Daniel Kremer

Paul Wendkos was a bit of an auteurist fetish object in the early 1960's, when his career in theatrical features reached its pinnacle. He made his mark with such genre outings as The Burglar (1957) and Face of a Fugitive (1959), as well as with the hit Gidget (1959) and his acclaimed indictment of evangelicalism Angel Baby (1961). Many of the finest critics and film writers wrote of his style admiringly, even as studio contracts regularly saddled him with empty commercial vehicles. Quentin Tarantino even credited him as the director of the faux action saga The 14 Fists of McCluskey in his Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. What is there to Paul Wendkos when we look at him and his work today?

Irving Rapper is, in many ways, Hollywood's forgotten man. After getting his start as a "dialogue director" at Warner Bros. in the mid 30's, he became synonymous with the studio's "women's pictures" and rose in prominence as one of Bette Davis's most consistent collaborators, including on her biggest commercial success, Now Voyager (1942). He was a rebel who led the studio in suspensions for chronically refusing to direct the scripts handed to him by the brass, waiting instead for material that better suited his interests and thematic preoccupations. He was also one in a secretive fraternity of gay directors who had to conceal their identities and shield their private lives from potential public ruination. Daniel Kremer takes you through an unexamined and misunderstood life of a man of great artistic inclination who expressed his innermost yearnings covertly through his work in motion pictures.