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78-398: Before 1968, DGA rules did not permit directors to be credited under a pseudonym. This was intended to prevent producers from forcing them upon directors, which would inhibit the development of their résumés. The guild also required that the director be credited, in support of the auteur theory , which posits that the director is the primary creative force behind a film. The Smithee pseudonym

156-547: A supervisor on the assembly line. Hill has said that his father and grandfather were "smart, physical men who worked with their heads and their hands" and had "great mechanical ability". Hill's family had originally come from Tennessee and Mississippi , "one of those fallen Southern families, shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations". "I got along with both my parents very well," Hill said. "I admired them enormously." Growing up in Southern California , Hill

234-442: A 1954 essay, François Truffaut criticized the prevailing "Cinema of Quality" whereby directors, faithful to the script, merely adapt a literary novel. Truffaut described such a director as a metteur en scene , a mere "stager" who adds the performers and pictures. To represent the view that directors who express their personality in their work make better films, Truffaut coined the phrase "la politique des auteurs", or "the policy of

312-555: A Western", and elaborated in another that "the Western is ultimately a stripped down moral universe that is, whatever the dramatic problems are, beyond the normal avenues of social control and social alleviation of the problem, and I like to do that even within contemporary stories". Hill was born in Long Beach, California , the younger of two sons. His paternal grandfather was a wildcat oil driller ; his father worked at Douglas Aircraft as

390-458: A box office failure, it gained a greater following in subsequent years (as many of Hill's films have). Hill was meant to follow it up with a big screen adaptation of Dick Tracy , replacing John Landis . Hill worked on Dick Tracy for several drafts of the script and screenwriter Jack Epps Jr. says he "played a big role in reducing and focusing the screenplay". Hill intended to make the film directly after Streets of Fire but eventually left

468-488: A career. "When you are that age, you think you are going to be in the army two years, it's a huge amount of time. You don't bother worrying about what you are doing. Suddenly, this whole thing was upon me." Through a friend Hill got a job in Los Angeles researching historical documentaries made by a company that was associated with Encyclopædia Britannica . He began seeing more and more scripts, writing scripts and developed

546-460: A chance to tell stories in an open, loose, not constricted Hollywood kind of way. At the same time you wanted to work in Hollywood... I was tremendously interested in genre films. Wanted to work within genre films. After this contract to make historical documentaries finished, Hill worked for a time in the mail room at Universal ("Somebody told me that was a good way to meet people" ). He then got into

624-518: A detective story, Hickey & Boggs and the studio agreed to finance a draft. "Detective films were very old hat, not the kind of thing a young screenwriter was going to pitch," recalls Hill. "I think they were intrigued, maybe fresh air could be blown into a venerable genre." Warners liked the Hickey & Boggs script and hired Hill to rewrite the script for The Thief Who Came to Dinner , for which he ended up getting sole credit. Hickey & Boggs

702-560: A director was The Driver starring Ryan O'Neal as a laconic getaway driver for hire and Bruce Dern as a driven cop pursuing him. No character in the film has a name; they are merely The Driver, The Detective, and so forth. Hill originally had wanted to cast Steve McQueen, but he turned down the role because he did not want to do another car film. "This Walter Hill is a force to be reckoned with," said O'Neal, "a first rate writer and an even better director. And he's fast. Most young directors today think they are David Lean ." The Driver

780-465: A film as a collaboration, her 1971 essay " Raising Kane ", examining Orson Welles 's 1941 film Citizen Kane , finds extensive reliance on co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and on cinematographer Gregg Toland . Richard Corliss and David Kipen argued that a film's success relies more on screenwriting. In 2006, to depict the screenwriter as the film's principal author, Kipen coined the term Schreiber theory . To film historian Georges Sadoul ,

858-464: A film if he wrote a screenplay for him. Hill made a deal to write and direct for scale and in turn got a shot at directing. The result was Hill's 1975 breakthrough film, Hard Times , made on location in New Orleans for just $ 2.7 million in 38 days. James Coburn played a fast-talking promoter of illegal street fights in 1930s New Orleans and Charles Bronson played the boxer protagonist. The film

