in high regard. Wim Wenders' films are indebted to Ray, from the casting of Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
in Rebel Without a Cause and the expressionistic use of colour in his own film The American Friend
The American Friend
The American Friend is a 1977 film by Wim Wenders, loosely adapted from the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. The film is of the neo-noir genre, and features Dennis Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley...
, to the title of his science fiction film Until the End of the World
Until the End of the World
Until the End of the World is a 1991 film by the German film director Wim Wenders; the screenplay was written by Wenders and Peter Carey, from a story by Wenders and Solveig Dommartin. An initial draft of the screenplay was written by American filmmaker Michael Almereyda...
(which were the last spoken words in Ray’s biblical epic King of Kings).
Interrupted, a film about Ray to be directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
, was announced for 2007.
In the decades after his professional peak, Ray continues to influence directors to this day:
- Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
was a huge admirer of Ray and famously said in his review of Bitter Victory:
-
- "There was theatre (GriffithD. W. GriffithDavid Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
), poetry (Murnau), painting (RosselliniRoberto RosselliniRoberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...
), dance (EisensteinSergei EisensteinSergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
), music (RenoirJean RenoirJean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
). Henceforth there is cinema. And the cinema is Nicholas Ray."
- "There was theatre (Griffith
In addition, Godard's films abound in multiple references to Nicholas Ray's films. In Godard's film, Contempt
Contempt
Contempt is an intensely negative emotion regarding a person or group of people as inferior, base, or worthless—it is similar to scorn. It is also used when people are being sarcastic. Contempt is also defined as the state of being despised or dishonored; disgrace, and an open disrespect or willful...
, the character played by Michel Piccoli claims to have written Ray's Bigger Than Life and in La Chinoise
La Chinoise
La Chinoise is a 1967 French political film directed by Jean-Luc Godard about young revolutionaries in Paris.-Plot summary:La Chinoise is a loose adaptation, if not parody, of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1872 novel, The Possessed...
, a young Maoist defends the politics of Johnny Guitar
Johnny Guitar
Johnny Guitar is a 1954 Republic Pictures Western film starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, and Scott Brady.The screenplay was based upon a novel by Roy Chanslor. Though credited to Philip Yordan, he was merely a front for the actual screenwriter, blacklistee Ben Maddow. ...
to his anti-American colleagues.
- Martin ScorseseMartin ScorseseMartin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
is a fan of Ray's, particularly his expressionistic use of color in Johnny GuitarJohnny GuitarJohnny Guitar is a 1954 Republic Pictures Western film starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, and Scott Brady.The screenplay was based upon a novel by Roy Chanslor. Though credited to Philip Yordan, he was merely a front for the actual screenwriter, blacklistee Ben Maddow. ...
(1954), Rebel Without a CauseRebel Without a CauseRebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
(1955) and Bigger Than Life (1956). He used clips from two of them in his documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American MoviesA Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American MoviesA Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies is a four-hour documentary film presented by Martin Scorsese and produced by the British Film Institute....
.
- Director Curtis HansonCurtis HansonCurtis Lee Hanson is an American film director, film producer and screenwriter. His directing work includes The Hand That Rocks the Cradle , L.A...
is featured on a documentary for the DVD release of In A Lonely PlaceIn a Lonely PlaceIn a Lonely Place is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray, and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, produced for Bogart's Santana Productions. The script was adapted by Edmund North from the 1947 novel In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes.Bogart stars in the film as Dixon Steele, a...
, giving his analysis of the film. The film was one of many influences on his direction of L.A. ConfidentialL.A. Confidential (film)L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American film based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same title, the third book in his L.A. Quartet. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD officers in the 1950s, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity...
(1997).
- François TruffautFrançois TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
wrote essays about Ray (who is featured prominently in his book The Films in My Life). He asserts that They Live by NightThey Live by NightThey Live by Night is a film noir, based on Edward Anderson's Depression era novel Thieves Like Us. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Farley Granger as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell as "Keechie" Mobley...
(1949) is Ray's best movie, but gives special attention to his films Bigger Than Life (1956) and Johnny GuitarJohnny GuitarJohnny Guitar is a 1954 Republic Pictures Western film starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, and Scott Brady.The screenplay was based upon a novel by Roy Chanslor. Though credited to Philip Yordan, he was merely a front for the actual screenwriter, blacklistee Ben Maddow. ...
