Festival will honor “West Side Story” director

Jennifer K Mahal

Robert Wise’s study holds four Oscars, the Irving Thalberg award and

honors from the Directors Guild of America. On Friday, another laurel

will be heaped upon the famed film director’s head -- the second-ever

Newport Beach Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.

Wise said he doesn’t have any particular connection to Newport Beach,

but is “very pleased” to be honored by the festival, which is held in the

spring.

The award will be presented in conjunction with the 50th anniversary

screening of what Wise calls his “third best-known film,” “The Day the

Earth Stood Still.” Proceeds from the event will be donated to the

American Red Cross National Disaster Relief Fund.

“I think film is a universal language,” Wise said. “Films abroad show

people from foreign countries how much more alike we are than unalike.

It’s a means of bringing us closer together.”

Now 87, Wise has directed more than 30 films -- including “West Side

Story,” “The Sound of Music,” “The Sand Pebbles” and the 1963 horror

classic “The Haunting.”

“Everyone’s heard of at least one of the films that Robert Wise has

directed,” said Gregg Schwenk, executive director of the film festival.

“This gives people the chance to be able to meet the person who crafted

these legendary films.”

Born in Indiana, Wise began his film career in 1938 when he followed

his older brother out to Los Angeles to get a job -- he didn’t care what

kind.

His brother, who worked in the accounting department of RKO Studios,

set up a number of appointments for him with the heads of various studio

departments. The property department couldn’t use him, Wise said, but the

head of film editing needed someone with a strong back who could carry

the film reels back and forth.

After six months, the head sound effects editor, T.K. Wood, asked if

Wise could work with him. He learned how to edit sound, but soon realized

he wanted more. So Wise asked if he could be placed in the picture

department and became an assistant film editor working under William

Hamilton.

“He was a marvelous editor,” Wise recalls. “He brought me along very

very fast.”

Hamilton allowed Wise to do first cuts of several films and shared

screen credit with him. Both their names appear on the 1939 version of

the “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” starring Charles Laughton. On his own,

Wise edited several Fred Astaire-Ginger Roger films and “Citizen Kane.”

However, Wise wanted to direct. He was editing “Curse of the Cat

People” when he got his chance. The film, directed by first-timer Gunther

Fritsch, was off schedule.

Fritsch “couldn’t seem to shoot more pages of script every day. It was

an 18-day schedule and he used the whole schedule and only had half the

script shot,” Wise said. “I got a call on Saturday from the boss. He said

‘I have to take Gunther off the film, take over on Monday morning.’ I was

thrown in the pool, sink or swim.”

Wise had 10 days to complete the film, which he did. The studio

offered him a directing contract and that was that.

“The Day the Earth Stood Still,” a science fiction drama that tells

the tale of a spaceman who comes to Washington D.C. to warn earthlings

against continuing their violent ways, is among his many successes.

Originally Claude Rains was the person Wise wanted to play the

spaceman in the 1951 release.

“Fortunately, he was tied up in a play in New York and unavailable,”

he said.

Michael Rennie, a Hollywood unknown whom Daryl Zanuck had seen in a

play in London, got the role.

“It was far better for us to have this man from another world be

someone never seen before, rather than a well-known actor,” Wise said.

“Sometimes you get nice breaks like that.”

His films may not be thematically alike, but Wise said the one thing

they do have in common is a message.

“You can’t tell any kind of a story that between the lines don’t have

something to say,” Wise said.

FYI

WHAT: “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and a tribute to Robert Wise

WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday

WHERE: Lido Theater, 3459 Via Lido, Newport Beach. A dessert reception

will follow at the Lido Diner.

COST: $20 at the door. All proceeds benefit the American Red Cross

National Disaster Relief Fund

CALL: (949) 253-2880