John Michael Frankenheimer (February 19, 1930 – July 6, 2002) was an American film and television director, known both for his social dramas and his action/suspense pictures. Among his best-known theatrical film credits are Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate (both 1962), Seven Days in May, The Train (both 1964), Seconds, Grand Prix (both 1966), The Fixer (1968), The Iceman Cometh (1973), French Connection II (1975), Black Sunday (1977), 52 Pick-Up (1986), and Ronin (1998).
His nearly 40 feature films and over 50 plays for television were notable for their influence on contemporary thought. He became a pioneer of the "modern-day political thriller", having begun his career at the height of the Cold War.Yoram Allon, Yoram; Cullen, Hannah Patterson. Contemporary North American Film Directors, Wallflower Press (2000), pp. 181-83 He won four Emmy Awards – three consecutive – in the 1990s for directing the television movies Against the Wall, The Burning Season, Andersonville, and George Wallace, the last of which also received a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2002.
Frankenheimer was technically highly accomplished from his days in live television; many of his films were noted for creating "psychological dilemmas" for his male protagonists along with having a strong "sense of environment", similar in style to films by director Sidney Lumet, for whom he had earlier worked as assistant director. He developed a "tremendous propensity for exploring political situations" which would ensnare his characters. Critic Leonard Maltin writes that "in his time [1960s] ... Frankenheimer worked with the top writers, producers and actors in a series of films that dealt with issues that were just on top of the moment – things that were facing us all."
Early years
Frankenheimer was born in Queens, New York City, the son of Helen Mary (née Sheedy) and Walter Martin Frankenheimer, a stockbroker. His father was of German Jewish descent, his mother was Irish Catholic, and Frankenheimer was raised in his mother's religion. As a youth Frankenheimer, the eldest of three siblings, struggled to assert himself with his domineering father.Bowie, 2006: "Frankenheimer felt overshadowed by a strong father..."Pratley, 1968, p. 17: Frankenheimer: "...I have a brother four years younger and a sister six years younger..."
Growing up in New York City he became fascinated with cinema at an early age, and recalls avidly attending movies every weekend. Frankenheimer reports that in 1938, at the age of seven or eight, he attended a 25-episode, 7 hour marathon of The Lone Ranger accompanied by his aunt.
In 1947, he graduated from La Salle Military Academy in Oakdale, Long Island, New York, and in 1951 he earned a baccalaureate in English from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. As captain of the tennis team at Williams, Frankenheimer briefly considered a professional career in tennis, but reconsidered:Baxter, 2002: "...he had a fitness and determination that allowed him to contemplate a tennis career...he abandoned both tennis and his religion [i.e. Catholicism]."
Air Force Film Squadron: 1951–1953 After graduating from Williams College, Frankenheimer was drafted into the Air Force and assigned to the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), serving in the Pentagon mailroom at Washington, D.C. He quickly applied for and was transferred, without any formal qualifications,Pratley, 1968, p. 18: Frankenheimer's coursework at American University included speech and TV producing, which the USAF accepted as "qualifications". to an Air Force film squadron in Burbank, California. It was there that Lieutenant Frankenheimer "really started to think seriously about directing".Pratley, 1968, p. 18: Frankenheimer's remarks in quotations. And p. 21: Years in the Air Force, 1951–1953.Barson, 2021: "After making training films for the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, Frankenheimer decided to become a director."
Frankenheimer recollects his early apprenticeship with the Air Force photography unit as one of almost unlimited freedom. When he was a junior officer, Frankenheimer claimed, his superiors "couldn't have cared less" what he did in terms of utilizing the filmmaking equipment. Frankenheimer reports that he was free to set up the lighting, operate the camera and perform the editing on projects he personally conceived. His first film was a documentary about an asphalt manufacturing plant in Sherman Oaks, California.Pratley, 1968, p. 18: Frankenheimer states repeatedly that "nobody cared [or could care less]" what he did. He took the equipment home on the weekends to "shoot all manner of stuff." Lieutenant Frankenheimer recalls moonlighting, at $40-a-week, as writer, producer and cameraman making television infomercials for a local cattle breeder in Northridge, California, in which livestock were presented on the interior stage sets. (The Federal Communications Commission terminated the programming after 15 weeks.)Pratley, 1968, p. 19–20: FCC objection was the excessive commercial content, not sanitary issues related to cows. In addition to mastering the basic elements of filmmaking, he began reading widely on film technique, including the writings of Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein.Baxter, 2002: "joined the US air force in the early 1950s. Put in charge of a film unit, he immersed himself in amateur movies, training documentaries and local television work [and read] classic texts on cinema theory and practice. Frankenheimer was discharged from the military in 1953.Pratley, 1968, p. 21
Television's "Golden Age": 1953–1960
During his years in military service, Frankenheimer strenuously sought a film career in Southern California. Failing this, at the age of 23, he returned to New York upon his military discharge to seek work in the emerging television industry. His earnestness impressed Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) television executives, landing him a job in the summer of 1953 to serve as a director of photography on The Garry Moore Show.Pratley, 1968, p. 21–24: see here of Frankenheimer's efforts to secure directorial position.Walsh, 2002: "In 1953 he obtained a position with CBS television in New York as an assistant director and within 18 months of his discharge from the military he was co-directing a weekly dramatic series." Frankenheimer recalls his apprenticeship at CBS:
Frankenheimer was picked up as assistant to director Sidney Lumet's for CBS's historical dramatization series You Are There, and further on Charles Russell's Danger and Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person. In late 1954 Frankenheimer replaced Lumet as director on You Are There and Danger under a five-year contract (with a studio standard option to terminate a director with a two-week notice). Frankenheimer's directorial début was The Plot Against King Solomon (1954), a critical success.Pratley, 1968, pp. 25–26, p. 28.