(1954).
- Wim WendersWim WendersErnst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
is another European admirer of Ray's and has paid homage to him in many movies. He even gave Ray a cameo in his film The American FriendThe American FriendThe American Friend is a 1977 film by Wim Wenders, loosely adapted from the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. The film is of the neo-noir genre, and features Dennis Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley...
. He co-directed Ray's final film, the experimental documentary Lightning Over WaterLightning Over WaterLightning Over Water is a 1980 documentary film by Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray about the last days of Ray's own life; the director was most famous for his 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. It was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.- Summary :The film is a collaboration...
, and edited it after Ray's death. The film is a touching portrait of the final days of Nicholas Ray's life.
- At New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Ray taught and befriended cult director Jim JarmuschJim JarmuschJames R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
, who became his assistant. In turn, Jarmusch says that he looked to Ray for script advice, and misses him to this day.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Production Co. | Cast | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | They Live by Night They Live by Night They Live by Night is a film noir, based on Edward Anderson's Depression era novel Thieves Like Us. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Farley Granger as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell as "Keechie" Mobley... |
RKO Pictures RKO Pictures RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P... |
Cathy O'Donnell Cathy O'Donnell Cathy O'Donnell was an American actress, best known for her many roles in film-noir movies.-Early life:She was born Ann Steely in Siluria, Alabama... / Farley Granger Farley Granger Farley Earle Granger was an American actor. In a career spanning several decades, he was perhaps best known for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Rope in 1948 and Strangers on a Train in 1951.-Early life:... / Howard Da Silva Howard Da Silva Howard Da Silva was an American actor.-Early life:He was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Benjamin and Bertha Silverblatt. His parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. He had a job as a steelworker before beginning his acting career on the stage... |
|
| 1949 | Knock on Any Door Knock on Any Door Knock on Any Door is an American court-room trial film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart. The picture introduced John Derek to film and was based on the novel of the same name by Willard Motley.-Plot:... |
Santana Productions | Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.... / John Derek John Derek John Derek was an American actor, director and photographer.-Career:His matinee-idol good looks quickly got him supporting roles, most notably as Broderick Crawford's son in All the King's Men , but he also enjoyed leads such as "Nick Romano" in Knock on Any Door opposite Humphrey Bogart John... |
|
| 1949 | A Woman's Secret A Woman's Secret A Woman's Secret is a 1949 film noir. It was based on the novel Mortgage on Life by Vicki Baum. It was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Maureen O'Hara, Gloria Grahame and Melvyn Douglas.-Plot summary:... |
RKO Pictures RKO Pictures RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P... |
Maureen O'Hara Maureen O'Hara Maureen O'Hara is an Irish film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne... / Melvyn Douglas Melvyn Douglas Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor.Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud... / Gloria Grahame Gloria Grahame Gloria Grahame was an American Academy Award–winning actress.Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life , MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios... |
|
| 1949 | Roseanna McCoy Roseanna McCoy Roseanna McCoy is a 1949 American drama film directed by Irving Reis. The screenplay by John Collier, based on the 1947 novel of the same title by Alberta Hannum, is a romanticized and semi-fictionalized account of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.-Plot:... |
Samuel Goldwyn Co. The Samuel Goldwyn Company The Samuel Goldwyn Company was an independent film company founded by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., the son of the famous Hollywood mogul, Samuel Goldwyn, in 1979.-Background:... |
Farley Granger Farley Granger Farley Earle Granger was an American actor. In a career spanning several decades, he was perhaps best known for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Rope in 1948 and Strangers on a Train in 1951.-Early life:... / Joan Evans Joan Evans (actress) Joan Evans is an American film actress who appeared in three movies with actor Farley Granger. Her first film with him was as the title role in Roseanna McCoy , based on the real-life romance between two members of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. She gained the role after producer Samuel Goldwyn... |
Irving Reis Irving Reis Irving Reis, born May 7, 1906, in New York City – died July 3, 1953, in Woodland Hills, California, was a radio program producer & director, and a film director.Reis was the creator of the experimental anthology program on the radio, Columbia Workshop... received credit even though he was replaced by Ray two months into filming |
