Martin Ritt

  • Martin Ritt – 5 Branded Women (1960)

    Martin Ritt1951-1960DramaUSAWar

    Yugoslav partisans grimly crop the hair of a village quintet of women believed to have consorted with the occupational Nazis. Four, for various reasons, have indeed – and their seducer is a lone, swaggering sergeant whom the partisans briskly emasculate. Escorted out of town by the sheepish Nazis, the forlorn ladies link up, patriotically and romantically, with a band of tough mountain guerrillasRead More »

  • Martin Ritt – The Front (1976)

    Drama1971-1980Martin RittPoliticsUSA

    Synopsis:
    In the early 1950s Howard Prince, who works in a restaurant, helps out a black-listed writer friend by selling a TV station a script under his own name. The money is useful in paying off gambling debts, so he takes on three more such clients. Howard is politically pretty innocent, but involvement with Florence – who quits TV in disgust over things – and friendship with the show’s ex-star – now himself blacklisted – make him start to think about what is really going on.Read More »

  • Martin Ritt – The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

    1951-1960DramaMartin RittUSA

    Synopsis:
    Sixty-one year old widower Will Varner (Orson Welles), in ill health, owns many businesses and property in Frenchman’s Bend, Mississippi, including a plantation. To him, his children are a disappointment, who he sees as not being able to carry on the Varner name in the style to which he has built around it. Son Jody (Anthony Francoisa) has no ambition and does not work, spending much of his time fooling around with his seductive wife, Eula (Lee Remick). He finds twenty-three-year-old daughter Clara (Joanne Woodward) clever, but he feels she also wastes her time on more contemplative pursuits. Read More »

  • Martin Ritt – Norma Rae (1979)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaMartin RittUSA

    The story is based on Crystal Lee Sutton’s life as a textile worker in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, where the battle for the workers union took place against a J.P Stevens Textiles mill. Her actual protest, in the mill, is the scene in the film where she writes the sign “UNION” and stands on her worktable until all machines are silent. Although Sutton was fired from her job, the mill became unionized, and she later went to work as an organizer for the textile unionRead More »

  • Martin Ritt – The Outrage (1964)

    1961-1970DramaMartin RittUSAWestern

    Brooklyn Academy of Music writes:
    Kurosawa’s Rashomon is transposed to the American Wild West as four participants in a rape and murder—including a Mexican bandit (Newman), the dead man (Harvey), and his wife (Bloom)—give differing accounts of what occurred. Featuring a dynamite supporting cast that includes Edward G. Robinson and William Shatner, The Outrage is lent a haunted, nightmarish atmosphere thanks to James Wong Howe’s psychologically charged camerawork.Read More »

  • Martin Ritt – The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965)

    1961-1970DramaMartin RittThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    At the height of the Cold War, British spy Alec Leamas (Richard Burton) is nearly ready to retire, but first he has to take on one last dangerous assignment. Going deep undercover, he poses as a drunken, disgraced former MI5 agent in East Germany in order to gain information about colleagues who have been captured. When he himself is thrown in jail and interrogated, Leamas finds himself caught in a sinister labyrinth of plots and counter-plots unlike anything in his long career.Read More »

  • Martin Ritt – Hud (1963) (HD)

    1961-1970DramaMartin RittUSAWestern

    Hud is a 1963 American Drama Western film directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal. It was produced by Ritt and Newman’s recently founded company, Salem Productions, and was their first film for Paramount Pictures. Hud was filmed on location on the Texas Panhandle, including Claude, Texas. Its screenplay was by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. and was based on Larry McMurtry’s 1961 novel, Horseman, Pass By. The film’s title character, Hud Bannon, was a minor character in the original screenplay but was reworked as the lead role. With its main character an antihero, Hud was later described as a revisionist Western.Read More »

  • Martin Ritt – Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972)

    1961-1970DramaMartin RittRomanceUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Based on Peter DeVries’ novel Witch’s Milk, Pete ‘n’ Tillie stars Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett in the title roles. Middle-aged when they first meet, eternally joking Pete and repressed “old maid” Tillie don’t immediately hit it off. Gradually, their friendship deepens into love and culminates (reluctantly, on Pete’s part) in marriage, eleven years of which is explored in this film. Throughout the funny and tragic moments, and despite the many breakups, their love endures. Oscar nominations went to screenwriter Julius J. Epstein and supporting actress Geraldine PageRead More »

Back to top button