Film Inquiry Recommends: John Frankenheimer Films

Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily Film Recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is John Frankenheimer films. John Frankenheimer was one of the greatest American action directors of the 20th Century, able to juggle action and story whilst injecting enough creativity to keep them interesting. Whilst his reputation has been ruined due to his last couple of films (Reindeer Games and The Island of Dr. Moreau), he has a large list of great films. We did miss The Manchurian Candidate; we all know it’s great, but we wanted to highlight some of his more underrated works.

1. The Train (1964, John Frankenheimer)

The Train is the film that The Monuments Men wanted to be. Near the end of World War II, Nazi Officer Von Waldheim is desperate to get his collection of stolen art from Paris to Germany before the Allies come to stop the Germans. Using the train to transport these, members of the Resistance plan to stop Von Waldheim from transporting the art without getting it damaged. Leader in this enterprise is train conductor Labiche (Burt Lancaster), who stages an elaborate plan to stop the train at any costs.

What elevates this film from a standard World War II action film is that the cinematography is incredibly good. A masterclass in the use of deep focus, long takes and subtle uses of dutch tilts, Frankenheimer is a director at the top of his game here, using interesting aesthetics to really bring this film to life. Mixed with great performances by the whole cast (such as Paul Scofield as Von Waldheim, who is a great antagonist) and some great epic practical effects (some train crashes/stunts in the film are really well done), this film is sadly one of Frankenheimer’s more underrated works, a film not known enough by modern audiences.

2. Dead-Bang (1989, John Frankenheimer)

25 Years after The Train, and Frankenheimer was still making great, creative action films. Whilst not as visually strong as Frankenheimer’s previous works, what he achieves well in Dead-Bang is creating a great pulpy cop thriller which uses standard tropes well. Don Johnson stars as Jerry Beck, an alcoholic divorced cop who is passionate about his job because it’s all he has left. Whilst this character description sounds super generic, Frankenheimer avoids lingering on the more generic details of his character and Johnson makes his character quite sympathetic and someone to root for. Beck starts to investigate the death of a fellow cop, which slowly uncovers a larger conspiracy featuring a murderous gang of skin-heads.

The action is quick and fast in this film, constantly propelling forward thus never leaving the audience bored. The story is interesting enough to keep you invested, even though the ending is quite questionable (it’s interesting in its originality, but the execution is tricky). Some of Frankenheimer’s visual tricks do surface, such as his subtle use of dutch tilts for specific character moments and always making sure that the action on-screen is framed properly and can be seen clearly, rather then overusing cuts to hide poor film-making.

3. Seconds (1966, John Frankenheimer)

A bomb initially, Seconds went on to become a cult film, deservedly so, as Frankenheimer’s odd sci-fi drama is a great movie and one of his best black & white films. Seconds tells the story of Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph), an unhappy middle-aged banker who gets a call from a friend thought to be deceased, who recommends a place called “The Company”, a service where unhappy people can fake their deaths and be given a brand new life. Hamilton is reborn as Antiochus Wilson (Rock Hudson in one of his best roles), a successful artist living the high life. As Hamilton starts to slowly regret his decision, other problems involving his past and the Company arise.

Seconds is another film that is a great example of Frankenheimer’s creative use of visuals, such as his subtle long takes, which are used for purpose within the story rather than showing off his technical expertise. The film’s first and second half work extremely well with each other, setting up a metaphorical juxtaposition which really works with the messages of the film. Frankenheimer excelled at creating thrillers which are tinged with some form of paranoia (The Manchurian Candidate being the prime example of this). Criterion Collection revived this film from obscurity (as the previous DVD went out of print for several years). This is a film that all sci-fi fans should seek out.

4. 52 Pick-Up (1986, John Frankenheimer)

Sadly one of Frankenheimer’s more underrated features, 52 Pick-Up is one of his more darker and action-packed films which he directed later in life (before his decline into director-for-hire jobs). 52 Pick-Up is about Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider, who plays a sympathetic yet flawed person, in one of his darker roles), who is a successful car manufacturer manager who has an affair with a random woman. She turns out to be linked to a gang that tries to blackmail Harry with the tape of his affair. Refusing to pay, Harry starts to slowly turn the members on the gang on each other, which descends into chaos for all.

The ending for the film is slightly over-the-top (it stretches some credibility), but overall it is a cool pulpy thriller, which features a cast of characters who are all people with problems trying to exploit others to get what they want. The way Harry goes about his plan to stop the gang is creative and interesting to watch play out on screen. Based on an Elmore Leonard novel, whose works has pumped out some great films over the years (along with some duds too), 52 Pick-Up is a sleazy pulpy action film that’s definitely different from the rest and worth checking out purely for that fact.

5. Ronin (1998, John Frankenheimer)

Ronin is Frankenheimer’s last great film, as he went on to make the universally panned Reindeer Games after this. He actually made The Island of Dr.Moreau two years before Ronin, which is staggering in their drastic changes in quality. It really highlights how much can change if the director actually has some passion towards a project. Ronin is a great film and has gone on to become a classic in the action genre, thanks to its excellent car chases and its ability to weave meaningful characters and entertaining action without having to sacrifice either to benefit the film.

24 years after his first action film (The Train), Frankenheimer shows us that he can still direct action in exciting and visually creative ways, going towards a more realistic style that is similar to Michael Mann’s Heat. An ex-US intelligence agent Sam (Robert DeNiro) joins a group of specialists to track down an important suitcase before it is sold to the Russians. The cast is loaded with great actors, including Jonathon Pryce, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgard and Sean Bean (spoilers: he doesn’t die!). The film starts slow, but this is intentional as it sets up its characters and plot, which allows the action later on to actually feel meaningful and to serve the plot well.

6. The French Connection 2 (1975, John Frankenheimer)

Made 4 years after William Friedkin’s original film, The French Connection 2 joins the rare legion of good sequels. Whilst it doesn’t top the first film, the film attempts to do its own thing and actually continue the story established in the first film, by changing the location from gritty New York to the slightly more glamorous Marseille, as Popeye (Gene Hackman) tries to track down Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), who alluded him in the first film.

Frankenheimer was a good choice to pick up the sequel (Friedkin had no interest) due to his keen eye for shooting action and understanding the importance of mixing action with plot to make the scenes have weight to them. Frankenheimer’s sparse use of studio lighting and music really heightens the realistic/documentary feel of the first film, even though the plot of this retcons the ending established from the previous film. Whilst the first film was built on true stories from several New York cops, the story for this sequel was all purely fiction to build upon the success of the first French Connection.

7. Prophecy (1979, John Frankenheimer)

The only real horror film Frankenheimer ever directed is a bizarre yet effective monster movie. Prophecy is not subtle in its approach on the environment and toxic effect of humanity on nature. A Logging company’s ventures in a forest causes some imbalance, which somehow creates a giant mutant-bear creature which starts to kill any human it can find. A group of environmentalists are enlisted to go in and stop the creature before it reigns further terror, with the cast including Talia Shire, Armand Assante and Robert Foxworth.

Whilst not as polished or thought out as his other works, Prophecy works in an old-school horror way, with its shlock values and entertaining kills done via B-Movie Monster fashion. Yet, the film is still worth checking out, probably more for the horror movie crowd than the arthouse and action audience that Frankenheimer’s other films are usually geared towards. One thing to note about the film is whilst it’s called Prophecy, there’s actually no ‘Prophecy’ mentioned in the film at all. It joins a long list of grindhouse films which had intriguing titles that actually had no bearing on the plot.

What are some other great John Frankenheimer films that we missed?

(top image source: United Artists)