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Sun 5 Jan, 2003 11:28 pm
Audiences loved the light touch American director George Roy Hill brought to his films throughout his career, from musicals to westerns to thrillers to comedies. He was a great story-teller with a special ability to bring the best out of his actors. Mr. Hill (who passed away on Dec. 20, 2002) was responsible for pairing the famous acting duo of Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Two of his most memorable films are "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and "The Sting" (1973). Mr. Hill won an Academy Award for directing "The Sting" and the film won the "Best Picture" Academy Award.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE GEORGE ROY HILL FILM? (See film list below.)
Funny Farm (1988)
Little Drummer Girl, The (1984)
World According to Garp, The (1982)
Little Romance, A (1979)
... aka I love you, je t'aime (1979) (France)
Slap Shot (1977)
Great Waldo Pepper, The (1975)
Sting, The (1973)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
Hawaii (1966)
World of Henry Orient, The (1964)
Toys in the Attic (1963)
Period of Adjustment (1962)
One way I could always tell a George Roy Hill film was his actors always seemed to be enjoying their craft to the fullest. Redford never had a better director and turned in two of his best performances. "Slauterhouse-Five" was incredibly difficult to bring to the screen and I believe a very underrated film. Sad to see him go.
I also believe Roy Hill was quite an underrated director.
My favorite Roy Hill film is Slaughter-House Five. Well acted, well set, deep, visually fascinating.
A minor jewel is, IMO, A Little Romance. I find it very sweet.
Slap Shot is really minor, but a lot of fun.
The ones I liked the least are The Little Drummer Girl and, The World According to Garp.
"Drummer Girl" still remains as the best adaptation of a Le Carre novel and that is curious as I find it one of Hill's lesser efforts.
"Slap Shot" was well received by the critics and I don't believe as minor as you might believe -- as sports themed films go, it's right up there with "North Dallas Forty," and "Bull Durham." Someone should start a discussion of favorite sports themed films!
"The World According to Garp" is now the second best adaptation of a John Irving novel, "Cider House Rules" being the best. However, the performances are tour-de-force and it is very faithful to Irving's text so I put it a little higher up in Hill's filmography.
Hill was a good director but a most unpleasant man. I met him at Yale when I was an undergrad there (he had attended drama school there I believe)...he was pompous, imperious, and full of himself. It was hard for me to like his movies after that.
Lightwizard, DRUMMER GIRL is vastly inferior to Martin Ritt's movie of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD if you are ranking Le Carre adaptations. Let's not give Hill credit he doesn't deserve.
Larry:
Sorry to hear that Hill was pompous. I know the feeling you experienced as I had a similar reaction when I met Helen Hayes and Lauren Bacall. But in defense of most major film personalities, I have to report that most of them have been acceptable in person and dedicated workers.
Because of the nature of Hill's films, he must have been fairly amaible to have achieved the results he did with his actors.
I can report that Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock were extremely cordial when I met them. It may have been because they were both older and wiser by the time I met them.
Whoops, you're right, Larry -- I don't know what I was thinking ignoring "Spy." "Drummer Girl" was a better adaptation than all the others but not nearly as successful as "Spy." Pardon my brief (I hope) memory lapse. Golly, Larry, maybe you met Hill on a bad day because I've met directors who I thought the same thing about and later changed my mind. George Cukor was very aloof on a first meeting but after a few months, I found him congenial and very down to earth. In art gallery sales, as an instance, one is consciously putting on a certain amount of airs which hopefully doesn't integrate into their true personality (although I have know some that it does). Redford and Newman have both said and written good things about Hill (Redford crediting him for his own directorial skills). Perhaps it was his returning to the stuffiness of the Yale milieu -- Dubya has remnants of that atmosphere in his attempts to be didactic.
"Period of Adjustment" is one of my favorite holiday movies.
Dubya is far from being a typical Yalie. When he tries to be didactic, he comes across like the slow student who's barely passing remedial reading and who wants to get an A for the course.
George Roy Hill had a thorough reputation in Hollywood for being prickly and abrasive, judging from comments made by John Gregory Dunne about him in his book CROONING.
Prickly and abrasive -- you've just described at least half the directors in the movie business (and I'm being kind).
I'm partial to The Sting for sentimental reasons, but A Little Romance is a little gem.
Hill was a competent hack. Nothing more. Trying to stretch his reputation into something beyond that makes a mockery of his contemporaries, like Sam Peckinpah and Robert Altman, who were genuine artists.
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