MovieChat Forums > Family Plot (1976) Discussion > Family Plot and the Movies of 1976

Family Plot and the Movies of 1976

posted 15 years ago by ecarle
21 replies | jump to latest

1976 was an "in between year" in box office movie history.

"Jaws" had dominated 1975 and "Star Wars" would dominate 1977(along with "Close Encounters.")

The blockbuster of 1976 was, I think, "Rocky," which did double duty as the Best Picture winner of the year as well.

"Rocky" made big money, but it was a "little movie," very unexpected, very unanticipated, and somewhat of a "feelgood throwback" after a few years of big downers at the movies(especially in 1974: "Godfather II," "Chinatown," the disaster movies, "The Parallax View," "The Conversation," "Lenny", etc.Downers, all.)

Still, "Rocky" didn't quite dominate 1976, Oscars and Box office aside. Early in the year, cineastes went crazy for Martin Scorcese's extremely artful, extremely downbeat, and extremely profound "Taxi Driver." The spring brought two Major Young Stars(Redford and Hoffman) together to enact the Great Conspiracy of the Seventies(Watergate) in "All the President's Men."

"Taxi Driver" and especially "All the President's Men" were Oscar front runners in the first half of '76, but the real competion arrived at the end: "Rocky" and "Network"(also know as "Hearts and Minds" to the Oscar voting public.) "Network" was cinematic enough in director Sidney Lumet's hands, but it was truly Paddy Chayefsky's masterwork, filled to the brim with overarticuate speeches delivered with relish by a capable cast of pros. So great were the speeches, and so great were the pros that three of them won three of the four Oscars of the year.

The money was on a new "King Kong" to be the "Jaws" of 1976, but it turned out, despite three hip leads(good guy Jeff Bridges, bad guy Charles Grodin, sexy ingenue Jessica Lange) to essentially be a "Guy in a Gorilla Suit" movie, an insulting replacement vehicle for one of the greatest effects movies ever made(and don't even mention the giant robot gorilla that barely took two steps.)

The summer of '76 was actually pretty weak, classic blockbusters-wise. "The Omen" was a kinda cheesy Satanic horror movie in which Satan was represented by Rube Goldberg "accidents" that killed all who stood in the Son of Satan's way. Universal pulled off a surprise hit with "Midway" a rather 1956-ish movie with a host of fifties male stars (Heston, Fonda, Mitchum, Glenn Ford) pulling US veterans into theaters for a passable-but-clunky-looking Universal Studios WWII epic in "Sensurround."

Yes, all in all, an odd and eclectic year, 1976. "Taxi Driver" and "Network" were classics by different measures, but there was a fair amount of schlock(Mother, Jugs, and Speed; Two Minute Warning; even the big-budget A Star Is Born) and the year was a real grab-bag of movie-making.

And amidst it all...Alfred Hitchcock quietly slipped into the middle of the "New Hollywood 70's" and gave us -- fairly early, in the April Easter week of the year -- what turned out to be his last film.

How was "Family Plot" against the other '76 movies? Well, it was certainly better than "Mother, Jugs, and Speed," but here was the surprise: it was more competitive than you would think with the major movies of the year.

Not as a matter of budget(it was cheaply made, mainly on the Universal backlot.) Not as a matter of star power(Hitch wanted Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway; he got Bruce Dern and Karen Black. Barbara Harris and William Devane were sublime...but not "A list.")

Not even necessarily as a matter of "execution"(the first hour has some painfully slow scenes and some terrible process work.)

What worked for "Family Plot" in that hip and all-over-the-place movie year of 1976 was simply this: it was recognizably and quantifiably the work of a true auteur, an artist whose very APPROACH to this last of his wonderful stories was on clearly and unmistakably on view, start to finish. Not to mention: a superbly satisfying structure to the story, a HITCHCOCKIAN structure, which is its own special besst.

Other posts on this board get into the shots and scenes and story of "Family Plot."

Here is the place to compare it to such '76 movies as "The Omen"(too contrived and overwrought), "Carrie"(hysterical and coarse much of the time, and just as slow at the end the movie as "Family Plot" is at the beginning), and possibly even "All the President's Men"(a more "professional and mature" movie than "Family Plot," but in someways just a high-gloss docudrama high on its own importance.)

