The other day I opined to someone that you don’t see director/actor match-ups the way you used to, ala John Wayne and John Ford, or Jimmy Stewart and Anthony Mann or Alfred Hitchcock; or Hitchcock and Cary Grant. I attributed this (along with lots of modern Hollywood’s other ills) to the fact that movies are cranked out the way they used to be. Old time stars in their prime used to make two or three movies for every one a modern star might make. Tom Cruise is a pretty busy actor, and he currently has 35 movie credits. Jimmy Stewart had nearly a 100, Henry Fonda more than a 100, and Cary Grant nearly 90. John Wayne had nearly 175. (Admittedly, a lot of those where quickie oaters he made before hitting the big time with Stagecoach, although he made 80 to 90 movies after that, as well.)
However, there was at least one modern, long-running director / actor collaboration I forgot, that of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. They are now preparing to make their sixth project together, an adaptation of (apparently) Steven Sondheim’s musical Sweeny Todd, about a murderous barber who cut his customer’s throats–in the musical, he’s given a motive for this–and the woman who then disposes of the bodies by making them into meat pies and selling them to the locals.
Really, that sounds right up Burton and Depp’s alley, assuming the musical part works out all right.
