Editing John Frankenheimer (section)

===''The Fixer'' (1968)===

Frankenheimer approached his film adaption of [[Bernard Malamud]]'s ''[[The Fixer (novel)|The Fixer]]'' with alacrity, obtaining the galleys for the 1966 novel in advance of its publication.<ref>Pratley, 1969 p. 186: See Frankenheimer's comments here. Malamud forwarded the manuscript to Frankenheimer for his consideration.</ref> ''[[The Fixer (1968 film)|The Fixer]]'' is based on the 1913 persecution and trial of the Jewish peasant [[Menahem Mendel Beilis]], accused of [[Blood Libel]] during the reign of [[Czar Nicholas II]]<ref>Pratley, 1969 pp. 177-179: See Synopsis.</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1969/F?qt-honorees=1#block-quicktabs-honorees |title=The 41st Academy Awards {{!}} 1969 |work=Oscars.org {{!}} Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |access-date=February 7, 2018 |language=en}}</ref>

''The Fixer'' was widely praised by movie critics for Frankenheimer's success in eliciting outstanding performances from [[Alan Bates]] as the brutalized Yakov Shepsovitch Bok, [[Dirk Bogarde]] as Boris Bibikov, his humane court appointed defense attorney, and [[David Warner (actor)|David Warner]] as Count Odoevsky. Minister of Justice.<ref>Ebert, 1968: “...played with great sensitivity by Alan Bates…”<br>Adler, 1968 NYT: “The acting, from Alan Bates...through Dirk Bogarde as the cerebral, sympathetically homosexual prosecutor, and David Warner as an effete, pragmatic Count, is very fine.”</ref> Bates received his only Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in this role.<ref>Toole, 2003 TCM: Bates plays “a Russian Jew falsely accused of murder [and] remarkably, his only Oscar nomination.”</ref> [[Renata Adler]] of the New York Times observed “the direction, by John Frankenheimer, is powerful and discreet. It averts its eyes at the easy, ugly consummations of violence...and gives you credit for imagining the result.”<ref name="Adler, 1968 NYT">Adler, 1968 NYT</ref> This, despite Frankenheimer's admission that “there is a very violent scene in ''The Fixer''”:

{{blockquote|“You have to show what this man [Bok] went through in five years of prison, and what his captors did to him. The executives at Metro were worried about this one scene. They said ‘with the climate of today it is dangerous to show this.’ I said ‘it has to be in there.’ This is the scene where the Russians come and beat him for refusing to be converted to Christianity...it is not a scene of violence just put there for its own sake. I hope the audience feels this...I don't believe in violence for the sake of exploitation.”<ref>Pratley, 1969 p. 230: Frankenheimer's comments, composite quote, minor edits for brevity, clarity.</ref>}}
{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk|fontsize=100%|salign=center|quote=“''The Fixer'' investigates the fact that the victory Yakov Bok won was being brought to trial...the Minister of Justice, Count Odoevsky, offers Bok a pardon. And Bok says ‘no’...That, I think, is probably the best scene in the film...''The Fixer'' is about the dignity of a human being who never knew he had this strength in him, and suddenly finds it within him...Bok is not a [literary] man. He's a peasant and you see this great strength developed within him. That's what the film is about. It has nothing to do with the fact that he is a Jew. It could be any man, any time, anywhere...I think this is a very good story to tell.”—John Frankenheimer in Gerald Pratley's ''The Cinema of John Frankenheimer'' (1969)<ref>Pratley, 1969 p. 187-188: Composite quote from these pages, edited for brevity and clarity, meaning is unchanged.</ref>}}

