Some really sad news to start off a new week...
Director Richard Fleischer passed away on Saturday at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital, located in Woodland Hills CA (a suburb of Los Angeles), of natural causes. He was 89 years old.
Given that Fleischer is the son of animation pioneer Max Fleischer ("Popeye" and Superman classic toons) and brother to actress/writer Ruth, it was almost a forgone conclusion that he would end up with a career in the entertainment industry.
His films ran the gamut, crossing many genres, all having his unique vision. The first of his films that I remember watching is the family classic Doctor Dolittle from 1967, then of course, a short time later, I saw 1966's groundbreaking Fantastic Voyage. Other genre highlights include 20000 Leagues Under the Sea and my personal fave Soylent Green from 1973. The DVD of that film has a great audio commentary with Fleischer and co-star Leigh Taylor-Young. He helmed the USA sequences for the WWII classic Tora! Tora! Tora! A decade later, in 1980, he took on The Jazz Singer remake. Before the decade would come to an end, he worked on the fantasy films Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonja, as well Amityville III: The Demon.
O.K. so some of his later films may not have been movie classics, in the sense of how the word is defined, but his skills still served them quite well, ensuring they became guilty pleasures.
For more about Fleischer, be sure to read the AP obituary in Variety.
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