lsohgirl wrote:
Maybe if given Whale's budgets, casts and crews and say-so over projects, Lew Landers would have had more of a style. I do agree most of them were work-a-day hacks of a sort, but even talented people sometimes have trouble rising above their lot. When Whales budgets were cut and his control over the projects lessened, he was more than capable of making filmic turkeys with the best of them. Still, to me, Whales is the greatest director of fantasy/horror ever. Fisher is second.
What Dick said.  GREEN HELL is crap... made me wish Ramar of the Jungle had shown up to liven things up.  It's not just the director, it's all the facilities at his (her, rarely) disposal.  Browning had about two months plus prep time to shoot DRACULA, Lew Landers had three weeks for RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE.  Whale's budget for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN was greater than three or four Hammer movies combined.  Journeyman director Chris Nyby gets the knock against him because none of his 25 years' worth of TV work comes up to THE THING's mark... but when was he ever given six months to shoot a film? (Much less having a producer and co-director like Howard Hawks?)  Yet the episodes of I SPY, PERRY MASON, et al, are zippy, competent, interactive and as good or better than episodes directed by, say, Tom Gries.