Editing Nicholas Ray (section)

== Hollywood ==
''They Live By Night'' was reviewed (under one of its working titles, ''The Twisted Road'') as early as June 1948, but not released until November 1949, due to the chaotic conditions surrounding [[Howard Hughes]]'s takeover of [[RKO Pictures]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Brog.|date=June 30, 1948|title='The Twisted Road'|work=Variety}}</ref>  As a result of the delay, the second and third pictures Ray directed, RKO's ''[[A Woman's Secret]]'' (1949) and ''[[Knock on Any Door|Knock On Any Door]]'' (1949), a loan-out to [[Humphrey Bogart]]'s [[Santana Productions]] and [[Columbia Pictures|Columbia]], were released before his first.

Almost an impressionistic take on [[film noir]], starring [[Farley Granger]] and [[Cathy O'Donnell]] as a thief and his newlywed wife, ''They Live By Night'' was notable for its empathy for society's young outsiders, a recurring motif in Ray's oeuvre. Its subject matter, two young lovers running from the law, had an influence on the sporadically popular movie sub-genre involving a fugitive criminal couple, including [[Joseph H. Lewis]]'s ''[[Gun Crazy]]'' (1950), [[Arthur Penn]]'s ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]'' (1967), [[Terrence Malick]]'s ''[[Badlands (film)|Badlands]]'' (1973), and [[Robert Altman]]'s 1974 [[Thieves Like Us (film)|adaptation]] of the Edward Anderson novel that had also served as the basis for Ray's film, ''[[Thieves Like Us (novel)|Thieves Like Us]]''.

''[[The New York Times]]'' gave ''They Live By Night'' a positive review (despite calling his trademark sympathetic eye to rebels and criminals "misguided") and acclaimed Ray for "good, realistic production and sharp direction...Mr. Ray has an eye for action details. His staging of the robbery of a bank, all seen by the lad in the pick-up car, makes a fine clip of agitating film. And his sensitive juxtaposing of his actors against highways, tourist camps and bleak motels makes for a vivid comprehension of an intimate personal drama in hopeless flight."<ref>Crowther, Bosley. "They Live by Night" New York Times November 4, 1949</ref>

Ray made several more contributions to the noir genre, most notably the 1950 Humphrey Bogart movie, also for Santana and released by Columbia, ''[[In a Lonely Place]]'', about a troubled screenwriter suspected of a violent murder, and ''[[On Dangerous Ground]]'' (1951), in which [[Robert Ryan]] plays an alienated, brutally violent detective on a city police force who finds redemption, and love, after he is sent to investigate a murder in a rural community.

While at RKO, Ray also directed ''A Woman's Secret'', co-starring his wife-to-be [[Gloria Grahame]] as a singer who becomes the subject of a crime and an investigation of her past, and ''[[Born to Be Bad (1950 film)|Born to Be Bad]]'' (1950), with [[Joan Fontaine]] as a San Francisco social climber.

In January 1949, Ray was announced as set to direct ''[[The Woman on Pier 13|I Married a Communist]]'', a litmus test that RKO head [[Howard Hughes]] had concocted to weed out Communists at the studio. [[John Cromwell (director)|John Cromwell]] and Joseph Losey had previously turned it down, and both were punished by the studio and subsequently [[Hollywood blacklist|blacklisted]]. Soon after the public announcement, and prior to the start of production, Ray stepped away from the project. While the studio considered dismissing him or suspending him, instead it extended his contract, evidently with Hughes's consent. As late as 1979, Ray insisted that Hughes "saved me from blacklisting," although Ray also likely wrote to the [[House Un-American Activities Committee|House Committee on Un-American Activities]] about his political past or testified in private, in order to protect himself.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 123–25; McGilligan, pp. 167–70, 210–11.</ref>

His final film at the studio, ''[[The Lusty Men]]'' (1952), starred [[Robert Mitchum]] as a champion bronco rider who tutors a younger man in the ways of rodeoing while becoming emotionally involved with the younger cowpoke's wife. At a March 1979 college appearance, documented in the first sequence of ''[[Lightning Over Water]]'' (1980) to be shot, Ray talks about ''The Lusty Men'' as a film about "a man who wants to bring himself all together before he dies."<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 479.</ref>

After leaving RKO, Ray signed with a new agent, [[MCA Inc.|MCA]]'s [[Lew Wasserman]], a major Hollywood force, who steered the director's career through the 1950s. During that time, Ray directed one or two films for most of the major studios, and one generally considered to be a minor, [[Republic Pictures]]. He made films in conventionalized genres, including [[Western (genre)|Westerns]] and [[melodrama]]s, as well as others that resisted easy categorization.

