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Leo McCarey

 

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 TOP 100 
 
 The Far Side of Paradise 
 
Jean-Pierre Melville's 64 Favourite Pre-War American Filmmakers (Cahiers du Cinema, October 1961)
 
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Frank Capra
George Cukor
Nora Ephron
Howard Hawks
Garson Kanin
Gregory La Cava
George Marshall
Preston Sturges
Sam Wood
Norman Taurog
View video clips relating to this director at YouTube.com
Director / Producer / Screenwriter
1898 - 1969 
Born October 3, Los Angeles, California, USA
Key Production Country: USA 
Key Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Melodrama
Key Collaborators: Leroy Stone (Editor), Hans Dreier (Production Designer), William Flannery (Production Designer), Cary Grant (Leading Player), Bing Crosby (Leading Player), Irene Dunne (Leading Player), Vina Delmar (Screenwriter), Delmer Daves (Screenwriter), Frank McHugh (Leading Character Player), Robert Emmett Dolan (Composer)
Highly Recommended: Duck Soup (1933), The Awful Truth (1937), Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), Love Affair (1939)
Recommended: An Affair to Remember (1957)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide[ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Leo McCarey: Hollywood Auteur, Hollywood Renegade ] [ Village Voice Article ] [ Wikipedia ] [ Boston Phoenix Article (2008) ]
Books: [ Leo McCarey and the Comic Anti-Hero Film ] [ Leo McCarey: From Marx to McCarthy
DVD's: [ Amazon ]
1,000 Greatest Films: Duck Soup (1933), The Awful Truth (1937), Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), Love Affair (1939), An Affair to Remember (1957)
 
Duck Soup (1933)The Awful Truth (1937)Love Affair (1939)An Affair to Remember (1957)
 
     
  "Leo McCarey has always presented auteur criticism with one of its greatest challenges and one that has never been convincingly met...He worked consistently (and apparently quite uncomplainingly) within the dominant codes of shooting and editing that comprise the anonymous "classical Hollywood" style...Yet his name is on some of the best - and best-loved - Hollywood films (as well as on some that embarrass many of even his most fervent defenders)." - Robin Wood (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)  
     
  "Blending an explosive sense of humor with unabashed sentimentality, McCarey came up with such comedy gems as Ruggles of Red Gap and The Awful Truth and such maudlin pearls as Make Way for Tomorrow and Going My Way." - (The MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994)  
     
  "Leo McCarey represents a principle of improvisation in the history of the American film. Noted less for his rigorous direction than for his relaxed digressions, McCarey has distilled a unique blend of farce and sentimentality in his best efforts...McCarey's moments may outlive his movies...After enough great moments are assembled, however, a personal style must be assumed even though it is difficult to describe." - Andrew Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968)  
     
  "Jean Renoir once said that McCarey understood people better than anyone else in Hollywood. That facility enabled him to create warm, witty, sometimes zany comedies and gentle dramas." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)  
     
  "I only know I like my characters to walk in clouds, I like a little bit of the fairy tale. As long as I'm there behind the camera lens, I'll let somebody else photograph the ugliness of the world." - Leo McCarey  
     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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"A film is a petrified fountain of thought." - Jean Cocteau   "If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed." - Stanley Kubrick