It wouldn’t occur to anyone to consider Richard Donner, who just died in Los Angeles (California) on July 5, at the age of 91, as one of the greatest authors of American cinema of the thirty last years. Its name in the credits of works of pure confection was however a guarantee of know-how and technical skill. No doubt he was, essentially, only a director at the service of the scenarios, even of the concepts which generate films in Hollywood (the buddy movies, the paranoid thriller, the mystical dread, the childish Spielbergian fantasy). But he chained the commercial successes for several decades and testified to a perfect capacity to adapt to the fashions of the moment, when he did not determine them himself.
He works for the small screen with directors like Sidney Lumet, Arthur Penn or John Frankenheimer
Richard Donner was born in New York on April 24, 1930. He took drama lessons and considered a career in television acting until director Martin Ritt encouraged him to choose directing. From then on he worked for the small screen, first for productions on the East Coast of the United States, in the company of directors such as Sidney Lumet, Arthur Penn or John Frankenheimer. He then moved to Los Angeles in 1958 where he began a particularly prolific directorial career by signing various episodes of series such as In the name of the law, The man with the rifle, Have Gun-Will Travel, Very special agents, The Mysteries of the West, Cannon and others.
A first commercial success with “La Malédiction”
He made a first film for the cinema in 1961, X-15, on the pioneers of aerospace with Charles Bronson. But his career for the big screen really began later, in 1968, with Salt and Pepper, crime comedy lounge starring two headliners of the Rat Pack (a group of singers and comedians led by Frank Sinatra), Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford.
“The Angel and the Demon” is a particularly endearing film but unthinkable today in the post-# metoo era
It is the following film, in 1970, however unfairly ignored, which would deserve, if one had to keep only one title of all the work of Richard Donner, to hold the attention. The Angel and the Demon tells the story of a 40-year-old successful American novelist and a 16-year-old British high school student. The man is Charles Bronson, in the most unexpected role of his career; the young girl is the lovely Susan George. Spicy, insolent, cowardly, sarcastic, fiercely melancholy, the film is a particularly endearing hapax and, one can legitimately wonder about the fact that Richard Donner did not confirm this vein in his future achievements. It’s an unthinkable film today in the post- # metoo era.
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