Influential figure in Clint Eastwood's career who directed Magnum Force and Hang 'em High
It is no exaggeration to declare that the film and television director Ted Post, who has died aged 95, contributed greatly to the making of Clint Eastwood into a Hollywood superstar. When Eastwood returned to the US from Europe, where he had starred in three Sergio Leone "spaghetti" westerns, Post directed him in Hang 'em High (1968), which consolidated Eastwood's screen persona as the impassive, laconic, gun-for-hire loner. A few years later, Post directed Eastwood again, in Magnum Force (1973), the first Dirty Harry sequel, which outdid Don Siegel's original film commercially. Eastwood said that Leone, Siegel and Post were the three most influential directors in his career.
In 1959, the unknown Eastwood – who had appeared in bit parts in 11 films – moved to CBS for his first leading role, as the amiable fresh-faced sidekick Rowdy Yates, in the television western series Rawhide. Twenty-four episodes of the series were directed by Post. Eastwood responded best to his direction, and they became buddies. When United Artists decided to cash in on the success of the Leone films in the US, Eastwood insisted they hire Post to make a revenge western in a similar mode.
Hang 'em High was a good imitation of an Italian western, with a thin line between the goodies and baddies, plenty of violence and one-dimensional characters. The episodic plot – Eastwood is determined to take revenge on the nine men who tried to lynch him – suited Post, whose 18 years in television had rubbed off on him.
Post, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, wanted to become an actor after working as an usher at a local cinema. He studied acting in a workshop taught by Tamara Daykarhanova, formerly with the Moscow Art theatre, but decided to direct instead. He started in summer stock theatre, prior to serving in the army during the second world war, after which he resumed directing plays, including a 1948 production of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi in Connecticut.
In 1950, Post moved into television, which was still in its pioneering stage, much of it filmed live. He made scores of episodes of series, mostly westerns, such as Wagon Train, Gunsmoke and Rawhide, plus 90 episodes of Peyton Place (1964-69).
The first among Post's few features was the low-budget religiose western The Peacemaker (1956), about a gunfighter turned preacher who brings peace to a warring community, the antithesis of the Eastwood character. After Hang 'em High, Post directed Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Made with a far lower budget than the original sci-fi box-office hit, it was the best of the progressively silly sequels of the rather cumbersome allegory.
In 1973, Post, restricted somewhat by the "family" nature of television, directed two oddities. The Baby, a bizarre horror film about a deranged mother (Ruth Roman) who keeps her teenaged son in nappies and a crib, was made more distasteful by the inclusion of documentary footage of children with learning disabilities. There was further bad taste in The Harrad Experiment, set in an American co-ed college where the pupils are taught self-discovery through sex, for which Post uses long, voyeuristic takes.
Magnum Force continued the adventures of "Dirty" Harry Callahan, the maverick cop whose main difference from the villains he pursues is his badge. Eastwood's implicit vein of self-mockery sets out to disarm criticism of the hollowness of the central character and of the reactionary and macho codes he represents. It turned out to be the end of Post and Eastwood's friendship, with Post stating that Eastwood claimed to have directed most of the film himself. "I believe that Clint became afflicted with a touch of megalomania," Post recalled. "Clint's greed and ego began to affect his sensitivity and judgment."
For Whiffs (1975), an army caper comedy, Post tried to recapture the style of M*A*S*H, underlined by the presence of Elliott Gould, whose character is pensioned out of the army due to toxins inhaled while he was being used in an experiment on germ warfare. Unfortunately, most critics considered it T*R*A*S*H.
Vietnam figured in two of Post's features in 1978 – the year of Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, when Hollywood started coming to terms with the war, three years after it ended. Good Guys Wear Black starred ex-karate champion Chuck Norris as a Vietnam vet trying to find out who killed his commando unit during a raid to rescue CIA personnel. It's the sort of film where a line like "Are you certain of your intelligence?" asked by Norris of a CIA agent, gets a laugh.
In contrast, Go Tell the Spartans was perceptive and complex, not adjectives often used to describe Post's films. It starred Burt Lancaster as a military adviser sent to Vietnam in 1964, beset with doubts about his mission. According to Gilbert Adair in Hollywood's Vietnam: "Perhaps the highest praise one can pay it is that – while in the movie theatre at least – one seldom questions its unfocused attitude to the political ambiguities of American involvement."
While Post's work was principally confined to television in the 70s and 80s, his last feature of any substance was a suspenseful noir, Nightkill (1980), with Robert Mitchum as an enigmatic detective.
Post is survived by Thelma, his wife of 72 years, and his children, Laurie and Robert.
• Ted Post, film and television director, born 31 March 1918; died 20 August 2013
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/25/ted-post
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