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936-402: A film's main "author" can also be an actor, screenwriter, producer, or novel's author, although a film is a collective's work. Film historian Aljean Harmetz , citing classical Hollywood's input by producers and executives, held that auteur theory "collapses against the reality of the studio system ". In 2013, Maria Giese critiqued the lack of American women who are considered to be within

1014-501: A film's putative "author" could potentially even be an actor, but a film is indeed collaborative. Aljean Harmetz cited major control even by film executives. David Kipen 's view of the screenwriter as indeed the main author is termed Schreiber theory . In the 1980s, large failures prompted studios to reassert control. The auteur concept has also been applied to non-film directors, such as record producers and video game designers , such as Hideo Kojima . Even before auteur theory,

1092-419: A lawsuit with Warner Bros , with whom he was angry for selling Hickey & Boggs —Warners offered to settle the suit if Hill wrote them a screenplay, giving him the chance to adapt his choice of several novels that the studio owned the film rights to. He picked The Freedom Trap , by Desmond Bagley . "I wrote a quick script which I was not particularly enamored with myself," Hill said. However it attracted

1170-429: A more "structured narrative environment" that he "began to find my voice... I had a hard time finishing scripts. My problem was finding certain character narrative concerns. Once I finished scripts, I almost instantly made a living. Not only made a living, but got them made. From the time I finished them to the time they were getting made, making progress on the trail, that all happened pretty quickly. Hill later said, "I

1248-506: A name I'm not familiar with, allows his story to unfold naturally." Following its coinage, the pseudonym "Alan Smithee" was applied retroactively to Fade In (also known as Iron Cowboy ), a film starring Burt Reynolds and directed by Jud Taylor , which was first released before the release of Death of a Gunfighter . Taylor also requested the pseudonym for City in Fear (1980) with David Janssen . Taylor commented on its use when he received

1326-527: A talent agent at ICM, recommended the role of the convict be played by an exciting new comic on Saturday Night Live , Eddie Murphy . The resulting film was a problematic shoot, with many clashes between Paramount and Hill, but it resulted in a massive box office success. Hill's box office success with 48 Hrs. enabled him to raise the money for a stylish "rock 'n' roll fable", Streets of Fire . He almost set this up at Paramount but they changed their mind; Universal decided to finance instead. While initially

1404-488: A while. Meaning a year or so. And what happened was the strike ended and the studios didn't have a lot of ready scripts. So this clever colleague, Larry Gordon , dusted off a script that had been shuttling around development and got it greenlit at Paramount with his friend Michael Eisner . And that script was 48 Hrs. 48 Hrs. was originally meant to star Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor but both dropped out. Nick Nolte became attached as star and Hill's then-girlfriend,

1482-483: Is comfortable with abstract ideas, dominated by stories, narrative, and characters. Hill became a film fan at an early age, and the first film he remembers seeing was Song of the South (1946). He later described his taste as "juvenile", stating: "I liked adventure, westerns, but I liked everything. Musicals. But the general, I remember not liking kid movies... still don't, I think that's hung on." His asthma receded when he

1560-451: Is so unbounded and personal that the director is likened to the "author" of the film, thus manifesting the director's unique style or thematic focus. As an unnamed value, auteurism originated in French film criticism of the late 1940s, and derives from the critical approach of André Bazin and Alexandre Astruc , whereas American critic Andrew Sarris in 1962 called it auteur theory . Yet

1638-403: Is treated as artwork while the auteur, as its creator, is the original copyright holder. Under European Union law , largely by influence of auteur theory, a film director is considered the film's author or one of its authors. The references of auteur theory are occasionally applied to musicians, musical performers, and music producers. From the 1960s, record producer Phil Spector is considered

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1716-570: The Jesse James Gang , The Long Riders , which United Artists were willing to finance if a suitable director were to be found. Hill was approached and eagerly agreed to film his first Western. The film is remembered for casting real-life acting brothers (the Keaches, Carradines, Quaids and Guests) as historical outlaw siblings (the James, Younger, Miller and Ford brothers). Hill later said his "code" for