In the mid-fifties, he made the two films for which he is best remembered: ''[[Johnny Guitar]]'' (1954)  and ''[[Rebel Without a Cause]]'' (1955). The former, made at Republic, was a Western starring [[Joan Crawford]] and [[Mercedes McCambridge]] in action roles of the kind customarily played by men. Stylized, and highly eccentric in its time, it was much loved by French critics. ([[François Truffaut]] called it "the ''Beauty and the Beast'' of Westerns, a Western dream.")<ref>Truffaut, François (1955). "Le Film de la semaine: ''Johny Guitare'' de Nicholas Ray," ''Arts/Spectacles'' 504 (February 23–March 1), p. 5.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Truffaut |first=François |title=The Films in My Life |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=1978 |isbn=0-671-22919-2 |location=New York |pages=142 |translator-last=Mayhew |translator-first=Leonard}}</ref>

Between feature-length projects, and after shooting another Western, ''[[Run for Cover (film)|Run For Cover]]'' (1955), starring [[James Cagney]], Ray was asked to take on a television film for ''[[General Electric Theater|G. E. Theater]]''. The anthology series was produced by MCA-Revue, a subsidiary of the agency to which the director was signed, and aired on CBS. ''High Green Wall'' was an adaptation, by [[Charles R. Jackson|Charles Jackson]], of an [[Evelyn Waugh]] story, "[[A Handful of Dust|The Man Who Liked Dickens]]," about an illiterate man, played by [[Thomas Gomez]], who holds captive a stranded traveller, played by [[Joseph Cotten]], in the jungle, forcing him to read aloud from [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]] novels. Shot on film over a few days, after a week's rehearsal, the half-hour drama was broadcast on October 3, 1954. Ray did not work in broadcast television after, and rarely spoke of the program, later expressing his disappointment: "I was hoping for something new, accidental or planned, to happen. But it didn't."<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 220–28.</ref>

In 1955, at [[Warner Bros. Pictures|Warner Bros.]], Ray directed ''Rebel Without a Cause'', twenty-four hours in the life of a troubled teenager, starring [[James Dean]] in what proved to be his most famous role. When ''Rebel'' was released, only a few weeks after Dean's early death in an automobile crash, it had a revolutionary impact on movie-making and youth culture, virtually giving birth to the contemporary concept of the American teenager. Looking past its social and pop-culture significance, ''Rebel Without a Cause'' is the purest example of Ray's cinematic style and vision, with an expressionistic use of colour, dramatic use of [[architecture]] and an [[empathy]] for social misfits.

''Rebel Without a Cause'' was Ray's biggest commercial success, and marked a breakthrough in the careers of child actors [[Natalie Wood]] and [[Sal Mineo]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.indiewire.com/2012/06/the-essentials-5-great-films-by-nicholas-ray-251826/|title=The Essentials: 5 Great Films By Nicholas Ray|author=The Playlist Staff|date=June 15, 2012|work=IndieWire|access-date=December 6, 2017|language=en-US}}</ref> Ray engaged in a tempestuous "spiritual marriage" with Dean, and awakened the latent [[homosexuality]] of Mineo, through his role as Plato, who would become the first gay teenager to appear on film. During filming, Ray began a short-lived affair with Wood, who, at age 16, was 27 years his junior. This created a tense atmosphere between Ray and [[Dennis Hopper]], who was also involved with Wood at the time, but they were reconciled later.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNhfW_D9Wuc Dennis Hopper on Nicholas Ray (1997) on YouTube]</ref>

In 1956, Ray was chosen to direct the melodrama ''[[Bigger Than Life]]'' at Twentieth Century-Fox by the film's star and producer, [[James Mason]], who played an elementary-school teacher, stricken with a rare circulatory ailment, and driven delusional by his abuse of a new wonder drug, [[Cortisone]]. In 1957, completing a two-picture deal, Ray reluctantly directed ''[[The True Story of Jesse James]]'', a remake of the 1939 Fox release, ''[[Jesse James (1939 film)|Jesse James]]''. Ray wanted to cast [[Elvis Presley]] as the legendary bandit, and Presley had made his first film, ''[[Love Me Tender (1956 film)|Love Me Tender]]'' (1956), at the studio. Fox demurred, however, and Presley moved to [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]], leaving contract players [[Robert Wagner]] and [[Jeffrey Hunter]] to play the [[Jesse James|James brothers]].<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 283–84.</ref>

Warner's commitment to ''Rebel Without a Cause'' led the studio to send Ray on his first overseas trip, in September 1955, to publicize the film, while it was still in previews in the US. He visited Paris, where he met some of the French critics, eager to talk with the director of ''Johnny Guitar'', one of whom, he later remarked, "almost persuaded me it was a great movie." He was in London when he received the call telling him of James Dean's death, on the last day of the month, and then travelled to Germany, to drink and mourn.<ref>McGilligan, pp. 314–16.</ref> Nonetheless, this moment marked a professional change for Ray, most of whose remaining mainstream films were produced outside Hollywood. He returned to Warner Bros. for ''[[Wind Across the Everglades]]'' (1958), an ecologically themed period drama about plume poachers, written by [[Budd Schulberg]] and produced by his brother, Stuart Schulberg; and, at MGM, he directed ''[[Party Girl (1958 film)|Party Girl]]'' (1958), which harked back to Ray's youth in Chicago, a [[Roaring Twenties]] [[Gangster film|gangster]] drama that included musical numbers performed by star [[Cyd Charisse]].

