“People watch luck go by them and they’re blind – they never reach out and grab it.” — George Roy Hill

George Roy Hill made his first film aged 40. He had great success with two films starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman – Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). In between he made the critically acclaimed film of Kurt Vonnegut’s “unfilmable” novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). Most of the rest of his fourteen features, including a couple of interesting films, are largely forgotten, and his critical standing is negligible.

George Roy Hill was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His well-to-do Catholic family had interests in the newspaper business. After school, he liked to visit the airport. His hobby was to memorize the records of World War I aces, and he idolized pilot Speed Homan who, Hill said, “used to make his approach to the spectators at state fairs flying past the grandstand upside down.” Hill gained his own pilot’s licence when he was just 16. He attended Yale, where he studied Music, graduated in 1943, then joined the Marine Corps as a transport pilot in the South Pacific; he was recalled as a night fighter pilot for the Korean War, rising to the rank of major. Between missions he wrote a play, My Brother’s Keeper, about his experience of being “talked down” by a ground controller which was taken up by Kraft Television Theatre. After leaving the service, he joined the company as a writer, later becoming a director and working on series such as Playhouse 90 and full-length dramas including Judgment At Nuremberg and A Night To Remember, which won him an Emmy for his screenplay and direction.

Hill graduated to Broadway with prize-winning productions of Look Homeward, Angel and the Tennessee Willians play Period of Adjustment. In 1962 he was asked by Marten Pictures to direct the film version of Period of Adjustment which now is remembered, if at all, as one of Jane Fonda’s earliest big screen appearances. Critical interest in George Roy Hill began to quicken in 1964 with his production of The World of Henry Orient, a satire starring Peter Sellers as a talentless pianist with an outsized ego. Elmer Bernstein wrote the score, the first time he had written for a comedy.

Hill directed the epic Hawaii (1966), taking over from Fred Zinnemann during the shoot. Julie Andrews was miscast as Max von Sydow’s missionary wife in the three-hour long adaptation of part of James Michener’s 900-page novel. The producers had anticipated problems when, with the budget spiralling to $14 million, they attempted to replace Hill with Arthur Hiller; they abandoned the idea when the hundreds of native Polynesians in the cast went on strike, declaring: “We can and will perform only for our friend, Monsieur Hill.”

Hill worked with Julie Andrews in his next film, the musical rom-com Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), set in the 1920s. The film won Elmer Bernstein his only Oscar, for Best Music, Original Music Score, He was nominated on 10 other occasions in his career. The film was a critical and box office success and, in addition to Bernstein’s win, was nominated for another six Academy Awards, but not for Best Picture or Best Director.

Hill then directed two films that would prove to be his greatest hits. The first, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Originally Paul Newman didn’t want to play Butch “I’m a terrible comic actor”, Newman insisted, but became more convinced when Hill told him to just play it straight. Hill wasn’t the easiest person to work with, Screenwriter William Goldman wrote that he couldn’t say what the producers’ contributions were to this movie because “on a George Roy Hill film, George is the giant ape. Because of his vast talent, his skill at infighting, his personality, he runs the show.” On the first day of shooting, involving the train robbery scenes, Katharine Ross came to the set to watch. There were five cameras and only four operators, so Cinematographer Conrad L. Hall put her on the extra camera. He showed her how to operate it and how to move it to get her shot. Director George Roy Hill was furious but said nothing the whole day. At the end of the day, however, he banned her from the set except when she was working. That is why she enjoyed shooting the bicycle riding scene; it was handled by the film crew’s Second Unit rather than the director. She said, “Any day away from George Roy Hill was a good one”.

The film opened to lukewarm reviews, which depressed George Roy Hill and William Goldman, but their moods were lifted when a friend of Goldman’s told him about waiting in line in the rain to buy tickets on a chilly October day (a few weeks after it premiered). As the earlier audience filed out, one man who had just seen it shouted out, “Hey, it’s really worth it!” “When I heard that story, I thought for the first time that we really might have something after all”, Goldman said. Indeed, the film got great word of mouth, and audiences grew solidly and enthusiastically. At the Oscars the film picked up four wins, Goldman for Best Writing, Hal for Best Cinematography and Bacharach for Best Original Score and, with Hal David, Best Original Song. Although a nominee, a Best Director Oscar still eluded George Roy Hill.

Hill took advantage of his status as an Oscar-nominee and persuaded Universal, to whom he was under contract, to finance a film of Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). His ambitious take on the seemingly unfilmable novel gained him the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival but sparse box office receipts. As so often, however, artistic ambitions outstripped the audience’s comprehension; and in this case, an account of the bombing of Dresden in 1945, the modern parallels with Vietnam and the flash-forwards to a distant future confused viewers. However, the book’s author, Kurt Vonnegut, praised the movie: “I love George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novel Slaughterhouse-Five to the silver screen … I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book.”