1794-694: The Western genre . He has directed such films as The Driver , The Warriors , Southern Comfort , 48 Hrs. and its sequel Another 48 Hrs. , Streets of Fire and Red Heat , and wrote the screenplay for the crime drama The Getaway . He has also directed several episodes of television series such as Tales from the Crypt and Deadwood and produced films in the Alien franchise . He founded Brandywine Productions with David Giler and Gordon Carroll . Hill said in an interview that "every film I've done has been

1872-407: The 2011 film Hidden 3D ). Historical uses of the "Alan Smithee" credit (or equivalent), in chronological order: The following films credit "Smithee"; the actual director is listed when known. Auteur An auteur ( / oʊ ˈ t ɜːr / ; French: [otœʁ] , lit. ' author ') is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control

1950-527: The DGA's Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award in 2003: I had a couple of problems in my career having to do with editing and not having the contractually required number of days in the editing room that my agent couldn't resolve. So, I went to the Guild and said, "This is what's going on." The Guild went to bat for me. I got Alan Smithee on them both. It was a signal to the industry from a creative rights point of view that

2028-468: The French film critics André Bazin and Roger Leenhardt described that directors, vitalizing films, depict the directors' own worldviews and impressions of the subject matter, as by varying lighting, camerawork, staging, editing, and so on. As the French New Wave in cinema began, French magazine Cahiers du cinéma , founded in 1951, became a hub of discourse about directors' roles in cinema. In

2106-475: The Kid instead. The Thief Who Came to Dinner eventually came out. Walter Hill later said "Warren Oates was very good in the movie—better than the movie was. They cut a lot of things out of the movie they shouldn't have." Hill went on to write a pair of Paul Newman films, The Mackintosh Man and The Drowning Pool . By Hill's own admission, his work on The Mackintosh Man "wasn't much" and he did it to settle

2184-565: The United States. Giese argues women in the US are rarely allowed to direct unless they are already celebrities, and that they are rarely afforded proper budgets. She cites women as making up less than 5% of American feature film directors , while the Hollywood Reporter stated that only about 7% of directors were women among the 250 highest-grossing films in 2016. In some law references, a film

2262-416: The United States. I remember the studio had this huge sheaf of Xeroxed reviews they'd handed me — you could stop a fucking .45 slug with this stack, it was so thick. And of all the reviews in this six-inch thick pile, there was only one good one." (In 2016 Hill would say that "whenever they show retrospectives of my stuff, it's usually the first thing they show. Sometimes you just have to wait it out." ) Hill

2340-694: The authors". He named eight writer-directors, Jean Renoir , Robert Bresson , Jean Cocteau , Jacques Becker , Abel Gance , Max Ophüls , Jacques Tati , and Roger Leenhardt , as examples of these "authors". Jerry Lewis , an actor from the Hollywood studio system, directed his own 1960 film The Bellboy . Lewis's influence on it spanned business and creative roles, including writing, directing, lighting, editing, and art direction. French film critics, publishing in Cahiers du Cinéma and in Positif , praised Lewis's results. For his mise-en-scene and camerawork, Lewis

2418-421: The call sheets and filling out time cards. He also worked as a first assistant director on a television advertisement . "I didn't have a shred of desire in those areas," says Hill of assistant directing. "I wanted to work and be around films. I certainly took my duties fairly seriously and all that. I didn't see it as a long term kind of commitment." During this time Hill was writing screenplays on nights and on

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2496-647: The concept first appeared in French in 1955 when director François Truffaut termed it policy of the authors , and interpreted the films of some directors, like Alfred Hitchcock , as a body revealing recurring themes and preoccupations. American actor Jerry Lewis directed his own 1960 film The Bellboy via sweeping control, and was praised for "personal genius". By 1970, the New Hollywood era had emerged with studios granting directors broad leeway. Pauline Kael argued, however, that "auteurs" rely on creativity of others, like cinematographers. Georges Sadoul deemed

2574-490: The director was considered the most important influence on a film. In Germany, an early film theorist, Walter Julius Bloem , explained that since filmmaking is an art geared toward popular culture, a film's immediate influence, the director, is viewed as the artist, whereas an earlier contributor, like the screenwriter, is viewed as an apprentice. James Agee , a leading film critic of the 1940s, said that "the best films are personal ones, made by forceful directors". Meanwhile,