| 1950 | In a Lonely Place In a Lonely Place In a Lonely Place is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray, and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, produced for Bogart's Santana Productions. The script was adapted by Edmund North from the 1947 novel In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes.Bogart stars in the film as Dixon Steele, a... |
Santana Productions | Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.... / Gloria Grahame Gloria Grahame Gloria Grahame was an American Academy Award–winning actress.Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life , MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios... |
|
| 1950 | Born to Be Bad Born to Be Bad (1950 film) Born to Be Bad is a 1950 melodrama starring Joan Fontaine as a manipulative young woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. It was based on the novel All Kneeling by Anne Parrish.-Cast:*Joan Fontaine as Christabel Caine Carey... |
RKO Pictures RKO Pictures RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P... |
Joan Fontaine Joan Fontaine Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.... / Robert Ryan Robert Ryan Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:... |
|
| 1951 | Flying Leathernecks Flying Leathernecks Flying Leathernecks is a 1951 action film directed by Nicholas Ray, produced by Edmund Grainger, and starring John Wayne and Robert Ryan. The movie details the exploits and personal battles of United States Marine Corps aviators during World War II... |
RKO Pictures RKO Pictures RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P... |
John Wayne John Wayne Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height... / Robert Ryan Robert Ryan Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:... |
Technicolor Technicolor Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952... |
| 1951 | The Racket The Racket (1951 film) The Racket is a 1951 remake of the the 1928 film The Racket. This film noir-style black-and-white film was directed by John Cromwell with uncredited directing help from Nicholas Ray and Mel Ferrer. The police crime drama is based on a popular Bartlett Cormack play. The Racket is a 1951 remake of... |
RKO Pictures RKO Pictures RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P... |
Robert Mitchum Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time... / Robert Ryan Robert Ryan Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:... |
Directed some scenes |
| 1952 | On Dangerous Ground On Dangerous Ground On Dangerous Ground is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and produced by John Houseman. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the novel Mad with Much Heart, by Gerald Butler... |
RKO Pictures RKO Pictures RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P... |
Robert Ryan Robert Ryan Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:... / Ida Lupino Ida Lupino Ida Lupino was an English-born film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States. She appeared in serial television programmes 58 times and directed 50 other episodes... |
Lupino directed some scenes when Ray fell ill |
| 1952 | Macao Macao (film) Macao is a 1952 black-and-white film noir adventure film directed by Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray. Producer Howard Hughes fired director von Sternberg during filming and hired Nicholas Ray to finish it... |
RKO Pictures RKO Pictures RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P... |
Robert Mitchum Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time... / Jane Russell Jane Russell Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s.... / William Bendix William Bendix William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley... |
Took over from Josef Von Sternberg Josef von Sternberg Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish... after he was fired during filming |
| 1952 | The Lusty Men The Lusty Men (film) The Lusty Men is a 1952 western film made by Wald-Krasna productions and RKO Radio Pictures. The film stars Susan Hayward, Robert Mitchum, Arthur Kennedy, and Arthur Hunnicutt... |
Wald-Krasna Productions Norman Krasna Norman Krasna was an American screenwriter, playwright, and film director. He is best known for penning screwball comedies, melodrama, and early films noir. Krasna also directed three films during a forty-year career in Hollywood... |
Robert Mitchum Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time... / Susan Hayward Susan Hayward Susan Hayward was an American actress.After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in Gone with the Wind . Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting... |
Robert Parrish Robert Parrish Robert R. Parrish was an American actor, film editor, film director, and writer. He received an Academy Award for Film Editing for the 1947 film, Body and Soul.... directed some scenes when Ray fell ill |
| 1952 | Androcles and the Lion | RKO Pictures RKO Pictures RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P... |
Jean Simmons Jean Simmons Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English actress. She appeared predominantly in motion pictures, beginning with films made in Great Britain during and after World War II – she was one of J... / Victor Mature Victor Mature Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to an Italian-speaking father from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol , Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, a cutler,... |
Directed an extra scene after filming that was not used |