Prior to those projects, however, Ray returned to France to direct ''[[Bitter Victory]]'' (1957), a World War II drama starring [[Richard Burton]] and [[Curd Jürgens]] as Leith and Brand, British army officers on a mission to raid a Nazi station in Benghazi, and [[Ruth Roman]] as Brand's wife and, before the war, Leith's lover. Shot on location in the Libyan desert, with some sequences in a studio in Nice, it was by all accounts an arduous production, exacerbated for Ray by his drinking and drug use. As much an art film as a conventional [[War film|war picture]], ''Bitter Victory'' confused many, while enthusing Ray's continental supporters, such as Godard and [[Éric Rohmer]].<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 308–11.</ref>

While for the first decade of his career Ray's films had been studio pictures, and relatively small in scale, by the late 1950s, they were increasing in logistical complexity and difficulty, and cost. As well, the [[studio system]] that had both challenged and supported him was changing, making Hollywood less viable for him as a professional base.

Though he contributed to the writing of most of his films — perhaps most extensively ''The Lusty Men'', which started production with only a handful of pages<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 179.</ref> — ''[[The Savage Innocents]]'' (1960) was the only screenplay of a film he directed for which he received credit.  Adapting a novel about [[Inuit]] life by [[Hans Ruesch]], ''Top of the World'', Ray also drew on the writing of explorer [[Peter Freuchen]], and the 1933 film based on one of Freuchen's books, ''[[Eskimo (1933 film)|Eskimo]]''. An epic-scale production, with Italian backing and distribution by Paramount, Ray began shooting the film, with lead [[Anthony Quinn]], in the brutal cold of northern [[Manitoba]] and on [[Baffin Island]], but much of the footage was lost in a plane crash. He had to use [[Rear projection|process photography]] to replace the lost location scenes, when the production moved to Rome, as planned, for studio work.<ref>Eisenschitz, 348–59.</ref>

Now largely based in Europe, Ray signed on to direct producer [[Samuel Bronston]]'s life of Christ as a replacement for the original director, [[John Farrow]]. Shooting in Spain, Ray cast Jeffrey Hunter, who had played Jesse James's brother [[Frank James|Frank]] for the director a few years before, as Jesus. A vast undertaking by any account, the production endured intervention by backing studio MGM, logistical challenges (the Sermon on the Mount sequence required five cameras and employed 5,400 extras), and the project grew in ways that Ray was not strong enough to control.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 360–75.</ref> Perhaps predictably, ''[[King of Kings (1961 film)|King of Kings]]'' (1961) was received with hostility by the US press, the Catholic periodical ''[[America (magazine)|America]]'', in a review titled "Christ or Credit Card?", calling it "disedifying and antireligious."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Walsh|first=Moira|date=October 21, 1961|title=Christ or Credit Card?|journal=America|volume=106|pages=71–74}}</ref>

Screenwriter [[Philip Yordan]], Ray's collaborator on several projects, back to ''Johnny Guitar'' and including ''King of Kings'', looking at an extremely lucrative prospect, persuaded the director to sign again with Bronston for another epic, this one about the [[Boxer Rebellion]]. As biographer [[Bernard Eisenschitz]] observes: "Accounts of Ray during the making of ''55 Days at Peking'' portray, not a man who was drinking (the rationale often advanced), but a film-maker who couldn't make up his mind, seeking refuge in frenzied activity and loading himself with unnecessary burdens."<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 379.</ref> With an international cast, including [[Charlton Heston]], [[Ava Gardner]], [[David Niven]] and most of the staff of Madrid's Chinese restaurants<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 384.</ref> (as extras, not the Chinese principals), again for Ray, the project was being rewritten on the fly, and he was directing with little preparation. By habit, and because of the pressures of the job, he was heavily medicated and slept little, and finally, he collapsed on the set, according to his wife, suffering a [[tachycardia]]. He was replaced by [[Andrew Marton]], a highly regarded second-unit director fresh off another runaway spectacle, ''[[Cleopatra (1963 film)|Cleopatra]]'' (1963), with some of Heston's final scenes with Gardner directed by [[Guy Green (filmmaker)|Guy Green]], at Heston's request.<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 386–87.</ref> Released from hospital, Ray tried to participate in the editing process, but, according to Marton, "was so abusive and so critical of the first part of the picture, which was my part," that Bronston forbade Ray from viewing any more of the assembled scenes. Though Marton estimated that sixty-five per cent of the picture was his, and though he wanted the directing credit, he accepted a financial settlement from Bronston. Ray was credited as director, and represented the film, his last mainstream motion picture, at its May 1963 premiere in London.<ref>McGilligan, p. 437.</ref>