The major thriller against which "Family Plot" was matched(and failed miserably) was "Marathon Man," released late in the year, mercifully months after Hitchocck's modest movie.

"Family Plot" and "Marathon Man" shared one actor: the energetic, smooth-voiced and menacing William Devane. He is the chief villain in "Family Plot," but only the secondary one in "Marathon Man." The chief villain was Laurence Oliver, on the short list of nominees for Greatest Actor in the World. Meanwhile, newly hot Roy Scheider("Jaws") turned down Devane's role in "Family Plot" to play a Janet Leigh-star-who-dies-early part in "Marathon Man," too. And Olivier, Scheider, and Devane were hardly the only stars in "Marathon Man." Prestige box office man Dustin Hoffman top-lined.

"Family Plot" was a stylish but cheapjack Universal job; "Marathon Man" was a plush and expensive Robert Evans production for Paramount. Hardly a fair match. And yes, I think "Marathon Man" is a bigger deal than "Family Plot." And yet: compared to the light, charming and relatively non-violent "Family Plot," "Marathon Man" is a churning mass of torture and terror scenes. Plus: whereas the plot in "Family Plot" carefully builds and deftly comes together at the end, "Marathon Man" starts strong and rather collapses in the home stretch(mainly in a gunbattle that kills half the cast off and a final confrontation between fit young Hoffman and frail old Olivier that doesn't play with much logic or menace.)

There were about 50 1976 releases of middling-to-awful content that "Family Plot" easily bested as "a good movie." ("Lipstick" comes suddenly to mind, as does "The Gumball Rally.")

But it was also clear: Hitchcock was no longer a ranking competitive box office director. He was a quaint throwback, a novelty, a Lion in Winter.

And yet: I can't say that many more than a handful of '76 releases truly BESTED "Family Plot" for quality that year: "Taxi Driver," "Network," "All the President's Men," "Rocky"(an intelligent charmer in its own way), and "Marathon Man" come to mind, but not much else.

Except one: my personal favorite of the year(with "Network" right behind it of the "expected ones."):

The Shootist, directed by Don Siegel, and starring John Wayne(dying of cancer) as a legendary gunfighter come to die of cancer in a small Nevada town. Wayne was surrounded by some fine players in supportive roles or cameos, all come to honor him: James Stewart(as the doc who give Wayne the bad news); Lauren Bacall(as the widow come to care for Wayne against her own will); and Richard Boone(looking like hell but acting up a wry storm as one of the bad guys who want to help Wayne check out early.)

In their own special ways, "Family Plot"(the last film of director Alfred Hitchcock) and "The Shootist"(the last film of movie star John Wayne) are linked together alone and apart from all the other movies of 1976, no matter how great some of those other movies were. "Taxi Driver" strikes me as "objectively" a greater film than "Family Plot" or "The Shootist"...but it lacks their historic and moving role in movie history.

Helluva year at the movies, 1976. Might as well throw "The Outlaw Josey Wales" in there(it was a hit Western when few were made, and has its own cult.) And "The Bad News Bears," Michael Ritchie's third hip contemplation of American competition(Little League, after The Candidate on politics and Smile on beauty pageants) with a trademark Walter Matthau deadpan slacker lead performance.

But for all of those movies, the estimable and unforgettably unique Alfred Hitchcock made his mark with "Family Plot." It was so clearly a movie that only he could make -- in its storyline, in its visuals, in its approach to "what the movies are about." And...as we suspected at the time, quite honestly...it was to be his last.

I tend to think about "Family Plot" a lot when I think about 1976.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ecarle 15 years ago

Hey, Rupert. Drew you out with this, good for me.

I think I did mention Carrie and sorry...I don't like it. I turned up on opening night to see that movie, I might add, because the newspaper ad said "Carrie! Its American Graffiti Meets Psycho!" Two of my favorite films. "Carrie" was not. Too much hysteria, and a "snake pit of horror" take on high school life that just didn't seem that real to me. Maybe I went to too nice a school.

---

I'm not sure that I think "Family Plot" is a better movie(overall) than "Marathon Man," and I'm not even sure that I personally LIKE "Family Plot" better than "Marathon Man."

