Landis was born into a Jewish American family[2] in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Shirley Levine (née Magaziner) and Marshall Landis, an interior designer and decorator.[3] Landis and his parents relocated to Los Angeles when he was four months old. Though spending his childhood in California, Landis still refers to Chicago as his home town; he is a fan of the Chicago White Sox baseball team.[citation needed]
When Landis was a young boy, he watched The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which inspired him to become a director:
I had complete suspension of disbelief—really, I was eight years old and it transported me. I was on that beach running from that dragon, fighting that Cyclops. It just really dazzled me, and I bought it completely. And so, I actually sat through it twice and when I got home, I asked my mom, "Who does that? Who makes the movie?"[4][5]
Career
Early
Landis began his film career working as a mailboy at 20th Century-Fox. He worked as a "go-fer" and then as an assistant director during filming Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Kelly's Heroes in Yugoslavia in 1969; he replaced the film's original assistant director, who became ill and was sent home.[6] During that time Landis became acquainted with actors Don Rickles and Donald Sutherland, both of whom would later work in his films. Following Kelly's Heroes, Landis worked on several films that were shot in Europe (especially in Italy and the United Kingdom), including Once Upon a Time in the West, El Condor and A Town Called Bastard (a.k.a. A Town Called Hell).[6] Landis also worked as a stunt double.
I worked on some [pirate] movies, all kind of movies. French foreign movies. I worked on a movie called Red Sun where Toshiro Mifune kills me, puts a sword through me. ... I worked as a stunt guy. I worked as a dialogue coach. I worked as an actor. I worked as a production assistant.[6]
Aged 21, Landis made his directorial debut with Schlock. The film, which he also wrote and appeared in, is a tribute to monster movies.[6] The gorilla suit for the film was made by Rick Baker—the beginning of a long-term collaboration between Landis and Baker. Though completed in 1971, Schlock was not released until 1973 after it caught the attention of Johnny Carson. A fan of the film, Carson invited Landis on The Tonight Show and showed clips to help promote it. Schlock has since gained a cult following, but Landis has described the film as "terrible".[7]
Sean Daniel, an assistant to Universal executive Thom Mount, saw The Kentucky Fried Movie and recommended Landis to direct Animal House based on that. Landis says of the screenplay, "It was really literally one of the funniest things I ever read. It had a nasty edge like National Lampoon. I told him it was wonderful, extremely smart and funny, but everyone's a pig for one thing."[9] While Animal House received mixed reviews, it was a massive financial success, earning over $120 million at the domestic box office, making it the highest grossing comedy film of its time.[10][11] Its success started the "gross-out" film genre, which became one of Hollywood's staples. It also featured the screen debuts of John Belushi, Karen Allen and Kevin Bacon.
In 1980, Landis co-wrote and directed The Blues Brothers, a comedy starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. It featured musical numbers by R&B and soul legends James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. It was, at the time, one of the most expensive films ever made, costing almost $30 million (for comparison, Steven Spielberg's contemporary film 1941 cost $35 million). It is speculated that Spielberg and Landis engaged in a rivalry, the goal of which was to make the more expensive film.[6] The rivalry might have been a friendly one, as Spielberg makes a cameo appearance in Blues Brothers (as the unnamed desk clerk near the end) and Landis had made a cameo in 1941 as a messenger.
In 1981, Landis wrote and directed another cult-status film, the comedy-horror An American Werewolf in London. It was perhaps Landis' most personal project; he had been planning to make it since 1969, while in Yugoslavia working on Kelly's Heroes. It was another commercial success for Landis and inspired studios to put comedic elements in their horror films.
Twilight Zone deaths and legal action against Landis
On July 23, 1982, during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie, actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le (age 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6) were killed in an accident involving an out-of-control helicopter. The three were caught under the aircraft when it crashed, and Morrow and one child were decapitated.[12]
In June 1983, Landis, associate producer George Folsey Jr., production manager Dan Allingham, head of special effects Paul Stewart and helicopter pilot Dorcey Wingo were charged with involuntary manslaughter.[13] In December, Morrow's daughters Jennifer Jason Leigh and Carrie Morrow also sued Landis, Wingo, Warner Bros. Studios and others for negligence and wrongful death, resulting in Warner Bros. settling their case out of court, awarding $850,000 to each party.[14] Following the accident, Spielberg ended his friendship with Landis.[15][16]
The probable cause of the accident was the detonation of debris-laden high temperature special effects explosions too near a low-flying helicopter leading to foreign object damage to one rotor blade and delamination due to heat to the other rotor blade, the separation of the helicopter's tail rotor assembly, and the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter. The proximity of the helicopter to the special effects explosions was due to the failure to establish direct communications and coordination between the pilot, who was in command of the helicopter operation, and the film director, who was in charge of the filming operation.[17]
The lawsuit finally proceeded in 1985.[18] Landis insisted that the deaths of Morrow, Le and Chen were the result of an accident.[19] However, camera operators filming the scene testified to Landis being a very imperious director, and a "yeller and screamer" on set.[20] During a take three hours before the incident, Wingo (a veteran of the Vietnam War) told Landis that the fireballs were too large and too close to the helicopter, to which Landis responded, "You ain't seen nothing yet."[21] With special effects explosions blasting around them, the helicopter descended over Morrow, Le, and Chen. Witnesses testified that Landis was still shouting for the helicopter to fly "Lower! Lower!" moments before it crashed.[22]