| 1954 | Johnny Guitar Johnny Guitar Johnny Guitar is a 1954 Republic Pictures Western film starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, and Scott Brady.The screenplay was based upon a novel by Roy Chanslor. Though credited to Philip Yordan, he was merely a front for the actual screenwriter, blacklistee Ben Maddow. ... |
Republic Pictures Republic Pictures Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action.... |
Joan Crawford Joan Crawford Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre.... / Sterling Hayden Sterling Hayden Sterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr... |
Trucolor Trucolor Trucolor was a process used and owned by Consolidated Film Industries division of Republic Pictures. Trucolor was originally a two-strip process based on the earlier work of William Van Doren Kelley's Prizma color process. It later became a three-color process.Republic used Trucolor mostly for its... |
| 1955 | Run for Cover Run for Cover (film) Run for Cover is a 1955 western film directed by Nicholas Ray. It stars James Cagney and Viveca Lindfors.-Plot:Matt Dow meets young cowboy Davey Bishop for the first time. As they take turns shooting at a hawk, a train that has recently been robbed goes by... |
Pine-Thomas Productions | James Cagney James Cagney James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth... / John Derek John Derek John Derek was an American actor, director and photographer.-Career:His matinee-idol good looks quickly got him supporting roles, most notably as Broderick Crawford's son in All the King's Men , but he also enjoyed leads such as "Nick Romano" in Knock on Any Door opposite Humphrey Bogart John... |
Technicolor Technicolor Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952... , VistaVision VistaVision VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954.... |
| 1955 | Rebel Without a Cause Rebel Without a Cause Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments... |
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,... |
James Dean James Dean James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark... / Natalie Wood Natalie Wood Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the... / Sal Mineo Sal Mineo Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. , was an American film and theatre actor, best known for his performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause... |
Warnercolor, CinemaScope CinemaScope CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically... |
| 1956 | Hot Blood | Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies... |
Jane Russell Jane Russell Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s.... / Cornel Wilde Cornel Wilde Cornel Wilde was an American actor and film director.-Early life:Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary , although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City... |
Technicolor Technicolor Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952... , CinemaScope CinemaScope CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically... |
| 1956 | Bigger Than Life Bigger Than Life Bigger Than Life is an American film made in 1956 directed by Nicholas Ray and starring James Mason, who also co-wrote and produced the film, about a school teacher and family man whose life spins out of control upon becoming addicted to cortisone. The film co-stars Barbara Rush as his wife and... |
20th Century Fox 20th Century Fox Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios... |
James Mason James Mason James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the... / Barbara Rush Barbara Rush Barbara Rush is an American stage, film, and television actress.-Career:A student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Barbara Rush performed on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse before signing with Paramount Pictures... |
De Luxe Color, CinemaScope CinemaScope CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically... |
| 1957 | The True Story of Jesse James | 20th Century Fox 20th Century Fox Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios... |
Robert Wagner Robert Wagner Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart... / Hope Lange Hope Lange Hope Elise Ross Lange was an American stage, film, and television actress.- Early life :Lange was born into a theatrical family in Redding, Connecticut... / Jeffrey Hunter Jeffrey Hunter Jeffrey Hunter was an American film and television actor. His most famous roles are as Jesus in the film King of Kings, as Martin Pawley in The Searchers, and as Capt... |
De Luxe Color, CinemaScope CinemaScope CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically... |
| 1957 | Amère victoire Bitter Victory Bitter Victory Bitter Victory is a 1957 black and white French-American international co-production film shot in CinemaScope, directed by Nicholas Ray.... |
Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies... , Laffont Productions, Transcontinental Films |
Richard Burton Richard Burton Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid... / Curd Jürgens Curd Jürgens Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:... |
CinemaScope CinemaScope CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically... |
| 1958 | Wind Across the Everglades Wind Across the Everglades Wind Across the Everglades is a 1958 film directed by Nicholas Ray. Ray was fired from the film before production was finished, and several scenes were completed by screenwriter Budd Schulberg, who also supervised the editing.... |
Schulberg Productions Budd Schulberg Budd Schulberg was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay for A Face in the... |