These points are clearly so:

"Marathon Man" had a much starrier cast than "Family Plot"(Hoffman, Olivier and Scheider sealed THAT deal...Devane and Keller just helped out.)

"Marathon Man" had a much bigger budget and much more prestigious production values than "Family Plot." (Robert Evans made sure that director John Schesinger -- "Midnight Cowboy" -- got everything he needed to make a quality "major motion picture.")

"Marathon Man" did better at the Oscars than "Family Plot"(a nomination for Olivier, and...what else? "Family Plot" got...no nominations.)

"Marathon Man" was much more remembered by audiences than "Family Plot"(for the dentist scene alone.)

---

However, even if the itty-bitty "Family Plot" could not surmount the "big movie" grandeur of "Marathon Man," I think what I'm sayin' is: even an elderly Hitchcock with no budget managed to communicate the kind of delightful attention to plotting and detail and visual invention that had marked his entire career WITHOUT any of the benefits of "Marathon Man's" supereverything("Marathon Man" was bascially given the plush production that Hitchcock got with "North by Northwest.")

And: I was then, and still am now, unimpressed with the climax of "Marathon Man." Except for the grandiose and impressive waterworks set, the scene reflected(I have read) Dustin Hoffman's unwillingness to simply shoot Olivier's villain dead(as occurs in the novel). Instead, he swings his gun hand at Olivier, DROPS THE GUN, and commences to engage in a rather silly fight between an Olympic-fit marathoner and a frail old man whose knife(so deadly when unexpected by Scheider and the diamond district old man) is now in plain sight.

And then Olivier trips and falls on the knife. Sheesh.

---

Nope. "Marathon Man" is a major motion picture with a "Made-for-TV ending," and it will also lose a point or two with me for that.

For the rest of it, "Family Plot" was Hitchocck's "after-dinner mint" of a little movie. I'm glad we had it,and I DID think it was special in 1976, but no, Hitchcock's major works were in the forties and the fifties and the sixties. By 1976, he was a "quaint Old Hollywood footnote" and "Family Plot" is not truly competitive with "Taxi Driver" or "Network" at all.

(Except, I'm telling you: the whole sequence near the end starting with an unseen Madame Blanche ringing a doorbell and ending with Adamson closing the garage door on her is total, classic, BRILLIANT Hitchcock. And script-wise, WAY ahead of "Carrie" and "The Omen.")

I like "Network" better than "Taxi Driver" because as cinematically great as "Taxi Driver" was, it was to me a very grim and gutter-level experience, with Travis Bickle a bit too mentally-challenged for my taste-- takes Cybill on a date to a porno movie?. I wanted out of Bickle's depressing apartment SO BAD.

Whereas "Network" is about a bunch of witticism-sprouting intellectual types in high-falutin' upper Manhattan corporate locales, played by a commanding cast of pros, Old(The Great William Holden) and New(The Sexy Faye Dunaway) alike. I used to know Ned Beatty's speech by heart. Also, I pretty much agree with everything Peter Finch's Howard Boyle says. And not just about TV.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ecarle 15 years ago

I like "Marathon Man" very much. In fact, I saw it on opening night at its flagship premiere theater in Los Angeles. I felt none of the "sorriness" I felt for Hitchcock's "Family Plot," which was made by a man of fully-earned legendary status, but near the end of his physical rope and with minimal studio budgetary support.

I have my "beef" with the finale of "Marathon Man," but, given your estimable defense of that ending(remember, Goldman had Hoffman shoot Oliver in the novel), I find myself given "food for thought."

I must admit, I liked the comprehensive viciousness of Szell saying to Hoffman, "Your father(who committed suicide) was weak in his way, your brother in his, and now you in yours" as a devastating challenge to Hoffman's entire(and, might I add, Jewish intellectual) family...good reason for Hoffman to "lose it," a beautiful psychological shiv delivered by a master torturer.

Olivier's swallowing of the diamonds is one of those screen moments in which...rather grudgingly...I had to admit, "Hey, this guy might be the Greatest Living Actor after all." Superb. As was the fully formed mucous-spittle he ejected towards Hoffman.

