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Summary: The Wonderful World of One-Shot Woody
Review: Finally--a biography on one of the most unjustly neglected contract directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, William Van Dyke (1889-1943). Van Dyke (who's career began as an assistant director on D.W. Griffith's 1916 masterpiece of poetic-overkill, Intolerance) earned the nickname "One-Shot Woody" because of his reputation for churning out entertaining, financially successful films on schedule and under budget. Indeed, a great irony of his start with Griffith is that the high priest of studio extravagance, Erich von Stroheim, was also a Griffith assistant at the same time--too bad Van Dyke didn't assist him later in the 20's on Greed! Though primarily remembered for such highly entertaining films as The Thin Man (he directed the first three in the series), Rose Marie, Manhattan Melodrama and It's a Wonderful World in the 1930's, Van Dyke initially gained the attention of MGM Studios with his unique ability to take over another director's muddled project and turn this sow's ear into a silk purse. Van Dyke was given his initial such opportunity in the last days of the silents in 1928--with the reigns of Robert Flaherty's follow-up to Nanook of the North--White Shadows of the South Seas. Not only did he salvage a successful movie, he created a silent masterpiece which stands next to F.W. Murnau's Sunrise for the sheer beauty of its images and timeless handling of its subject matter, which concerns white mercenaries' shameless exploitation of nature and a peaceful island society (Maybe George W. Bush should see this film before he goes blundering into the Alaskan wildlife preserve in the name of oil). This is Van Dyke's working journal--a priceless, day to day insight into a time of creative filmaking that has forever vanished and our motion picture heritage is all the much richer for it.
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