Happy Birthday, Walter Hill he is 84 today!
Walter Hill was born on the 10th of January 1942 in Long Beach, California, US
He is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer who is best known for writing and directing action films.
Walter was a sickly child and suffered from severe asthma which limited his ability to attend school and socialise. Walter said in an interview about his illness,
“Despite the discomfort, it made you comfortable being alone with yourself. You weren't as surrounded by your peers as everybody else your age was... In my case, it meant a tremendous amount of reading at an early age... I read, listened to the radio... I became utterly besotted with daytime serials... it enabled me to live in an imaginary world where one is comfortable with abstract ideas, dominated by stories, narrative, and characters.”
His asthma receded when he was 15 and he was able to have a much more regular life.
From a young age, he wanted to be a writer but for some reason after high school, he pursued becoming a comic book artist and went to art school in Mexico. He later dropped out and enrolled at Michigan State University to study History.
He became obsessed with the work of Ernest Hemingway, Hill said "The hardest thing to do is write clearly and simply, and make your point in an elegant way"
Which was something he identified in Hemingway's work and strived to achieve himself.
When he graduated from university he was drafted into the US Army to go “Fight” in Vietnam but due to his history of respiratory problems, he was excused from that fate.
Not being sent off to war meant he had to find a job.
Through a friend, Hill got a job in Los Angeles doing research and writing for historical documentaries made by a company that was associated with Encyclopaedia Britannica.
He began handling and reading more and more scripts and developed the urge to direct a film.
He started seeing European films and Japanese films. This was the mid-sixties in America, not exactly the most progressive place on earth when it comes to experiencing culture from around the world. Hill said,
“I remembered thinking just a little further west they are making the films I want to see. I'm going to do this. Sink or swim... I wanted to be a writer on my way to being a director. Directors were already my heroes. Kurosawa, Italian directors... Movies from England, France, Sweden, and Italy. Poland... One wanted a chance to tell stories in an open, loose, not constricted Hollywood kind of way. At the same time, you wanted to work in Hollywood... I was tremendously interested in genre films. Wanted to work within genre films”
When Hill’s contract working on historical documentaries was over he worked for a time in the mailroom at Universal Film Studios. Through connections he made there he managed to enter a training program hosted by the Directors Guild of America, which enabled him to work in television as an apprentice. He worked on shows such as Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West and Bonanza.
Hill also was recruited as the second assistant director on the 1968 film “The Thomas Crown Affair”
He then went on to work as the uncredited second assistant director on the movie “Bullitt” he spoke about working on Bullitt in an interview saying,
"It was my job to set background and also to set it up with the police. We had to organise every shot so people wouldn't wander out into the middle of the street and be hit... Every time we did a shot I was scared to death."
It was during this time in the late sixties he started writing screenplays in his spare time. Although his early work did get some positive attention within the industry his first screenplay that made it to screen was “The Getaway” (1972) the movie was directed by Sam Peckinpah and starred Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. Hill adapted the script from the 1958 novel of the same name by Jim Thompson.
“Hickey & Boggs” (1972) was his first original script that was made. I haven't seen this movie but it seems to have OK reviews but it unfortunately stars a Mr Bill Cosby so I imagine it now has limited appeal.
He also wrote “The Thief Who Came to Dinner” (1973) and the two Paul Newman movies “The MacKintosh Man” (1973) and “The Drowning Pool” (1975).
In 1973 Hill met the film producer Lawrence Gordon who agreed to let him direct a movie if Hill wrote the script and directed for scale pay (minimum wage aloud by the Directors Guild). Not a great deal but this was Hill’s opportunity to actually direct a movie.
He wrote and directed the movie “Hard Times” (1975) It was shot on location in New Orleans for $2.7m and shot in 38 days. The film is set during the great depression and stars James Coburn as a fast-talking promoter of illegal street fights and Charles Bronson as the boxer protagonist.