[–] filmklassik 8 years ago

[–] ecarle 8 years ago

Completely agree with your assessment of the ending of MARATHON MAN. Gravely disappointing, particularly as compared to the sublime conclusion of William Goldman's novel. Hoffman objected to Goldman's ending because he felt it made his character too brutal, so Robert Towne was brought in to rewrite the climax. Which is now an ANTI-climax.

Damn.

Most of the movie leading up to that ending, though, is pretty terrific, which makes the bungled climax that much more frustrating.

---

This is always how I've felt about it. The movie looks plush and expensive as hell, there are great stars assembled in it, great scenes along the way, plenty of suspense(if perhaps too much gruesome violence for mainstream audiences -- I call it "North by Northwest meets Psycho") and then...

...that silly ending. Staged on a great set, I might add(the waterworks.)

---

As for the Hitchcock film- for me, FAMILY PLOT ranks up there with ROCKY, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, most of MARATHON MAN, THE FRONT, THE BAD NEWS BEARS, THE SHOOTIST, THE OMEN, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, NETWORK and BREAKHEART PASS as the most enjoyable movie of 1976.

---

I'll take 'em all. I'd say that only the Best Picture Oscar films and the expensive Marathon Man really "best" Family Plot. In it own modest way, "Family Plot" is the equal of equally mid-budget, modest movies like The Shootist, The Bad News Bears, and Breakhart Pass(which I really liked -- Alastair MacLean does a Western "Ten Little Indians" -- The Hateful Eight a few decades early?)

---

And looking at that list right now? Makes me realize just how s****y American movies have become in the last 30 years.

Double damn.

---

Well, the movies sure are different, that's for sure. We're told the "quality" has moved to long-form television, but I miss SHORT-form, smallish, perfect little movies.

Or imperfect little movies. Like Family Plot.

[–] filmklassik 8 years ago

Well, the movies sure are different, that's for sure. We're told the "quality" has moved to long-form television, but I miss SHORT-form, smallish, perfect little movies.

Not half as much as I do. Long form TV is fine, but the imperatives are much different, and nobody seems to understand that. Or if they do, they don't seem to want to talk about it.

Movies are all about economy, concision, and ultimately -- when they're doing their job (which isn't often) -- resonance.

Long form TV, on the other hand, is all about immersion, narrative sprawl, endless installments, and writers who due to the exigencies of production often have to make their story up on the fly... all of which makes for a total lack of catharsis.

Which is not to say I have no use for long form TV. I like some of it. BREAKING BAD, for example was wonderful

But the best long form TV never moves me the way the best motion pictures do. Wonderful as BREAKING BAD was, it was still no CHINATOWN.

[–] fathom-feathers 15 years ago

Carrie was also released in 1976

[–] ecarle 15 years ago

Deep in there somewhere...I mentioned it.

You may not like what I say!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

bump

[–] AtomicReturns (1252) 7 years ago

I know this is an older post from IMDB but it's another great trip down memory lane.

The 70s were simply remarkable in the amount of stunning masterpieces. And this particular thread is just for 1976 alone!

I know the 40s and 70s are mentioned as the two greatest decades for film, but I'm starting to think the 70s...might be the winner here? (no disrespect to the great 40s classics we all love as well).

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 7 years ago

Only for the fanboys. 70's films a lot of them looked awful, and the so called "classics" are loved because they are full f macho violence. Nothing can top the Golden Age of Hollywood, which is not just the 1940's.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Nothing can top the Golden Age of Hollywood, which is not just the 1940's.

---

So what is it? The 30's and the 50's, too? The 20s?

I think the end of the Golden Era has been given these dates:

1962. When Warners closed down the Bugs Bunny factory, Old Hollywood died with it. And guys like Hitchcock, Ford, Capra, and Hawks had already made their greatest films. (Oh, give Hitchcock The Birds in '63.)

1966: The year before 1967. Because in 1967, we got Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate.

or

1968: November, we get the X and R ratings, and suddenly nudity, simulated sex, and cussing are all allowed.

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 7 years ago

I would say the Golden Age would be from the arrival of sound to 1967 if you will, when films of the New Wave came along. The last true Golden Age film would be Cleopatra in my opinion, so one can say 1963 is the last year of it too.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Fair enough.