2652-408: The entire time. When the film was finished, Siegel did not want to take the credit for it and Totten refused to take credit in his place. The DGA panel hearing the dispute agreed that the film did not represent either director's creative vision. The original proposal was to credit the fictional "Al Smith", but the name was deemed too common and was already in use within the film industry. The last name

2730-489: The film "to improve his bank account and success quotient", and admitted it was "an aberration in the career line". He added that "whatever [the film's] deficiencies, I think the wistful quality was there. I was happy about that. The picture did well and made money." After making Brewster's Millions Hill said he had another comedy in development at Universal. He also wanted to do a new version of The Magnificent Seven (1960) which he had written with Lukas Heller , "quite

2808-436: The film was to keep "the jokes funny and the bullets real. It is about moral choices. I think people who object to violence shouldn't go to the movies.... The use of all the brothers can be perceived as a gimmick but I wanted a family feeling to the movie." Hill's next film was going to be adaptations of The Last Good Kiss (by James Crumley ) and then Red Harvest (by Dashiell Hammett ). However neither were made, though

2886-409: The film, which became a massive hit. John Hughes later recalled, "I had been writing scripts for quite a while, but I never really knew what screenwriting was about until I read the script Walter wrote for Alien ." By the early 1970s, Hill wanted to direct. I think in casual conversation I would have told anybody I wanted to direct. At the same time I knew Hollywood was a closed off place... It

2964-427: The final film were his —so he left the project to write Hard Times for Larry Gordon at Columbia Pictures . In the early years of his career, Hill set up his own production company, Brandywine Productions , to develop and produce films. A script came to him, Alien , which he optioned and rewrote with his partner, David Giler . Hill and Giler were not credited for their writing work. Hill decided not to direct

3042-437: The first auteur among producers of popular music. Author Matthew Bannister named him the first "star" producer. Journalist Richard Williams wrote: Spector created a new concept: the producer as overall director of the creative process, from beginning to end. He took control of everything, he picked the artists, wrote or chose the material, supervised the arrangements, told the singers how to phrase, masterminded all phases of

3120-414: The interest of Paul Newman and John Huston. "One would like to think you are mistaken about the wonders of your work, but I didn't believe it," he said. "That part turned out to be true. I went over to work on the script with Huston. He wasn't very well, I ended up with sole screen credit, but one of the problems is the screen credit is misleading very often. I wrote 90% of the first half, various people wrote

3198-501: The journal Film Culture , American film critic Andrew Sarris translated the French term la politique des auteurs , by François Truffaut in 1955, into Sarris's term auteur theory . Sarris applied it to Hollywood films, and elaborated in his 1968 book, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 , which helped popularize the English term. Via auteur theory, critical and public scrutiny of films shifted from their stars to

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3276-452: The late 1960s, performers typically had little input on their own records. Wilson, however, employed the studio like an instrument, as well as a high level of studio control that other artists soon sought. According to The Atlantic ' s Jason Guriel, the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds , produced by Wilson, anticipated later auteurs such as Kanye West , as well as "the rise of

3354-403: The movie very cheaply, which we did. So it came together within a matter of weeks." When The Warriors was released there were a series of shootings and killings at screenings involving filmgoers on their way to or from showings. This prompted Paramount to remove advertisements from radio and television completely and display ads in the press were reduced to the film's title. However the film

3432-401: The name and its purpose became more widely known. Some directors violated the embargo on discussing their use of the pseudonym. In 1997, the film An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn was released, in which a man named Alan Smithee (played by Eric Idle ) wishes to disavow a film he directed, but is unable to do so because the only pseudonym he is permitted to use is his own name. The film

3510-458: The overall creation. In the 1960s and the 1970s, a new generation of directors, revitalizing filmmaking by wielding greater control, manifested the New Hollywood era, when studios granted directors more leeway to take risks. Yet in the 1980s, upon high-profile failures like Heaven's Gate , studios reasserted control, muting the auteur theory. Pauline Kael , an early critic of auteur theory, debated Andrew Sarris in magazines. Defending

