John Huston

Filmmakers/Actors

John Marcellus Huston (August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics. During his 46-year career, he received 15 Academy Award nominations, winning twice. He directed his father Walter Huston and daughter Anjelica Huston in Academy Award Winning performances. He explored the visual aspects of his films throughout his career, sketching each scene on paper beforehand, then carefully framing his characters during the shooting. While most directors rely on post-production editing to shape their final work, Huston instead created his films while they were being shot, with little editing needed.

Notable screenwriting credits include William Wyler’s The Storm (1930), with Lupe Vélez, Paul Cavanagh, William “Stage” Boyd, Alphonse Ethier and Ernie Adams; A House Divided (1931), with Walter, Douglass Montgomery (billed as Kent Douglass) and Helen Chandler; Robert Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), with Bela Lugosi, Sidney Fox, Leon Ames, Bert Roach, Brandon Hurst, Noble Johnson, and D’Arcy Corrigan; Edward L. Cahn’s Law and Order (1932), with Walter, Harry Carey, Andy Devine, Russell Hopton and Russell Simpson; Death Drives Through (1935), with Chili Bouchier, Robert Douglas, Miles Mander, and Percy Walsh; Robert Wyler’s It Happened in Paris (1935), with John Loder, Nancy Burne, and Esme Percy; Anatole Litvak’s The Amazing Dr. Critterhouse (1938), with Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor, and Humphrey Bogart; Jezebel (1938), with Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Crisp, Fay Bainter, Richard Cromwell, Henry O’Neill, Spring Byington, and John Litel; William Dieterle’s Juarez (1939), with Paul Muni, Davis, Brian Aherne, and John Garfield; Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940), with Robinson, Ruth Gordon, Otto Kruger, and Crisp – for which he received his first Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Screenplay; Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra (1941), with Ida Lupino and Bogart; Howard Hawks’s Sergeant York (1941), with Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, and Joan Leslie; and Jean Negulesco’s Three Strangers (1946), with Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Peter Lorre.

He made his directorial debut with The Maltese Falcon (1941), with Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Lorre, Barton MacLane, Lee Patrick, Greenstreet – for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films in the 1940s include In This Our Life (1942), with Davis, Olivia de Havilland, George Brent, Dennis Morgan, and Charles Coburn; Across the Pacific (1942), with Bogart, Astor, and Greenstreat; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Walter, Tom Holt, and Bruce Bennett – which won him the Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director; Key Largo (1948), with Bogart, Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, and Trevor; and We Were Strangers (1949), with Jennifer Jones and Garfield.

Films in the 1950s include The Asphalt Jungle (1950), with Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, and John McIntire, and Marilyn Monroe; The Red Badge of Courage (1951), with Audie Murphy, Bill Mauldin, Douglas Dick, Andy Devine, Arthur Hunnicutt and Royal Dano; The African Queen (1951), with Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull, Walter Gotell, Richard Marner and Theodore Bikel; Moulin Rouge (1952), with José Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Suzanne Flon, Eric Pohlmann, Colette Marchand, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Katherine Kath, Theodore Bikel, and Muriel Smith; Beat the Devil (1953), with Bogart, Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Lorre and Bernard Lee; Moby Dick (1957), with Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn, and Orson Welles; Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), with Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum; The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958), with John Wayne, Eiko Ando, Sam Jaffe, and Sō Yamamura; and The Roots of Heaven (1959), with Errol Flynn, Juliette Gréco, Trevor Howard, Eddie Albert, Welles, Paul Lukas, Herbert Lom, and Grégoire Aslan.

Films in the 1960s include The Unforgiven (1960), with Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Murphy, Lillian Gish, John Saxon, Joseph Wiseman, Doug McClure, and Albert Salmi; The Misfits (1961), with Clark Gable, Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, and Eli Wallach; Freud: The Secret Passion (1962), with Montgomery Clift, Susannah York, Larry Parks, Susan Kohner, Eileen Herlie, Eric Portman, and David McCallum; The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), with Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, and George C. Scott; The Night of the Iguana (1964), with Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Kerr, and Sue Lyon; The Bible: In the Beginning… (1966), with Michael Parks, Richard Harris, Franco Nero, Stephen Boyd, Scott, Gardner, Peter O’Toole and Gabriele Ferzetti; Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), with Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando (Harvey Keitel made his film debut in an uncredited role); Sinful Davey (1969), with John Hurt, Pamela Franklin, Nigel Davenport, and Fionnula Flanagan; and A Walk with Love and Death (1969), with Anjelica, Assi Dayan,
Anthony Higgins, John Hallam, Robert Lang, Guy Deghy, Michael Gough, and George Murcell.

Films in the 1970s include The Kremlin Letter (1970), with Richard Boone, Welles, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Patrick O’Neal, and George Sanders; Fat City (1972), with Stacey Keach, Jeff Bridges, and Susan Tyrrell; The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), with Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, and Victoria Principle; The Mackintosh Man (1973), with Newman, Dominique Sanda, James Mason, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Michael Hordern, and Nigel Patrick; The Man Who Would Be King (1975), with Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey, and Christopher Plummer; and Wise Blood (1979), with Brad Dourif, Ned Beatty, Harry Dean Stanton, Dan Shor, Amy Wright, and Mary Nell Santacroce.