I think I say a little more about 70s films on the thread here, now. They have been rather arrogantly professed as a great era from which the movie moved on to infantilism.

But of course it isn't that simple. And a lot of 70s movies looked pretty crummy , given the emphasis on "realism."

Still, I do think many great films were made in the 70's. Just different from the other eras.

I like something about every era of film, but I'm particularly partial to the late 50's, the 60s, and the 70s. And for some odd reason, the 90's over the 80's and the 2000s and the 2010s(where we are now.)

Won't it be weird when the 21st Century starts to "repeat the 20th?"

In a little over two years, we will start "the twenties." And then "the thirties." And then "the forties."

But they will be the 2020's, the 2030s, the 2040s...

...and alas, I personally won't be here for most of them.

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 7 years ago

that indeed will be weird.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I know this is an older post from IMDB but it's another great trip down memory lane.

---

Thanks for reading it and bringing it back. I sort of "lost the lede" in it, which was meant to be: 1976 was a year in the 70's where one or two films didn't dominate. In '72, it was The Godfather. In '73, The Exorcist and The Sting. In '75, Jaws. In '77 Star Wars and Close Encounters. 1976 was a year without "true domination" -- even Rocky was too small to takeover the year.

---

I know the 40s and 70s are mentioned as the two greatest decades for film, but I'm starting to think the 70s...might be the winner here? (no disrespect to the great 40s classics we all love as well).

--

As a contrarian post gets into, the 70's movies draw some backlash. I think part of the problem is that the rather famously arrogant Baby Boomer contingent invariably portrays 70's movies as some sort of "oasis in time" before Star Wars, Spielberg, Lucas, and Comic Book movies took over. Fair enough, but those movies have their champions.

There can be no doubt that -- because their makers were influened by Eurofilms and because studios were practically out of money -- many 70's films were cheap-looking and filmed in flat documentary-style camerawork. It took the 80's and corporate control of studios AND indies to make "all movies look good again."

---

Each movie decade was great in its own way, but I'm rather partial to the sixties, in which Old Hollywood and New Hollywood overlapped for a time. You've got Psycho, The Apartment, The Magnificent Seven and Spartacus at the beginning; Easy Rider, Butch Cassidy, Midnight Cowboy and The Wild Bunch at the end. In between, you've got big splashy epics like the David Lean films; huge epic musicals; huge epic comedies(Mad Mad World, The Great Race)...AND early indie-style films like Dr. Strangelove and A Hard Day's Night.

I always felt that the 70s mainly lost the epic quality that many 60's films had.

[–] AtomicReturns (1252) 7 years ago

Each movie decade was great in its own way, but I'm rather partial to the sixties, in which Old Hollywood and New Hollywood overlapped for a time. You've got Psycho, The Apartment, The Magnificent Seven and Spartacus at the beginning; Easy Rider, Butch Cassidy, Midnight Cowboy and The Wild Bunch at the end. In between, you've got big splashy epics like the David Lean films; huge epic musicals; huge epic comedies(Mad Mad World, The Great Race)...AND early indie-style films like Dr. Strangelove and A Hard Day's Night.

I always felt that the 70s mainly lost the epic quality that many 60's films had.

Very true there. We did lose out on those epics, and many like David Lean and Hitchcock were starting to get laughed at by certain critics as being 'old-fashioned' in style. Wasn't Ryan's Daughter eviscerated and caused Lean to go into temporary retirement...until Passage to India?

Lavish musicals were on their way out as well (Sound of Music winning Best Picture in 1965...and then Midnight Cowboy just four years later). I guess the argument many "70s were the best" people are making is that the movies, with the allowance of mature content, were finally able to grow up fast and tackle social issues a lot more bluntly.

But previous decades, even without the explicit language and content, still made plenty of masterpieces. Symbolism, metaphors and thematic undercurrents can still go a long way. It's done in theatre all the time. I can see the ability to "show/say more and show/say everything" can be a double-edged sword. It may cause some filmmakers to go the lazy route and assume provocative material is the only thing that makes a great film. We're definitely seeing the results of that with the endless schlock-fests (like horror films that now rely on jumpscares, gore and nudity rather than atmosphere).

