Robert Altman Study Part 9: Bonanza and Bus Stop

Even armed with only a knowledge of his feature films, one of the most fascinating aspects of Robert Altman's career is his role as a bridge between the Golden Age of Hollywood and the renegade American cinema of the 1970s. Altman was born in 1925, five years before Clint Eastwood, who I've long maintained is probably the last vestige of the classical Hollywood tradition. Both garnered key early experience in television (Altman behind, Eastwood in front of the camera), and looking at his work through Bonanza it would appear that Altman is well on the road to a career resembling the one that Eastwood carved out as a director. But Altman, perhaps in part because he started his feature directing career fairly late in life and in part because he never had a mentor like Eastwood did in Don Siegel, ended up making films more in tune with the film school generation born more than a decade later.

Robert Altman Study Part 8: Warner Bros. and freelance

After wrapping up his stints with Desilu and The Millionaire, Altman moved on to the slightly more exalted Warner Bros. television department, where he had better production values and scripts to work with. He made the rounds of the studio's shows, including episodes of Lawman, Hawaiian Eye, and Surfside Six (none of which I've seen). Altman's Warner stint started out with two episodes of the "frontier lawyer" series Sugarfoot, starring Will Hutchins. The first, "Apollo With a Gun," is an odd comedic story in which Hutchins' Tom Brewster gets involved in a love triangle with the real-life couple of actress Adah Isaacs Menken and bare-knuckle boxer John "Benicia Boy" Heenan. The episode finds the star dragged behind an escaped, lovestruck stallion; getting on the wrong side of a local hothead; and shanghaied into performing Shakespeare (badly).

Robert Altman Study Part 7: The Millionaire

At the same time as his stint at Desilu, Altman became a regular director on The Millionaire, which was already a hit show in its fourth season when he came on board. The premise of the show was that a millionaire named John Beresford Tipton (his face never seen, his voice portrayed by the ubiquitous Paul Frees) would regularly present anonymous million-dollar checks to complete strangers for unknown reasons. Each episode followed his executive secretary, Michael "Not the Bassist for Van Halen" Anthony (Marvin Miller) as he presents the checks and changes the recipients' lives. The premise allowed the tone to shift from melodrama to comedy to crime stories from one week to the next, so each show was essentially a B-movie boiled down to its least interesting essentials. It did include guest spots by a great number of once and future stars, including Dennis Hopper, James Coburn, Tuesday Weld, Agnes Moorehead, Betty White, Vic Morrow, and Charles Bronson.

Robert Altman Study Part 6: Desilu

At Desilu, the production company owned by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Altman became one of the principal directors on two series from 1957-1959: Whirlybirds and Sheriff of Cochise/U.S. Marshal. The gig was a serious step down from the quality of Hitchcock's shows, but provided the director with more experience in working quickly and cheaply.

Robert Altman Study Part 5: When Bob Met Hitch

Whatever the deficiencies of Altman's first feature, The Delinquents was apparently an assured enough debut to catch the eye of Alfred Hitchcock. Whether he was simply prescient (possible) or was impressed more by the younger director's ability to turn in a competent thriller on a paper-thin budget (more likely), Hitch recruited Altman to direct for the third season of his TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which would inaugurate a decade of work for the small screen.

Robert Altman Study Part 4: First Features

As I mentioned in my last post, Altman made several stabs at a Hollywood career during his six years directing industrials for the Calvin Company. None of those paid off, so his entrée into the film industry came back home in Kansas City rather than out west. His first opportunity came via Elmer Rhoden Jr., a former classmate and son of the owner of a regional movie theater chain who wanted to break into producing. Rhoden enlisted Altman to help write the script for Corn's-A-Poppin' (1951), a film loosely assembled around the dubious talents of a few local aspiring country singers. The film is difficult to see now (I haven't managed to lay eyes on it), though a newly restored print recently screened in Chicago at the UCLA's ongoing Altman retrospective, which has been making me extremely jealous with its wealth of obscurities.

Robert Altman Study Part 3: The Calvin Company

After his first stabs at breaking into Hollywood yielded less than ideal results, Altman returned home to Kansas City and began working for the Calvin Company, a local production outfit that made industrial films for a host of well-known clients - ironically, housed in a building that had been built by Altman's grandfather. Over the next six years, Altman would write, direct, edit, scout, and gofer for dozens of films touting everything from International Harvester to Goodyear to General Mills. This was his film school, lending him the technical training he'd carry into his own films. The few films that are available to view today are of little interest beyond that fact - to quote Frank Barhydt, Altman's boss at the time, the Calvin films are "dull enough to halt a herd of charging rhinos."

Robert Altman Study Part 2: Christmas Eve & Bodyguard

Discussions of Robert Altman’s career usually begin in general with Countdown in 1968 and in earnest with M*A*S*H the following year. But his career actually began more than two decades earlier, when he teamed with producer George W. George and sold story ideas for two long (and largely justifiably) forgotten cheapies. George was the son of cartoonist Rube Goldberg and the nephew of journeyman director Edward L. Marin, who directed the first of the two, Christmas Eve (1947).

Robert Altman Study Part 1: Beginnings

I’ve recently embarked on a comprehensive chronological viewing of the work of Robert Altman, and thought I’d try to gather some thoughts and notes here as I proceed. I’ve done this sort of study - trying to watch everything a filmmaker has worked on, in order, while reading biographies and other supplemental materials - in the past, but never set down my thoughts as I went. So this is as much for my own memory as anything else, and will be sporadic and fairly informal.