Throughout the 1950s he directed over 140 episodes of shows like Playhouse 90 and Climax! under the auspices of CBS executive Hubbell Robinson and producer Martin Manulis.Pratley, 1968, pp. 29–30 These included well-regarded adaptations of works by Shakespeare, Eugene O'Neill, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Arthur Miller. Leading actors and actresses from film and stage starred in these live productions, among them Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Mickey Rooney, Geraldine Page and Jack Lemmon. Frankenheimer is widely considered a preeminent figure in the so-called "Golden Age of Television".Baxter, 2002: "It initiated a brilliant period of more than 100 productions, notably Playhouse 90 dramas..."Walsh, 2002: "Between 1954 and 1960 Frankenheimer directed 152 live television dramas, including 42 episodes of the Playhouse 90 series. He is considered one of the leading figures of American television's so-called 'Golden Age.'"Barson, 2021: "one of the most important and creatively gifted directors of the 1950s and '60s."
Film historian Stephen Bowie offers this appraisal of Frankenheimer's legacy from the "Golden Age" of television:
Film career Frankenheimer's earliest films addressed contemporary issues such as "juvenile delinquency, criminality and the social environment" and are represented by The Young Stranger (1957), The Young Savages (1961) and All Fall Down (1962).Walsh, 2002, WSWS
The Young Stranger (1957) Frankenheimer's first foray into filmmaking occurred while he was still under contract to CBS television. The head of CBS in California, William Dozier, became the CEO of RKO movie studios. Frankenheimer was assigned to direct a film version of his television Climax! production titled "Deal a Blow", written by William Dozier's son, Robert. The 1956 movie version, The Young Stranger, stars James MacArthur as the rebellious teenage son of a powerful Hollywood movie producer (James Daly). Frankenheimer recalled that he found his first film experience unsatisfactory:Baxter, 2002: "The experience was unhappy - Frankenheimer had grown used to controlling his technicians..."
Frankenheimer adds that in the late 1950s, television was transitioning from live productions to taped shows: "... a live television director was like being a village blacksmith after the advent of the automobile ... I knew I had to get out..." In 1961 Frankenheimer abandoned television and returned to filmmaking after a four-year hiatus, continuing his examination of the social themes that informed his 1957 The Young Stranger.Pratley, 1969 p. 43: Re: "village blacksmith", Pratley quoting Frankenheimer. And p. 47-48: Prately notes his return to "ideas, events, places and themes" he addressed in The Young Stranger. Film historian Gordon Gow distinguishes Frankenheimer's handling of themes addressing individualism and "misfits" during the Fifties' obsession with disaffected teenagers:
The Young Savages (1961)
Frankenheimer's second cinematic effort is based on novelist Evan Hunter's A Matter of Conviction (1959). United Artists publicity executives changed the box-office title to the vaguely lurid The Young Savages, to which Frankenheimer objected.Pratley, 1969 p. 44, p. 47: the director "disliked" the new title, Gow refers to its "cheaply made second feature" impression. The story involves the attempted political exploitation of a brazen murder involving Puerto Rican and Italian youth gangs set in New York City's Spanish Harlem.Stafford, 2005 TCM District Attorney, Dan Cole (Edward Andrews), who is seeking the state governorship, sends assistant D. A. Hank Bell (Burt Lancaster) to gather evidence to secure a conviction. Bell, who grew up in the tenement district, has escaped from his impoverished origins to achieve social and economic success. He initially adopts a cynical hostility towards the youths he investigates, which serves his own career aims. The narrative explores the human and legal complexities of the case and Bell's struggle to confront his personal and social prejudices and commitments.Stafford, 2005 TCM: "Bell uncovers the true murderer while making an important decision involving his own career."Barson, 2021: "The Young Savages...an overheated but often potent courtroom drama that starred Burt Lancaster—in the first of five movies he made with the director..." The film's arresting opening sequence depicting a killing, which is key to the plot, reveals Frankenheimer's origins in television. The action, "brilliantly filmed and edited", occurs preliminary to the credits, and is accompanied by an impelling soundtrack by composer David Amram, serving to quickly rivet audience interest.Pratley, 1969 p. 45