3588-400: The pantheon of auteur directors. She argues that there is no shortage of non-American women directors that could be considered auteurs, and lists Andrea Arnold , Jane Campion , Liliana Cavani , Claire Denis , Marleen Gorris , Agnieszka Holland , Lynne Ramsay , Agnes Varda, and Lina Wertmuller as being among them, but goes on to say that women are rarely afforded financing for films in

3666-435: The producer" and "the modern pop-centric era, which privileges producer over artist and blurs the line between entertainment and art. ... Anytime a band or musician disappears into a studio to contrive an album-length mystery, the ghost of Wilson is hovering near." Walter Hill Walter Hill (born January 10, 1942) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer known for his action films and revival of

3744-517: The product credited to Stephen Greene. Meanwhile, the name had been used outside of the film industry, and it continues to be used in other media and on film projects not under the purview of the DGA. Although the pseudonym was intended for use by directors, the Internet Movie Database lists several uses as writer credits as well. Variations of the name have also occasionally been used, such as "Alan Smithee and Alana Smithy" (screenwriters for

3822-408: The project after a dispute over budget with Universal and with star Warren Beatty ; the project would be made several years later with Beatty directing . Hill's success directing Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs. saw him receive an offer to work with Richard Pryor in a new version of Brewster's Millions (1985). This was Hill's first—and, as of 2016, only—full-fledged comedy. He says he purposefully made

3900-419: The recording process with the most painful attention to detail, and released the result on his own label. Another early pop music auteur was Brian Wilson , mentored by Spector. In 1962, Wilson's band, the Beach Boys , signed to Capitol Records and swiftly became a commercial success, whereby Wilson was an early recording artist who was also an entrepreneurial producer. Before the " progressive pop " of

3978-434: The rest. I didn't think it was a very good film. Hill says he never saw the final product, but was told it was "a real bomb". Producers Larry Turman and David Foster asked Hill to adapt Ross Macdonald 's novel The Drowning Pool for Robert Mulligan to direct as a sequel to a previous Newman film, Harper (1965). The producers did not like the direction Hill took with his script—he later estimated only two scenes in

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4056-468: The shows had been tampered with. The spelling "Alan Smithee" became standard, and the Internet Movie Database lists about two dozen feature films and many more television features and series episodes credited to this name. A persistent urban legend suggests that this particular spelling was chosen because it is an anagram of the phrase "the alias men", but this is apocryphal. Over the years

4134-455: The story of Last Man Standing (which he made in 1996) was very close to Red Harvest . Instead Hill did Southern Comfort , originally written in 1976. It was an intense Deliverance -style thriller about a group of U.S. Army National Guardsmen (including Keith Carradine , Powers Boothe and Fred Ward ) on weekend maneuvers in the Louisiana bayou who find themselves fighting for survival in

4212-461: The swamps after offending some local Cajuns . The film was seen by many as an allegory for America's involvement in the Vietnam War , although Hill denies this is the case. He and David Giler rewrote the script prepared by another writer. According to Hill, "No studio wanted to make it, but an independent guy showed up who had a relationship with Fox. Liked it, said he would finance it." The film

4290-501: The training program of the Directors Guild of America , which enabled him to work in television as an apprentice. He observed and worked for over a year on such shows as Gunsmoke , The Wild Wild West , Bonanza and Warning Shot . "I did a lot of shows for a couple of weeks, they would rotate you through," he says. Hill wound up as second assistant director on The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968. He then went on to work as

4368-525: The uncredited rewrite of Alien in this style. Following the movie Hill was approached to direct The Shootist with John Wayne but turned it down as he disliked the script. He created the TV series Dog and Cat which premiered in 1977 starring a young Kim Basinger as a police officer. It was not a ratings success and was soon cancelled. However Hill's pilot script later influenced Shane Black 's original script for Lethal Weapon . Hill's second film as