Burl Ives Burl Ives Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice ..... / Christopher Plummer Christopher Plummer Arthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five... |
Fired during filming / Technicolor Technicolor Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952... |
| 1958 | Party Girl Party Girl (1958 film) Party Girl is a film noir filmed in Metrocolor and CinemaScope. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, and Lee J. Cobb. Charisse performs two dance routines in the gangster film... |
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer... , Euterpe Euterpe In Greek mythology, Euterpe + τέρπειν terpein ) was one of the Muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne, fathered by Zeus. Called the "Giver of delight", when later poets assigned roles to each of the Muses, she was the muse of music. In late Classical times she was named muse of lyric poetry and... |
Robert Taylor Robert Taylor (actor) Robert Taylor was an American film and television actor.-Early life:Born Spangler Arlington Brugh in Filley, Nebraska, he was the son of Ruth Adaline and Spangler Andrew Brugh, who was a farmer turned doctor... / Cyd Charisse Cyd Charisse Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s... |
Metrocolor Metrocolor Metrocolor is the trade name used by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for films processed at their laboratory. Virtually all of these films were actually shot on Kodak's Eastmancolor film.-External links:* at Internet Movie Database... , CinemaScope CinemaScope CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically... |
| 1960 | The Savage Innocents The Savage Innocents The Savage Innocents is a 1960 film, adapted from the novel Top of the World by Swiss writer Hans Rüesch.The screenplay was mainly written by its director, Nicholas Ray, who shot the film in the Canadian Arctic... |
Gray Film-Pathé Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:... , Joseph Janni-Appia Films, Magic Film |
Anthony Quinn Anthony Quinn Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer... / Peter O'Toole Peter O'Toole Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most... |
Technicolor Technicolor Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952... , Super-Technirama 70 |
| 1961 | King of Kings | Samuel Bronston Productions Samuel Bronston Samuel Bronston was a Bessarabian-born American film producer, film director, and a nephew of socialist revolutionary figure, Leon Trotsky. He was also the petitioner in a U.S... |
Jeffrey Hunter Jeffrey Hunter Jeffrey Hunter was an American film and television actor. His most famous roles are as Jesus in the film King of Kings, as Martin Pawley in The Searchers, and as Capt... / Rip Torn Rip Torn Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated... / Robert Ryan Robert Ryan Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:... |
Technicolor Technicolor Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952... , Super-Technirama 70 |
| 1963 | 55 Days at Peking 55 Days at Peking 55 Days at Peking is a 1963 historical epic film starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven, made by Samuel Bronston Productions, and released by Allied Artists. The movie was produced by Samuel Bronston and directed by Nicholas Ray, Andrew Marton , and Guy Green... |
Samuel Bronston Productions Samuel Bronston Samuel Bronston was a Bessarabian-born American film producer, film director, and a nephew of socialist revolutionary figure, Leon Trotsky. He was also the petitioner in a U.S... |
Charlton Heston Charlton Heston Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes... / Ava Gardner Ava Gardner Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day... / David Niven David Niven James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther... |
Dismissed from production before completion / Technicolor Technicolor Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952... , Super-Technirama 70 |
| 1974 | Wet Dreams (segment "The Janitor") |
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| 1976 | We Can't Go Home Again We Can't Go Home Again We Can't Go Home Again is an experimental feature film directed by Nicholas Ray in collaboration with his film students at SUNY Binghamton. Ray and the students play fictionalized versions of themselves.... |
Experimental film Experimental film Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians... |
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| 1978 | Marco | Short film | ||
| 1980 | Lightning Over Water Lightning Over Water Lightning Over Water is a 1980 documentary film by Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray about the last days of Ray's own life; the director was most famous for his 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. It was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.- Summary :The film is a collaboration... |
Part-Documentary Documentary A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:... / Eastmancolor film |
External links
- Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
- Photos of Nicholas Ray at SUNY Binghamton (Harpur College) from 1970-72 during the making of “We Can't Go Home Again” by Mark Goldstein
- The New Yorker article
- Tom Farrell, We Can't Go Home Again, "La furia umana", n° 3, winter 2010 on www.lafuriaumana.it
- Claudio Mazzatenta, Nicholas Ray's MARCO. Memory of working of Nick, "La furia umana", n° 3, winter 2010 on www.lafuriaumana.it
- NICHOLAS RAY: THE LAST INTERVIEW with Kathryn Bigelow and Sarah Fatima Parsons "La furia umana", n° 5 on www.lafuriaumana.it