A Random List of Unworthy Swan Songs By Once Great Directors.
In a way, this is a neverending category since most directors last movies are a pale imitation of their glory days. In this short list, however, I will focus on those final films which are of such inferior quality that it is almost inconceivable that they could have been made by the great director in question.
Then there are the sad careers of Arthur Penn, Otto Preminger, Robert Wise, Franklin J. Schaffner and particularly, the once great John Frankenheimer, where everything they touched, after a certain point in their life turned to crap.
And Norman, my apologies if “The Statement” does not turn out to be your final film.
The Countess from Hong Kong (Charles Chaplin 1967)
The Liberation of LB Jones (William Wyler 1970)
The Only Game in Town (George Stevens 1970)
Follow Me! ( Carol Reed 1972)
A Matter of Time (Vincente Minnelli 1976)
The Runner Stumbles (Stanley Kramer 1979)
Buddy Buddy (Billy Wilder 1981)
Rich and Famous. (George Cukor 1981)
Five Days One Summer (Fred Zinnemann 1982)
The Osterman Weekend (Sam Peckinpah 1983)
Star 80 (Bob Fosse 1983)
Blame It on Rio. (Stanley Donen 1984)
8 Million Ways to Die. (Hal Ashby 1986)
Stanley and Iris. (Martin Ritt, 1990)
The Next Best Thing (John Schlesinger 2000)
The Statement (Norman Jewison 2003)
Everything by Arthur Penn after 1980 – All Four of Them
-Four Friends
-Target
-Dead of Winter
-Penn and Teller Get Killed
Everything by John Frankenheimer after
1970 – All Sixteen of Them
The Horseman | The Iceman Cometh | Impossible Object | 99 and 44/100 % Dead | French Connection II | Black Sunday | Prophesy | The Challenge | The Holcroft Covenant | |52 Pick-Up | Dead Bang | The Fourth War | Year of the Gun | The island of Dr. Moreau | Ronin | Reindeer Games.
Everything by Otto Preminger after 1965-All Six of Them
Hurry Sundown | Skidoo | Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon | Such Good Friends | Rosebud | The Human Factor
Everything by Robert Wise after
1971 – All Five of Them
Two People | The Hindenburg | Audrey Rose | Star Trek: The Motion Picture | Rooftops
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