4446-504: The uncredited second assistant director on Bullitt —"It was my job to set background and also to set it up with the police. We had to organise every shot so people wouldn't wander out into the middle of the street and be hit... Every time we did a shot I was scared to death." In 1969, he was the second assistant director on Woody Allen 's mockumentary film, Take the Money and Run , but said he remembers doing very little except passing out

4524-514: The urge to direct. Hill: Seeing so many of the European films, Japanese films, I was part of this isolated community in east Hollywood. I remembered thinking just a little further west they are making the films I want to see. I'm going to do this. Sink or swim... I wanted to be a writer on my way to being a director. Directors were already my heroes. Kurosawa , number of Italian directors... Movies from England, France, Sweden, Italy. Poland... One wanted

4602-427: The weekends. "I began to read screenplays that were being made, and I hesitate to say this, but I guess I read them and said: 'Christ, I could do that.'" It took him "four to five years to write my first screenplay writing at night, while I still had another day job." He says one of his earlier works "was intensely personal about a love affair I had. It was terrible, I knew it." It was not until he started writing in

4680-428: Was asthmatic as a child and, as a result, missed several years of school. Despite the discomfort, it made you comfortable being alone with yourself. You weren't as surrounded by your peers as everybody else your age was... In my case it meant tremendous amount of reading at an early age... I read, listened to radio... I became utterly besotted with daytime serials... it enabled me to live in an imaginary world where one

4758-479: Was 15 and he began to think about becoming a writer. He worked in the oil fields as a roustabout on Signal Hill, California , during high school and several more years while in college. During one summer, he ran an asbestos pipe-cutting machine and worked as a spray painter. As a teenager, Hill contemplated being a comic book illustrator and studied art at the Universidad de las Américas, Mexico City . "Mexico

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4836-412: Was a big hit which Hill later described "of the films I wrote, I thought it was far and away the best one, and most interesting." He said the success of the film "was really how I got to be a director; the fact it had done so well put me in line to get a shot." Hill and Peckinpah got along well and for a time it seemed Peckinpah might direct Lloyd Williams but he decided to make Pat Garrett and Billy

4914-513: Was also a turning point for Hill as a screenwriter. He read Alexander Jacobs ' screenplay for the John Boorman film Point Blank and considered it a "revelation" in terms of style and format. He decided to tailor his own scripts in that manner, as he described it, "extremely spare, almost Haiku style. Both stage directions and dialogue." He was also influenced by Sam Peckinpah . Hill wrote Hard Times , The Driver , The Warriors , and

4992-586: Was as far away as I could get without any money," he says. He then transferred and majored in history at Michigan State University . He said that, during this period, he was a particular fan of Ernest Hemingway 's writing and came to believe that "the hardest thing to do is write clearly and simply, and make your point in an elegant way". Upon graduation, Hill was called up for the United States Army in 1964, but childhood asthma saw him ruled ineligible. This forced him to think about what he wanted to do for

5070-496: Was created for use on the film Death of a Gunfighter , released in 1969. During its filming, lead actor Richard Widmark was unhappy with director Robert Totten and arranged to have him replaced by Don Siegel . Siegel later estimated that he had spent 9 to 10 days filming, while Totten had spent 25 days. Each had roughly an equal amount of footage in Siegel's final edit, but Siegel made clear that Widmark had effectively been in charge

5148-594: Was critically acclaimed but, in Hill's words, it "didn't make a... nickel anywhere. Foreign, domestic, anything... I was proud of the film... But I was disappointed in the lack of response. It was a universal audience failure... Usually you can say they loved it in Japan or something. I don't think anybody loved it anywhere." Hill tried to make Lone Star , from the play by James McLure to star Powers Boothe and Sigourney Weaver (1981). Like Red Harvest and The Last Good Kiss it

5226-461: Was directed by Arthur Hiller , who reported to the DGA that producer Joe Eszterhas had interfered with his creative control. He successfully removed his own name from the film, so Alan Smithee was credited instead. The film was a commercial and critical failure, released in only 19 theaters, grossing only $ 45,779 in the United States with a budget of about $ 10 million. Rotten Tomatoes reports an aggregate critical rating of only 8% positive. The film

