I just ran across a slide show retrospective on Nicholas Ray at http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/07/17/movies/20090717-RAY_5.html
I don't know why, maybe because I love Robert Ryan and always liked Ida Lupino, but this still hit me right between my Paul-Newman-like blue eyes. It feels like a combination of Ansel Adams, Edward Hopper, Alfred Hitchcock with a soupcon of John Huston thrown in. In short, very tough to beat.
Today, of course, you have film majors who have never seen "Citizen Kane." You have art directors who disparage Helmut Krone because he is old. You have copywriters who haven't read every DDB VW ad and everything McCabe ever wrote. These are the people who strut around agencies pontificating while producing mindless sensational crap. Maybe that's good enough for today's world.
It's not good enough for mine.