Films in the 1980s include Phobia (1980), with Paul Michael Glaser, Susan Hogan, and John Colicos; Escape to Victory (1981), with Sylvester Stallone, Caine, Max von Sydow and Pelé; Annie (1982), with Albert Finney, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, Ann Reinking, Tim Curry, Bernadette Peters, Geoffrey Holder, Edward Herrmann, with Aileen Quinn; Under the Volcano (1984), with Finney, Jacqueline Bisset, and Anthony Andrews; Prizzi’s Honor (1985), with Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia, William Hickey, and Anjelica (who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress); and The Dead (1987), Anjelica, Donal McCann, Helena Carroll, Cathleen Delany, Rachael Dowling, Ingrid Craigie, Dan O’Herlihy, Marie Kean, Donal Donnelly, Seán McClory, and Frank Patterson.

Huston also co-directed with Ken Hughes, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, and Val Guest the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967), with Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, David Niven, Woody Allen, Joanna Pettet, Welles, Daliah Lavi, Kerr, William Holden, Charles Boyer, Jean-Paul Belmondo, George Raft, Terence Cooper, Barbara Bouchet, Gabriella Licudi, Graham Stark, Tracy Reed, Tracey Crisp, Kurt Kasznar, Elaine Taylor, and Angela Scoular. He co-wrote and produced the film Mr. North (1988), with Anthony Edwards, Mitchum, Harry Dean Stanton, Anjelica, Mary Stuart Masterson, Virginia Madsen, Tammy Grimes, David Warner, and Bacall – which was directed by his son Danny Huston.

While he had done some stage acting in his youth, and had occasionally cast himself in bit parts in his own films, he primarily worked behind the camera until Otto Preminger cast him in the title role for The Cardinal (1963), with Tom Tryon, Romy Schneider, Dorothy Gish, and Maggie McNamara – for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Acto. Other notable acting roles include Candy (1968), with Charles Aznavour, Brando, Richard Burton, James Coburn, Walter Matthau, and Ringo Starr; Myra Breckinridge (1970), with Raquel Welch, Mae West, Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett, Tom Selleck, and John Carradine; J. Lee Thompson’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), with Roddy McDowall, Claude Akins, Natalie Trundy, Severn Darden, Lew Ayres, and Paul Williams; Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), with Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Hillerman, Perry Lopez, and Burt Young; Breakout (1975), with Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Robert Duvall, Sheree North, and Randy Quaid; John Milius‘s The Wind and the Lion (1975), with Connery, Candice Bergen, and Brian Keith; Tentacles (1977), with Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, and Fonda; Angela (1977), with Sophia Loren and Steve Railsback; The Visitor (1979), with Lance Henriksen, Winters, Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, and Sam Peckinpah; Winter Kills (1979), with Bridges, Perkins, Wallach, Richard Boone, Toshirō Mifune, Sterling Hayden, Dorothy Malone, Belinda Bauer, Ralph Meeker, Taylor, Berry Berenson and Susan Walden; Jaguar Lives (1979), with Joe Lewis, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasence, Barbara Bach, Capucine, Joseph Wiseman, and Woody Strode; Marshall Brickman’s Lovesick (1983), with Dudley Moore, Elizabeth McGovern, and Alec Guinness; and posthumously The Other Side of the Wind (2018), with Oja Kodar, Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Bob Random, Lilli Palmer, Edmond O’Brien, Mercedes McCambridge, Cameron Mitchell, Paul Stewart, Gregory Sierra, Tonio Selwart, Dan Tobin, Joseph McBride, and Dennis Hopper.

Huston also did voice work as Gandalf in Rankin/Bass’s The Hobbit (1977), with Orson Bean, Richard Boone, Hans Conried, Otto Preminger, Cyril Ritchard, and Brother Theodore; The Return of the King (1980), with Bikel, Bean, William Conrad, Paul Frees, Casey Kasem, Don Messick, and McDowall; narration in Disney‘s The Black Cauldron (1985), with Grant Bardsley, Susan Sheridan, Freddie Jones, Nigel Hawthorne, Arthur Malet, John Byner, Phil Fondacaro and Hurt; and David S. Ward’s Cannery Row (1982), with Nick Nolte, Debra Winger, Audra Lindley, and M. Emmett Walsh.

Some of Huston’s films were adaptations of important novels, often depicting an “heroic quest,” as in Moby Dick, or The Red Badge of Courage. In many films, different groups of people, while struggling toward a common goal, would become doomed, forming “destructive alliances,” giving the films a dramatic and visual tension. Many of his films involved themes such as religion, meaning, truth, freedom, psychology, colonialism, and war. He has been referred to as “a titan”, “a rebel”, and a “renaissance man” in the Hollywood film industry. Author Ian Freer describes him as “cinema’s Ernest Hemingway”—a filmmaker who was “never afraid to tackle tough issues head on.”