Whereas Frankenheimer was deeply gratified with his cinematic handling of Malamud's [[Pulitzer Prize]] winning work, declaring “I feel better about ''The Fixer'' than anything I’ve ever done in my life”,<ref>Pratley, 1969 p. 183: “...feel better about…” And p. 233: Frankenheimer: “I happen to love The Fixer. I don't know how other people will react to it, but to me it is my best work.” And p. 228: “In The Fixer there is hardly a single scene that does not please me…” And p. 225: Frankenheimer: “...the only film I never made compromises on…”<br>Adler, 1968 NYT: “Bernard Malamud, who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for "The Fixer" in 1967…”<br>Baxter, 2002: “...despite intense performances from Bates and Dirk Bogarde, the film was patchily received. Frankenheimer, who thought it his best work</ref>  a number of movie critics registered severe critiques. Film critic [[Roger Ebert]] wrote:

{{blockquote|“Frankenheimer's task was to make a film that, in itself, would make a moral statement. He has failed. The film has little reality of its own; instead, it draws its power and emotion from the raw material of its subject matter...The temptation is to praise the film because we agree with its message. This is the same critical fallacy that led to praise of ''[[Judgment at Nuremberg]]'' (1961)—a corrupt, commercial film—because we disapproved of Nazi war crimes, A movie doesn't become good simply by taking the correct ideological position.”<ref name="Ebert, 1968">Ebert, 1968</ref>}}

Ebert adds “What were needed were fewer self-conscious humanistic speeches... Frankenheimer should have shown us his hero's suffering, and the Kafkaesque legal tortures of the state, without commenting on them.”<ref name="Ebert, 1968">Ebert, 1968</ref>

Film critic [[Renata Adler]] singles out screenwriter and [[Hollywood blacklist|blacklist]] victim [[Dalton Trumbo]] for disparagement:
 
{{blockquote  |“The triviality of the script by Dalton Trumbo, the old sentimental Hollywood formula (a few moments of mild happiness, an hour and a half of reversals and misery, with violins, a blitz happy ending with drums) applies, almost intact, to dog stories, horse stories, sports stories, love stories.”<ref name="Adler, 1968 NYT">Adler, 1968 NYT</ref>}}

Adler concludes “it is not enough to put [Bok-Bates] in a few cliché predicaments...[the dialogue] becomes demeaning and vulgar when drawn out with hack-plot fiction approximations of eloquence.”<ref>Adler, 1968</ref> Biographer [[Charles Higham (biographer)|Charles Higham]] dismisses the film, writing that “since the commercial failure of ''Seconds'' (1966), Frankenheimer's films have been mediocre, ranging from ''The Fixer'' (1968) to ''The Horsemen'' (1971).”<ref>Higham, 1973 p. 297</ref>

Frankenheimer became a close friend of Senator [[Robert F. Kennedy]] during the making of ''The Manchurian Candidate'' in 1962. In 1968, Kennedy asked Frankenheimer to make some commercials for use in the presidential campaign, at which he hoped to become the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] candidate. On the night he was assassinated in June 1968, it was Frankenheimer who had driven Kennedy from [[Los Angeles Airport]] to the [[Ambassador Hotel (Los Angeles)|Ambassador Hotel]] for his acceptance speech.<ref name="auto"/><ref name="auto1">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/04/10/archives/frankenheimer-rides-a-blimp-to-a-big-fat-comeback-frankenheimer.html?_r=0 |title=Frankenheimer Rides a Blimp To a Big, Fat Comeback |work=The New York Times |first1=Aljean |last1=Harmetz |date=April 10, 1977}}</ref>

''[[The Gypsy Moths]]'' was a romantic drama about a troupe of barnstorming skydivers and their impact on a small midwestern town. The celebration of Americana starred Frankenheimer regular Lancaster, reuniting him with ''[[From Here to Eternity]]'' co-star [[Deborah Kerr]], and it also featured [[Gene Hackman]]. The film failed to find an audience, but Frankenheimer claimed it was one of his favorites.<ref>{{cite book |title=John Frankenheimer: Interviews, Essays, and Profiles |publisher=The Scarecrow Press, Inc. |year=2013 |editor-last=Armstrong |editor-first=Stephen B. |pages=168}}</ref>