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Very true there. We did lose out on those epics, and many like David Lean and Hitchcock were starting to get laughed at by certain critics as being 'old-fashioned' in style.

---

I think Hitchcock took this hit with "Topaz," which settled in mid-film to some overly ripe romantic passages between stiff Frederick Stafford and beautiful Karin Dor...it was all gauze lenses and circling camera, good old fashioned stuff that didn't play. One film later in Frenzy, born loser Richard Blaney and slightly plain barmaid Babs Milligan share but one brief kiss -- and a pre-sex scene followed by some post sex nudity. Topaz, it wasn't.

---

Wasn't Ryan's Daughter eviscerated and caused Lean to go into temporary retirement...until Passage to India?

---

Yes, I think Pauline Kael and/or some other critics tore into Lean at a private screening and he was, of course, SHOCKED. He'd been the golden boy with just three epics from '57 to '65: River Kwai, Lawrence, and Zhivago(rather the weakest of the three it seems to me, Lean started losing it.) Worse yet, some studio(MGM) actually pulled the plug on some Lean movie shortly thereafter. Lean learned fast in the "go go 70s" that his kind of filmmaking wasn't going to get greenlit easily anymore. It took a long time to get Passage to India.

Sidebar: Ryan's Daughter has a small but notable role for Barry Foster-- the Necktie Strangler of Frenzy --
as a sympathetic IRA man; interesting that the little-known Foster worked for Lean and Hitchcock within a two-year period. Small-fame actor working with big talents.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Lavish musicals were on their way out as well (Sound of Music winning Best Picture in 1965...and then Midnight Cowboy just four years later).

---

And also a surfeit of expensive failed musicals in the wake of The Sound of Music: Paint Your Wagon, Finian's Rainbow, Hello, Dolly, and two with Julie Andrews -- Star and Darling Lili. Personally I LIKE the first three of those, very much. Also, I think both Wagon and Dolly brought in lots of cash, but cost too much to make a profit.

---

I guess the argument many "70s were the best" people are making is that the movies, with the allowance of mature content, were finally able to grow up fast and tackle social issues a lot more bluntly.

----

Yes, certainly. The argument will last forever that Hays Code movies told great stories with no need for sex or cussing or nudity...but in some cases, these movies seemed forced to ignore the reality that people were LIVING in real life in the forties, fifties, sixties. To me, the big problem picture is "Mister Roberts," where a ship full of rough sailors can't swear stronger than "crud." Its a good movie, with great stars and a great story, but something is missing.

---

But previous decades, even without the explicit language and content, still made plenty of masterpieces. Symbolism, metaphors and thematic undercurrents can still go a long way.

---

All true. Hitchcock (for one) revelled in this. Wilder and Preminger did, too -- but Hitchcock did it with so much more visual symbolism.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I can see the ability to "show/say more and show/say everything" can be a double-edged sword. It may cause some filmmakers to go the lazy route and assume provocative material is the only thing that makes a great film.
---

I think in the seventies, with the repression removed, it was rather required for some filmmakers to "check off the checklist of taboo topics" one by one: We got cussing and nudity in MASH; MORE cussing in The Last Detail; rape of females in Straw Dogs and Frenzy and Clockwork Orange; rape of a male in Deliverance; incest in Chinatown. Etc. Until all the taboos had been explored -- often in very good films made by very good filmmakers -- and then the fever broke and the PG eighties came around.

And don't forget The Godfather for ITS 1970's pronouncement: that the bad guys could win(by killing worse bad guys), that everything was corrupt beneath the surface(the Godfather "owned" judges and politicians and some newspaper guys.) The film used the positive roots of family to underscore a lesson in how to play dirty and negotiate hard in business and power politics. Americans were ready for the go ahead.

----
We're definitely seeing the results of that with the endless schlock-fests (like horror films that now rely on jumpscares, gore and nudity rather than atmosphere)

---

And what movie usually gets the blame for all that? Psycho, of course. Though I gotta admit, Mother running out at Arbogast was THE jump scare for a lot of years. The jump at the end of Wait Until Dark was near its equal. And then, over the years, jump scares became once every five minutes instead of once per film.

Once the "R" rating came in, the great directors used it a lot, to be sure, but they also ceded its use to a lot of lesser talents. Its been ever thus.