5304-470: Was financed by EMI Films who announced they would make a second film with Hill, a Western he wrote with Roger Spottiswoode , The Last Gun . However The Driver was a commercial failure in the United States. "To say it did not do well would be kind," said Hill. "Had I not been shooting The Warriors at the time, I don't think my career would have survived. They loved it overseas, but in those days, that didn't matter that much. It made exactly zero dollars in

5382-451: Was first changed to "Smithe", then "Smithee", which was thought to be distinctive enough to avoid confusion with similar names but without drawing attention to itself. Critics praised the film and its "new" director, with The New York Times commenting that the film was "sharply directed by Allen Smithee who has an adroit facility for scanning faces and extracting sharp background detail," and Roger Ebert commenting, "Director Allen Smithee,

5460-442: Was going to make The Last Gun with Larry Gordon but when the financing on the project failed to materialize, Gordon showed Hill a copy of the novel The Warriors by Sol Yurick . They took it to Paramount Pictures because they were interested in youth films at the time and succeeded in getting the project financed. Hill remembers "it came together very quickly. Larry had a special relationship with Paramount and we promised to make

5538-554: Was going to make with Steve McQueen. Bogdanovich and Hill worked on the script together in San Francisco while Bogdanovich was directing What's Up, Doc? Hill says that Bogdanovich was interested in making the film a more Hitchcock -type film. They had completed 25 pages when they went back to L.A., whereupon McQueen fired Bogdanovich without reading any of their work. Sam Peckinpah came on to direct; Hill started from scratch and wrote his own script in six weeks. The resulting film

5616-404: Was later sold to United Artists and rewritten by director Robert Culp . Hill said he felt the film "had some nice moments, but it was cast much differently than it was written. I wasn't too excited about it." Meanwhile, Peter Bogdanovich 's ex-wife Polly Platt , a film editor, had read Hill's script for Hickey & Boggs and recommended him to co-write The Getaway , which Bogdanovich

5694-427: Was likened to Howard Hawks , Alfred Hitchcock , and Satyajit Ray . In particular, Jean-Luc Godard credited Lewis's "personal genius" for making him "the only one in Hollywood doing something different, the only one who isn't falling in with the established categories, the norms, the principles", "the only one today who's making courageous films". As early as his 1962 essay "Notes on the auteur theory", published in

5772-532: Was much harder to get in. To be an older director was a very positive thing. It meant you had survived, knew your way, could make things and make them meet your economic responsibilities. It was always paramount in studio minds, especially in those days... If I was going to direct I was going to write my way in. No TV, no play, I was simply somebody who said I have a sensibility, I think I can do this, based on nothing other than my scripts basically. Hill met producer Lawrence Gordon in 1973. He agreed to let Hill direct

5850-437: Was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards at the following year's ceremony, and won five, including Worst Picture. The harsh negative publicity that surrounded the film drew unwanted mainstream attention to the pseudonym. Following this, the DGA retired the name; for the film Supernova (2000), dissatisfied director Walter Hill was instead credited as "Thomas Lee", and Accidental Love director, David O. Russell, left

5928-447: Was not made. Larry Gross later recalled meeting Hill in the early 1980s: He'd had some success, but then he had a series of setbacks. And there was also the scandal around The Warriors ; any success had been eclipsed by the killings in the theaters. So there was that, as well as the noncommercial success of Southern Comfort and Long Riders and the fact that there was a writer's strike. All of that meant that Walter hadn't worked in

6006-409: Was very popular and received excellent reviews. "Hollywood forgives a lot when you have a hit," said Hill. "I don't know what to say about it, other than the fact that it was just a gift in terms of getting it. The studio hated it, and didn't even want to release it. There was a lot of friction with management at the time. Some of it might have been my fault." James Keach had developed a script about

6084-412: Was very sympathetic and identified with the New Hollywood ." But his films "are, or were, rather retro. That is to say, I didn't tackle subjects. I wanted to do genre films." Hill's first completed screenplay, a Western called Lloyd Williams and His Brother , was optioned by Joe Wizan . It was never made but the script was admired at Warner Bros who asked Hill to pitch some projects. He came up with

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