American film director
Jack Hill
(born January 28, 1933) is an American
film director
in the
exploitation film
genre. Several of Hill's later films have been characterized as
feminist
works.
[1]
[2]
Early life
[
edit
]
Hill was born January 28, 1933, in
Los Angeles
, California.
[3]
[4]
His mother, Mildred (nee Pannill, b. February 1, 1907; death date n.a.),
[5]
was a music teacher.
[6]
His father, Roland Everett Hill (February 5, 1895 ? November 10, 1986),
[7]
worked as a set designer and art director for
First National Pictures
and
Warner Bros.
[6]
on films including
The Jazz Singer
,
Captain Blood
,
Action in the North Atlantic
, and
Captain Horatio Hornblower
, and as well was an architect who designed the centerpiece
Sleeping Beauty Castle
at
Disneyland
in California.
[8]
Hill attended
UCLA
, which he attended, he said, for "a couple of years" before leaving to get married and then returning to earn a degree in music.
[9]
While a student, he played in a
symphony orchestra
that performed for the soundtracks of
Doctor Zhivago
and
The Brothers Karamazov
, and he arranged music for burlesque performers; through this he met comedian
Lenny Bruce
, whose daughter Kitty Bruce would act in Hill's 1975 film
Switchblade Sisters
.
[9]
He went on to postgraduate studies at
UCLA Film School
, where instructor and former movie director
Dorothy Arzner
encouraged Hill and his classmate and friend
Francis Ford Coppola
. Hill worked as a cameraman, a sound recorder (including on Coppola's student short
Ayamonn the Terrible
), and an editor on student films.
[9]
His short
The Host
starred
Sid Haig
, an acting student at the
Pasadena Playhouse
under teacher Arzner, who introduced them;
[9]
this marked the first of several films together.
Career
[
edit
]
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Hill went on to work with Coppola on several of Coppola's early movies, including producer
Roger Corman
's 1963 movie
The Terror
.
[10]
He added 20 minutes to 1960's
Wasp Woman
for its eventual
television syndication
release, shooting without access to any original cast-member.
[10]
Legacy
[
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]
Quentin Tarantino
's company
Rolling Thunder Pictures
re-released
Switchblade Sisters
theatrically in 1996.
[10]
In the introduction to the film's DVD release, Tarantino calls Hill " “the Howard Hawks of exploitation filmmaking”.
[11]
Hill's discoveries include
Pam Grier
, who starred in four of his films from
The Big Doll House
through
Foxy Brown
;
Sid Haig
, who acts in most of Hill's films, beginning with
Spider Baby
; and
Ellen Burstyn
, who starred in
Pit Stop
.
His student film
The Host
was a partial influence on former classmate
Francis Ford Coppola
's
Apocalypse Now
.
[3]
[10]
Hill recalled in a 2000s interview that when he made
The Host
,
I had been reading
James Frazer
... and I had enjoyed his best-known book,
The Golden Bough
; in fact, my writing teacher said of 'The Host', “This is the story that Frazer forgot to tell.” It was influenced by his writing and if you see
Apocalypse Now
and look at the very last act of the movie, the camera explores Kurtz’s hideaway and you see a stack of books on his shelf. Very prominently featured there is
The Golden Bough.
When I saw the movie, my jaw dropped because Francis knew very well that my story was adapted from that. ... The third act [of
Apocalypse Now
] didn’t work but that was mine?that was my story [laughs]. ...
John Milius
wrote the script and Francis thought it was great but he did not like the ending. In fact, he didn’t come up with the right ending until he was over in the Philippines shooting it. So he knew my student film very well and I got this straight from Steve Burum, who ... was my cameraman on
The Host
and he was the
second unit
cameraman on
Apocalypse Now
and he said, 'We were all laughing and saying that we were doing Jack Hill’s student film.'
[12]
Film scholar
Wheeler Winston Dixon
believed that for Hill and fellow low-budget auteur
Monte Hellman
, film was primarily a means of personal expression while remaining a "deeply financially dependent medium". Dixon wrote that Hill and Hellman's movies often were sufficiently successful while remaining true to their personal vision.
[13]
Archive
[
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]
The moving image collection of Jack Hill is held at the Academy Film Archive.
[14]
The Academy Film Archive preserved
Spider Baby
in 2013.
[15]
Filmography
[
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]
Film crew
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Freeman, Sara (Spring 2013).
"A Top Ten of Feminist-Minded Films"
.
Sadie Magazine
. Archived from
the original
on July 14, 2013
. Retrieved
2012-05-18
.
- ^
Renshaw, Jerry (December 29, 1997).
"
Foxy Brown
: Directed by Jack Hill"
. (review) Filmvault.com (
The Austin Chronicle
). Archived from
the original
on March 25, 2012
. Retrieved
2012-05-18
.
- ^
a
b
"Jack Hill"
.
Film Society of Lincoln Center
. n.d. Archived from
the original
on November 1, 2014
. Retrieved
November 1,
2014
.
- ^
Knight, Gladys L. (2010).
Female Action Heroes: A Guide to Women in Comics, Video Games, Film, and Television
. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Press. p. 129.
ISBN
9780313376122
.
- ^
Stone, Frank Bush, compiler. "Mildred Pannill".
The Family History of James Ball, Senior
. (Manuscript; Summit, NJ: Frank Bush Stone, June 2, 1995) via New England Ball Project.
Archived
from the original on November 1, 2014
. Retrieved
November 1,
2014
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
a
b
Jack Hill interview,
"Confessions of a B-Movie King"
.
LowCut Magazine
. n.d. Archived from
the original
on September 4, 2004
. Retrieved
2012-05-18
.
My father Roland Hill went to work as a set designer for First National Studios [sic] around 1925 and stayed on when it became Warner Bros. He later became an art director there, specializing in period architecture and ships. ...My mother is now 94 years old and has about 50 students on violin and piano.
- ^
Stone (1995), "
Roland Everett Hill
". Retrieved November 1, 2014.
Archived
from the original on November 1, 2014.
- ^
"Historic-Cultural Monument Application for the Roland E. Hill House"
(PDF)
. Los Angeles Department of City Planning. January 24, 2008. p. 2.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on October 7, 2012
. Retrieved
November 1,
2014
.
The proposed Roland E. Hill House historic monument was designed by its original owner, architect Roland E. Hill ... [who] worked as a set designer and art director for the film industry.... Hill also designed attractions for Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, designing the iconic Sleeping Beauty Castle, the centerpiece of the theme park.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Waddell, Calum (2009).
Jack Hill: The Exploitation and Blaxploitation Master, Film by Film
.
McFarland & Company
. p.
8
.
ISBN
978-0786436095
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Hartl, John (June 20, 1996).
"Not Yet Over The Hill -- Director of Campy 'Sisters' in Comeback"
.
The Seattle Times
.
Archived
from the original on November 1, 2014
. Retrieved
November 1,
2014
.
- ^
Waddell, p. 2
- ^
Waddell, pp. 9-10
- ^
Dixon, Wheeler Winston
(2007).
Film Talk: Directors at Work
.
Rutgers University Press
. p.
xi, Introduction
.
ISBN
978-0-8135-4077-1
.
- ^
"Jack Hill Collection"
.
Academy Film Archive
.
- ^
"Preserved Projects"
.
Academy Film Archive
.
- ^
Waddell, p.11
- ^
Waddell, p. 9, which notes "The Host" received a public release in 2000 as an extra on the
Switchblade Sisters
DVD, with new titles, sound recording and music. Waddell calls "The Host" a 1961 film on page 9, but then asks, "Why was 'The Host' not finished back in 1960?" on page 10.
External links
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