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

Writer/Director

• The Storm (1930) – directed by William Wyler – co-writer, uncredited extra
• A House Divided (1931) – directed by William Wyler – co-writer
• Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) directed by Robert Florey – additional dialogue
• Law and Order (1932) – directed by Edward L. Cahn – co-writer
• Death Drives Through (1935) – directed by Edward L. Cahn – co-writer
• It Happened in Paris (1935) – directed by Carol Reed – co-writer
• The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) – directed by Anatole Litvak – co-writer
• Jezebel (1938) – directed by William Wyler – co-writer
• Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940) – directed by William Dieterle – co-writer
• High Sierra (1941) – directed by Raoul Walsh – co-writer
• The Maltese Falcon (1941)** – director, writer
• Sergeant York (1941) – directed by Howard Hawks – co-writer
• In This Our Life (1942) – director
• Across the Pacific (1942) – director
• The Killer’s (1946) – directed by Robert Siodmak – co-writer
• The Three Strangers (1946) – directed by Jean Negulesco – co-writer
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)** – director, writer, uncredited actor
• Key Largo (1948) – director, co-writer
• We Were Strangers (1948) – director, co-writer, uncredited actor
• The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – director, co-writer
• The Red Badge of Courage (1951) – director, co-writer, uncredited actor
• The African Queen (1951)** – director, co-writer
• Moulin Rouge (1952) – director, co-writer
• Beat the Devil (1953) – director, co-writer
• Moby Dick (1956) – director, co-writer, uncredited actor
• Heaven Knows Mr. Allison (1957) – director, co-writer
• The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958) – director
• The Roots of Heaven (1958) – director
• The Unforgiven (1960) – director
• The Misfits (1960) – director, uncredited actor
• Freud (1962) – director, uncredited narrator
• The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) – director, uncredited actor
• The Night of the Iguana (1964) – director, co-writer
• The Bible (1966) – director, actor, narrator
• Reflections in the Golden Eye (1967) – director
• Casino Royale (1967) – directed with Ken Hughes, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, & Val Guest – actor
• Sinful Davey (1969) – director
• A Walk with Love and Death (1969) – director, actor
• The Kremlin Letter (1970) – director, co-writer
• Fat City (1972) – director
• The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) – director, actor
• The Mackintosh Man (1973) – director
• The Man Who Would Be King (1975) – director, co-writer
• Independence (1976) – director – docudrama short
• Wise Blood (1979) – director, actor
• Phobia (1980) – director
• Let There Be Light (1980) – director – documentary
• Victory (1981) – director
• Annie (1982) – director, uncredited actor
• Under the Volcano (1984) – director
• Prizzi’s Honor (1985) – director
• The Dead (1987) – director
• Mr. North (1988) – directed by Danny Huston – co-writer – posthumous release

Actor

• The Shakedown (1929) – directed by William Wyler – uncredited extra
• Hell’s Heroes (1929) – directed by William Wyler – uncredited extra
• The Cardinal (1963) – directed by Otto Preminger
• The Legend of Marilyn Monroe (1963) – directed by Terry Sanders – narrator – documentary
• Candy (1968) – directed by Christian Marquand
• De Sade (1969) – directed by Cy Endfield
• Myra Breckinridge (1970) – directed by Michael Sarne
• The Bridge in the Jungle (1971) – directed by Pancho Kohner
• The Deserter (1971) – directed by Burt Kennedy
• Man in the Wilderness (1971) – directed by Richard C. Sarafian
• Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) – directed by J. Lee Thompson
• Chinatown (1974) – directed by Roman Polanski
• Breakout (1975) – directed by Tom Gries
• The Wind and the Lion (1975) – directed by John Milius
• Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976) – directed by Alvin Sapinsley – TV movie
• The Rhinemann Exchange (1977) – directed by Burt Kennedy – miniseries
• Tentacles (1977) – directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis
• Angela (1977) – directed by Boris Sagal
• The Hobbit (1977) – directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass – TV movie
• The Greatest Battle (1978) – directed by Umberto Lenzi
• The Bermuda Triangle (1978) – directed by René Cardona Jr.
• The Word (1979) – directed by Richard Lang – miniseries
• The Visitor (1979) – directed by Giulio Paradisi (as Michael J. Paradise)
• Winter Kills (1979) – directed by William Richert
• Jaguar Lives! (1979) – directed by Ernest Pintoff
• The Return of the King (1980) – directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass – TV movie
• Head On (1980) – directed by Michael Grant
• Cannery Row (1982) – directed by David S. Ward – narrator
• Lovesick (1983) – directed by Marshall Brickman
• A Minor Miracle (1983) – directed by Terrell Tannen
• Epic (1985) – directed by Yoram Gross – narrator
• The Black Cauldron (1985) – directed by Ted Berman & Richard Rich – narrator
• Momo (1986) – directed by Johannes Schaaf
• Mr. Corbett’s Ghost (1987) – directed by Danny Huston – TV movie
• The Other Side of the Wind (2018) – directed by Orson Welles – released posthumously, scenes filmed 1974-1975