Auteur Iconoclasm: Geoff Andrew's "Film Handbook"

[...] even a casual perusal of just a few entries will confirm that Andrew (a film critic for Time Out and Radio Times and author of Hollywood Gangster Movies) is no ordinary scholar, that his purpose is not simply to rehash the standard critical views on the 213 international figures included herein for the benefit of the unschooled movie lover. Promising younger talents who ultimately reneged on their early artistic ambitions in order to pursue greater commercial success include Rafelson, Ritchie, Friedkin, Walter Hill, and Frankenheimer.\n Richard Brooks is omitted also, though his oeuvre is certainly more intelligent and provocative than that of Mel Brooks (who is listed, but who receives the customary dismissal on grounds of progressive infantilism), while the inclusion of Ida Lupino and Charles Laughton are questionable Night of the Hunter is visually impressive, but one must take into account that first-and-only-time director Laughton's film was photographed by the extraordinary Stanley Cortez, and that Laughton himself was responsible for turning Agee's script into a somewhat incomprehensible and uneven muddle.