The Sting (1974) avoided all such complexities. A simple, unambitious film, it was deservedly popular. At the time it was the fourth biggest money-earner ($160 million) in Hollywood’s history, after The Godfather, The Sound of Music and Gone With the Wind. David S Ward had written the screenplay using research he had done about pickpockets for Steelyard Blues (1973). Ward wrote the script with Robert Redford in mind as Hooker, but Redford initially turned the part down. Even after changing his mind, he didn’t expect the movie to be a hit. George Roy Hill saw the screenplay by accident and asked for the director’s job. He routinely showed his projects to Paul Newman, and Newman was pleased to join this one. As soon as George Roy Hill signed on to direct, he knew that he wanted to lighten the tone. Originally, David S. Ward had written the story as a much darker tale of con men on the take. Hill, however, envisioned it as a playful homage to old Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s.

As he researched George Roy Hill noticed that most 1930s gangster films didn’t use a lot of extras in the scenes. “For instance, no extras would be used in street scenes in those films: Jimmy Cagney would be shot down and die in an empty street. So I deliberately avoided using extras.” He wanted the film to be a stylish one that accurately reflected the feel not only of 1930s Chicago but also of o films from the era. Hill, art director Henry Bumstead and cinematographer Robert Surtees devised a colour scheme of muted browns and maroons for the film and a lighting design that used 1930s-style lighting to get the look he wanted. Edith Head designed a wardrobe of snappy period costumes for the cast (that resulted in a brief resurgence of fashionable gangster-style clothes for men). Artist Jaroslav Gebr created inter-title cards that were reminiscent of the golden glow of old Saturday Evening Post illustrations – a popular publication of the 1930s.

The film received rave reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect four out of four stars and called it “one of the most stylish movies of the year.” Gene Siskel awarded three-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it “a movie that has obviously been made with loving care each and every step of the way.” Hills response to Kael: Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was less enthused, writing that the film “is meant to be roguishly charming entertainment, and that’s how most of the audience takes it, but I found it visually claustrophobic, and totally mechanical. It creeps cranking on, section after section, and it doesn’t have a good spirit.” She also noted that “the absence of women really is felt as a lack in this movie.” Hill’s response to Kael: “What am I supposed to do, stop the action in an action picture just to drag some women in?” The film was nominated for ten Oscars, winning seven including the Academy Award for Best Director for Hill.

After his career high of The Sting, Hill made a series of less well-received pictures the first of which was The Great Waldo Pepper (1975). With his enthusiasm for flying and good rapport with Redford, Hill persuaded the star to take the role of a 1920s barnstorming pilot in the movie which was based on an original story Hill had written. Sadly, only vivid flying sequences helped the dull on-the-ground drama, scripted by Goldman. The film was sot in Elgin, Texas. Aerial sequences were filmed at Zuehl Airfield near San Antonio, which is not too far from Fort Sam Houston, where the pioneering silent aviation classic and first Best Picture Oscar-winning film Wings was shot in 1926-27. Hill made sure stars Bo Svenson and Robert Redford did each sequence with no parachutes or safety harnesses. He wanted them to feel what it was like to fly vintage aircraft. Fortunately, no one was hurt during the air scenes. The film received praise for its flying sequences but reviews for the movie as a whole were mixed, It was Hill’s favourite, most personal work.

Hill never repeated the success of Butch Cassidy or the Sting. Slap Shot (1977) reunited him with Newman, playing against type as a foul-mouthed hockey coach which alienated some of Newman’s fans and the raucous movie failed commercially. Hill went on to make a pale comedy, A Little Romance (1979) then showed his ambitious streak with The World According To Garp (1982) based on John Irving’s darkly comic novel. A miscast Robin Williams in the central role contributed to the film’s lacklustre performance. His penultimate work, The Little Drummer Girl (1984), received poor reviews and little audience enthusiasm for an incoherent version of a John Le Carré novel. His inability to stamp much personality on his movies was nowhere more apparent than with the mis-titled Funny Farm (1988). After this uneven Chevy Chase vehicle, he returned to Yale – this time as a drama teacher. His fame had rested on a clutch of movies within a career characterised by inconsistency.

“I have now spent exactly a year and three months on this film, and at this point, I don’t know yet how it’s going to be received. I think it’s a good film, I think the guys are great in it, and I think the relationships work. It was a hell of a lot of hard work doing it, and actually even more fun, and if audiences don’t dig it, I think I’ll go out of my fucking mind.” George Roy Hill commentary – The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

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