Four Film Directors whose life would make a great film

The film director's life is about as bizarre as the colorful existence of a rock star. Perhaps even more so during the early years of Hollywood. I have encountered multiple stories about the youthful days of some of the great directors in history. Frankly, their experiences would make one hell of a movie.

I'm not about to write a screenplay on these guy's (and girl's) lives - though Clive Barker did that nicely with one of my selections. I will reveal a few obscure great ones, and discuss just why they deserve to have a film made about their life. Let's begin, shall we?

James Whale
1896-1957
This brooding, dark, immensely talented man gave us some of the great horror films in history including Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man. Like the character Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard, Whale found himself eventually forgotten, living alone in a Hollywood suburb endlessly watching the great Gothic films from his prime. One can practically hear the projector clicking away in his living room, decorated with a comfortable couch, screaming Chihuahuas and a glass of blood red wine. You see, Mr. Whale was homosexual, and he liked to have parties around his California swimming pool. Author Clive Barker wrote a brilliant screenplay on this man's life titled Gods and Monsters. It's an unforgettable film about a forgotten man. Would Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein (which I consider to be one of the 15 greatest films ever made) have been as good if not for this talented genius at the helm? A former newspaper cartoonist and a prisoner-of-war in World War I, Whale discovered acting while in the British Army. He arrived in Hollywood in 1930 a veteran actor of the stage, and practically created the Expressionistic themes seen in horror films from this era (though inspired by German horror films a few years before). He retired from film making, rather bored, to pursue painting during the 1940s. This deeply troubled man tried to return as a film director, failing miserably with the never-released 1949 opus Hello Out There, finding himself forgotten before his time. He was a haunted man due to his POW experiences, and thus he was the perfect artist to direct the greatest horror films in history. He drowned mysteriously in a swimming pool, with friends only recently revealing it as a suicide.

Article Author: Chris Kent

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