Partners in Crime: Cukor & Hepburn

In some ways, you might say that director George Cukor made Katharine Hepburn a movie star. There's an old anecdote regarding a screen test that Hepburn did for what would become her screen debut: when viewing the bulk of the test, neither producer David O. Selznick nor director George Cukor were particularly impressed. Selznick, in fact, hated Hepburn completely, while Cukor disliked the mannered style of her acting but saw something in her when she did something simple and unscripted that made him believe that she was something special and shouldn't be dismissed. Cukor was, of course, spot on, judging by Hepburn's 60 year screen career, her unmatched 4 Oscar wins, and the fact that she is second only to Meryl Streep in nominations. Together Cukor and Hepburn would make 8 feature films and 2 television films together (for the purposes of this, I'm only looking at the feature films), forming one of the all-time great director-actor relationships.

Partners in Crime: Anderson & Murray

Celebrating cinema's greatest partnerships


It's almost impossible, at this point, not to think of Bill Murray when thinking of Wes Anderson. Murray has become part of the fabric of Anderson's work, a mainstay who, even when the role is small, always brings something essential to the work. Murray has had a role in every one of Anderson's films since his debut Bottle Rocket, and though Murray's absence isn't the only thing that makes Bottle Rocket feel the least "Wes Andersony" of the auteur's work, it's definitely odd to revisit that film now because it almost feels like it's missing a piece. Anderson has several actors that he's collaborated with many times, but no one seems to encapsulate the Anderson universe in quite the same way as Murray. So often, Anderson's films function to find the sadness is humor and the humor in sadness and as an actor, Murray meets that objective note for note.

Partners In Crime: Wilder & Lemmon

Celebrating cinema's greatest collaborations:


It's one of the all-time best pairings of director and actor. Over the course of 22 years, Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon made 7 films together, 2 of which are considered amongst the greatest films ever made. Together, they made some of the smartest and most memorable comedies ever committed to film, bringing out the best in each other in the process. Though each would have great success with other artists, the power of their work together cannot be denied.

Partners in Crime: Lee & Washington

Celebrating cinema's greatest collaborations:


Spike Lee and Denzel Washington are both incredibly dynamic artists, the former a skilled and often polarizing filmmaker whose films can never be accused of lacking a voice (if anything, some of his efforts have too much to say about too many things), the latter one of the most charismatic and gifted actors of his generation. Sometimes when two such powerful artists collaborate their strengths end up cancelling each other out, but with Lee and Washington strength meets strength to create balance. It's hard to believe, then, that the two have only come together for four films, but what their collaborations may lack in quantity, they more than make up in quality.

Partners In Crime: Herzog & Kinski

Celebrating cinema's greatest collaborations:


The history of filmmaking is full of tempestuous actors and demanding directors, and no combination of the two has ever been as volatile as that of actor Klaus Kinski and director Werner Herzog. Kinski is best known for the gallery of mentally unbalanced characters he played, characters who seemed to mirror his own intense and unpredictable personality. Of the two, Herzog was the sane one - and Werner Herzog is friggin' crazy. He's a man who once got shot while doing an interview and then dismissed his injury as being the result of an insignificant bullet. That these two men made it through one film without killing each other is amazing; that they went on to make five, and brought out the best in each other, is miraculous.

Partners in Crime: Fellini & Masina

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Fewer cinematic partnerships have been more enduring, or more fruitful, than that of husband and wife duo Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina. So defining, in fact, is Fellini to Masina's screen career that his influence is absent in only eight of her nineteen films - in addition to the seven films in which he directed her, he's credited as a writer in four others. Although Fellini worked with many actors to great success, none of those collaborations could match that of his work with Masina, which helped establish him as one of the most important filmmakers of the 20th century.

Partners in Crime: Hitchcock & Grant

Celebrating cinema's greatest collaborations


When you think of Alfred Hitchcock in relation to his actors, you're most likely to think of the series of actresses he worked with, women of a certain type who became collectively known as "Hitchcock Blonde." But among his many collaborations, one of the most fruitful was his work with Cary Grant, whom he once described as "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life." Although Grant was already a star by the time he began working with Hitchcock, their work together would bring darker edges to Grant's charming persona, sinister and dangerous qualities which demonstrate that Grant was one of the most versatile actors of his time, though he's rarely given credit for it. Grant and Hitchcock worked together on four occasions, all four of them bona fide classics.

Partners in Crime: Anderson and Hoffman

Celebrating cinema's greatest collaborations



Paul Thomas Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman may not come as immediately to mind when thinking of successful director/actor partnerships as other pairings, but just because they've flown slightly under the radar (a result, perhaps, of two of their early efforts being very much "ensemble" pieces) doesn't mean that their work together hasn't been vitally important. With Anderson, Hoffman has enjoyed a series of diverse and interesting characters, and with Hoffman, Anderson has had the benefit of a consistently great character actor who can work across genres. Theirs may be a quieter, less flashy partnership than other director/actor pairings, but it's one of modern cinema's most fruitful.

Partners in Crime: Scorsese and De Niro

Celebrating cinema's greatest collaborations


For the modern filmgoer there are few director/actor collaborations that have been as fruitful as that of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Almost twenty years after their last film together, their collaboration remains an example against which other director/actor pairings are measured due to the richness and quality of the films they produced together. While many of their films together explore similar themes and milieus, the key to the Scorsese/De Niro pairing is that each one explores different aspects of those themes and milieus, and while De Niro has played a number of, lets say, psychologically challenged characters for Scorsese, each one has been crazy in his own particular way.

Partners in Crime: Bogart & Huston

Celebrating cinema's greatest collaborations


There are a lot of actor/director teams in the history of cinema whose frequent collaborations have led to a wealth of great movies. Sometimes these pairings bring out the very best in both parties, revitalizing each with a renewed burst of energy and creativity, pushing and challenging each other to new heights (Scorsese/De Niro, Kurosawa/Mifune, Herzog/Kinski immediately spring to mind). Sometimes these pairings start strong, and then succumb to a creative laziness that leaves their projects open to diminishing returns (*cough* Burton/Depp *cough*). One of the more fascinating actor/director team ups is that of Humphrey Bogart and John Huston, who only made four films together but made them all so distinct from each other that you could never argue that they were repeating themselves.