The prosecutors demonstrated that Landis was reckless and had not warned the parents, cast or crew of the children's and Morrow's proximity to explosives, or of limitations on their working hours.[12] He admitted that he had violated California law regulating the employment of children by using the children after hours, and conceded that that was wrong, but still denied culpability.[12] Numerous members of the film crew testified that the director was warned of the extreme hazard by technicians but ignored them.[citation needed]Metallurgist Gary Fowler testified that the heat from two explosions engulfed and delaminated the helicopter's tail rotor, causing it to fall off, and that there had been "no historical basis" for the phenomenon.[23]
Deputy District Attorney Lea Purwin D'Agostino stated that Landis was acting "cool", "slippery" and "glib" during the trial, and that his testimony contained inconsistencies.[21] After a ten-month jury trial that took place in 1986 and 1987, Landis—represented by criminal defense attorneys Harland Braun and James F. Neal—and the other crew members were acquitted of the charges.[24][25][26]
Both Le's and Chen's parents later filed civil suits against Landis and other defendants and eventually settled out of court with the studio for $2 million per family.[27] In 1988, Landis was reprimanded by the Directors Guild of America for unprofessional conduct on the set of the film and the California Labor Commission fined him $5,000 for violating child labor laws.[15] Additionally, Cal/OSHA issued 36 citations and $62,375 in fines, although this amount was later reduced to $1,350.[15] Warner Bros. vice president John Silvia also spearheaded a committee to create new safety standards for the film industry.[18]
During an interview with journalist Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan, Landis said, "When you read about the accident, they say we were blowing up huts—which we weren't—and that debris hit the tail rotor of the helicopter—which it didn't. The FBI Crime Lab, who was working for the prosecution, finally figured out that the tail rotor delaminated, which is why the pilot lost control. The special effects man who made the mistake by setting off a fireball at the wrong time was never charged."[6]
Subsequent film career
Trading Places, a Prince and the Pauper-style comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, was filmed directly after the Twilight Zone accident. After filming ended, Landis and his family went to London. The film, a big hit at the box office (the 4th most popular movie of 1983) did well enough for Landis' image and career to improve, along with his involvement with Michael Jackson's "Thriller".
Landis next directed the 1988 Eddie Murphy film Coming to America, which was hugely successful, becoming the third most popular movie of 1988 at the U.S. box office. It was also the subject of Buchwald v. Paramount, a civil suit filed by Art Buchwald in 1990 against the film's producers. Buchwald claimed that the concept for the film had been stolen from a 1982 script that Paramount optioned from Buchwald, and won the breach of contract action.[29]
Burke and Hare was released in 2010, as Landis' first theatrical release in 12 years.
In August 2011, Landis said he would return to horror and would be writing a new film.[31] He was the executive producer on the comedy horror film Some Guy Who Kills People.
Music videos
Landis has directed several music videos. He was approached by Michael Jackson to make a video for his song "Thriller".[6] The resulting video significantly impacted MTV and the concept of music videos; it has won numerous awards, including the Video Vanguard Award for The Greatest Video in the History of the World. In 2009 (months before Jackson died), Landis sued the Jackson estate in a dispute over royalties for the video; he claimed to be owed at least four years' worth of royalties.[32][33]
In 1991, Landis collaborated again with Michael Jackson on the music video for the song "Black or White".
Landis made his first documentary, Coming Soon, in 1982; it was only released on VHS. In 1983, he worked on the 45-minute documentary Making Michael Jackson's Thriller, which aired on MTV and Showtime and was simultaneously released on home video, which became the biggest selling home video release of the time.[35] Next, he co-directed B.B. King "Into the Night" (1985) and in 2002 directed Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update, which can be seen as a part of the Animal House DVD extras. Initially, his documentaries were only made to promote his feature films. Later in his career he became more serious about the oeuvre and made Slasher (2004), Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (2007) and Starz Inside: Ladies or Gentlemen (2009) for television. Landis won a 2008 Emmy Award for Mr. Warmth.[36] In 2023, he appeared in the Spanish documentary The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry, which covered the career of Spanish movie director Paul Naschy.[37]
In 2009, Landis signed a petition in support of director Roman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."[41][42]
The moving image collection of John Landis is held at the Academy Film Archive.[81] The film material at the Academy Film Archive is complemented by photographs, artwork, and posters found in the John Landis papers at the academy's Margaret Herrick Library.[82]
Related Research Articles
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↑ Landis, John. Interview by Robert K. Elder. The Film That Changed My Life. By Robert K. Elder. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2011. N. p. 223. Print.
↑ Landis, John (April 26, 1991), Oscar (Comedy, Crime), Sylvester Stallone, Ornella Muti, Peter Riegert, Chazz Palminteri, Joseph S. Vecchio Entertainment, Silver Screen Partners IV, Touchstone Pictures, retrieved December 2, 2020
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