The screenplay for “Hard Times” marks a real turning point in Hill's writing. He had read Alexander Jacobs’ screenplay for the John Boorman directed film “Point Blank” Hill found it a revelation regarding its style and format. He was mindful of this approach from “Hard Times” onward. Hill described it as "extremely spare, almost Haiku style. Both stage directions and dialogue." Hill also gleaned influence from Sam Peckinpah’s writing which was also quite stoic and direct.
Following “Hard Times” Hill was approached by John Wayne to direct “The Shootist” he turned the job down due to not liking the script.
Hill’s second outing as a director was “The Driver” he didn't have a problem with that script because he wrote it.
“The Driver” (1978) stars Ryan O’Neal as a professional getaway driver for hire and Bruce Dern plays the cop trying to take him down.
None of the characters have names they are just known as “The Driver”, “The Detective”, “The Player”, “The Connection” and so on. Although this naming system is not a totally original idea it is insanely cool and so is this movie. I highly recommend it and it was obviously a massive influence on Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 film “Drive”.
But as with so many amazing films throughout history “The Driver” was not a theatrical success.
But what is becoming more and more apparent with the research I am doing for this blog is theatrical success is simply not a metric that can be used to gauge a film's quality as a film.
But what really makes me a Walter Hill fan is his next project.
“The Warriors” (1979) written and directed by Hill.
For accuracy, the Warriors screenplay was co-written with David Shaber and adapted from a pretty pulpy novel by Sol Yurick.
But my next Blog post is going to be all about The Warriors so we can move on.
You may be thinking I’m making a big deal out of some screenwriter/director who made a couple of cult movies. If you are thinking that you have not been reading my blog!
but I'm just going to quickly list his other credits. Not all his films are really “my cup of tea” but he is also responsible for some really significant work.
Walter Hill also wrote and directed,
“48 Hrs.” (1982) starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte.
“Streets of Fire” (1984) starring Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Willem Defoe & Bill Paxton
“Brewster’s Millions” (1985) Richard Pryor & John Candy
“Crossroads” (1986) Starring Ralph Macchio, Joe Seneca & Jami Gertz
“Another 48 Hrs.” (1990) starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte.
“Red Heat” (1988) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi
Among others.
A lesser-known fact is Walter Hill In the early years of his career set up his own production company, Brandywine Productions, to develop and produce films.
A script came across his desk which was what ended up being the Sci-Fi horror masterpiece “Alien” (1979) which he optioned and rewrote. Hill ultimately was not credited for his work on the script. The late John Hughes said, "I had been writing scripts for quite a while, but I never really knew what screenwriting was about until I read the script Walter wrote for Alien."
High praise!
Oh! Hill decided not to direct the film himself and got some guy Ridley Scott in to do that and the film was a massive success.
Walter Hill also co-wrote and was an executive producer on “Aliens” (1986) and “Alien 3” (1992) and has been an executive producer on “Alien Resurrection” (1997) “AVP: Alien vs. Predator” (2004), “Alien vs. Predator: Requiem” (2007), “Prometheus” (2012), “Alien: Covenant” (2017)
Going to prove you can't win them all!
But seriously! I am confident his involvement with Xenomorph movies has been a financially prudent career choice for him.
Walter Hill is still working on his most recent movie “Dead for a Dollar” which was released in 2022 and stars Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe and Rachel Brosnahan. Which I have just put on my “to watch” list on Letterboxd.
My Suggested viewing is
“The Driver” (1978)
Written and directed by Walter Hill and starring Ryan O’Neal & Bruce Dern.
You can watch this on the highly recommended ItvX premium streaming service.
Or you can buy and keep it on Blu-ray for £11.99 or 4K UHD for £19.99 from HMV.
“The Warriors” (1979)
Written and directed by Walter Hill starring Michael Beck, James Remar & David Patrick Kelly.
You can stream this on the Paramount + streaming service, or even better!
Buy and keep it on Blu-ray for £7.99 from HMV.
