Deep Cuts: The Best Overlooked Movies From Celebrated Filmmakers

It is a truth universally acknowledged that those who love movies, love lists, and with good reason. Lists like 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and the AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies serve as starting points; they direct us towards the classics that every film student should see: Citizen Kane, Double Indemnity, Vertigo, and so on. These are, of course, important films to watch, but where do we go next? Some of us land on a favorite genre or era and begin to devour every film noir or heist film we can get our hands on. Some of us become obsessed with the national cinema of Japan, or Germany, or Brazil, and look to see more from that particular country. And, of course, many of us find a director or two who speaks to us, and we seek out their entire body of work.

The problem with making any sort of list is that those who make them don’t want to devote too much time to any one director. As a result, lists of the greatest films of all time tend to focus on the masterpieces and overlook some lesser, but still great films. Below I have compiled a list of four overshadowed films from five directors who have made their share of canonical films. These films are not necessarily better than their masterpieces, but they are great films worth checking out, even if they may not make it onto a typical “Best Films of All Time” list.

 

Lana and Lilly Wachowski

What the Lists Recommend: The Matrix (1999)

What You Should See Next: Bound (1996)

Best known (and most admired) for the Matrix franchise, the Wachowskis went on to direct several films with somewhat mixed results. I am a defender of the Matrix sequels (though I admit neither comes close to the first film), and even later films, such as Speed Racer, have a certain appeal, but none of their films has reached the level of their debut effort, Bound.
Bound was a fairly unusual film at the time of its release, and remains so today. It is a film noir centered on female protagonists, and it avoids the misogyny that many film noirs suffer from. The movie is feminist, and has a very positive portrayal of female sexuality and homosexuality, which is extremely rare for a genre that tends to blame women’s sexuality for the (usually male) protagonist’s problems.

The film is about a woman (Gina Gershon) who has just been released from prison and is working as a maintenance person in an apartment building. There she meets the girlfriend (Jennifer Tilly) of a gangster whom they decide to rob. Gershon and Tilly have fantastic chemistry with one another, and the film has plenty of twists and turns that never feel cheap.

Bound is also a showcase for the Wachowskis’ style. They make use of techniques such as unusual close-ups of objects and slow-motion action that would become their trademarks. Personally, I find their restraint in these stylistic choices makes this one of their best films, certainly better than their post-The Matrix efforts, which are defined by their excesses.

 

Mel Brooks

What the Lists Recommend: The Producers (1967), Young Frankenstein (1974), Blazing Saddles (1974)

What You Should See Next: Silent Movie (1976)

Mel Brooks’s career went downhill a bit over the years, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that in a span of less than ten years he directed three of the best film comedies of all time. Bold and daring, these films engaged and undermined the tropes of Hollywood storytelling, while also attacking social problems such as racism and anti-semitism.

Even apart from his masterpieces, many of his films remain beloved. Spaceballs (1987) and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), while much weaker films, are both cult favorites of Gen-Xers. Even these films have their moments, but one of his films that should get more attention than it does is Silent Movie. The film is a send up of the old silent film comedies. The story is incredibly meta: Mel Brooks is a director who is trying to make a silent film in the 1970s. The studios refuse to finance him because silent movies no longer sell. Mel promises to get the biggest stars in Hollywood for the film, and much of the film involves Brooks trying to secure an all-star cast.

The film is, aside from one funny moment that I will not spoil, dialogue-free, and embraces the slapstick tradition of the silent film comedians. There are several hilarious sequences, including an electric wheelchair chase with Paul Newman, that are exceptionally well orchestrated. As is expected from Brooks, there are also numerous moldy Borscht Belt gags, such as the fly in the soup and the pie in the face, but Brooks delivers unexpected twists that make them fresh and funny.

The numerous celebrity cameos are all funny as well, with the stars mocking their celebrity images in a way that was unusual for the time. Today we are used to self-deprecating humor from our biggest stars, but it was much less common in 1976. Burt Reynolds and James Caan, two of the biggest stars of the era, deliver cutting self-caricatures that skewer their Hollywood personas, and are two of the highlights of the film.

The only caveat I must add is that the film has the same homophobia that much of Brooks’s work has. If it doesn’t bother you in his other films, it’s not any worse here, but there are a few quick moments that are a bit cringe-inducing to watch in 2018.

 

Billy Wilder

What the Lists Recommend: Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Apartment (1960), etc.

What You Should See Next: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

Wilder directed 27 films in his life, and “pretty good” is as bad as most of them get. Because of the number of undisputed masterpieces he created, Wilder has a few films that get overlooked. Down the road I might visit some of his other overlooked films (the Cold War satire One, Two, Three (1961) is a favorite of mine), but for now I want to look at one of his later films, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

The film’s plot feels a bit like two cases put together. The first thirty minutes or so deal with a very unusual “case” brought to Holmes by a Russian ballerina. This first segment is mostly comedic, dealing with the sort of sexual comedy Wilder returned to again and again throughout his career in films such as Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch (1955). This may be a controversial opinion, but I think this segment is even funnier than those films, because it avoids some of the more problematic gender politics of his earlier films and is even a bit subversive on issues of sexual orientation and gender roles.

The second half of the film tells a more traditional Holmes mystery merged with a government conspiracy narrative involving his brother Mycroft (played by the typically suave-yet-sinister Christopher Lee). This isn’t the first time a Holmes film dealt with government conspiracies (a number of the WWII-era films, starring Basil Rathbone, had Holmes going up against Nazi spies), but this film is something different. It is both anti-war and anti-military industrial complex, and can be considered an early (if much more light-hearted) entry in the wave of paranoid thrillers that would hit a few years later.

 

Alfred Hitchcock

What the Lists Recommend: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North By Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), etc.

What You Should See Next: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)

Depending on what you count as a “film,” Alfred Hitchcock directed between 60 and 70 films in his lifetime. Because of this huge catalog, a lot of films tend to fall through the cracks. The films that get most overlooked are his later (and, in general, lesser) films from 1966-1976, and his (much better) British period, from 1925-1940.

Even if they don’t equal his masterpieces, a lot of his earlier films are worth checking out, and I will likely return to some of the others at a later point, but today I want to focus on The Lodger, Hitchcock’s greatest silent film. The story is definitely Hitchcockian: a serial killer (loosely based on Jack the Ripper) is killing young women on the streets of London. After seeing the killer in action, the film shows us a man who matches the description of the killer renting a room at the home of an older couple and their daughter.

I won’t say that the story goes in a completely unexpected direction, but Hitchcock keeps the tension tight enough that it is never completely predictable either. His ability to create suspense is unparalleled, even this early in his career. A shot showing the lodger’s hands descending a staircase not only visually anticipates Vertigo, but creates a powerful sense of dread for the viewer. Apart from being a fun, suspenseful piece of filmmaking, The Lodger is also a great film to watch for those who think silent films are boring — it is exciting and tense from beginning to end.