Misdirected?
I want to praise your recent cover story (#323, April 19) on the
''50 Greatest Directors.'' Your writers found the right balance
between directors American and foreign, past and present. Your
list of directors and their movies helped me remember some great
but overlooked talents and inspired me to take a closer look at
others.
Jon Booth
Woodstock, Md.
One glaring exclusion: Charlie Chaplin, the man who made us
laugh with The Gold Rush and cry with City Lights...
Quentin Decker
Visalia, Calif.
...William Wyler, a three-time Oscar winner whose work includes
such classics as Wuthering Heights and The Best Years of Our
Lives...
Sheldon Silver, John Simon
New York City
...Elia Kazan, one of the first directors (On the Waterfront) to
work with and truly understand Method acting...
Jason Norfolk
Alexandria, Va.
...Mike Nichols, who made a star of Dustin Hoffman in The
Graduate and has a current smash in The Birdcage...
Karen Plummer
Kansas City, Mo.
...Lina Wertmuller, whose Seven Beauties earned her the first
Best Director Oscar nomination given a woman...
Frank L. Cummings
Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
...George Stevens, the director of such films as Swing Time,
Gunga Din, and Giant...
Ron Newcomer
Tempe, Ariz.
...Fred Zinnemann, who directed High Noon, a great Western that
also happens to be one of the most powerful psychological dramas
of all time.
Eric Enders
Austin, Tex.
Jerry Lewis? One of the 50 greatest directors? Gimme a break! I
think it's about time to reevaluate your list.
Aaron Hose
Melbourne, Fla.
Editor's Note: EW readers know their directors — and proved it by flooding our offices with a record 280 letters and E-mails in response to our story. Most of these missives reported crimes of omission: The absence of Wyler, Chaplin, and Kazan from our list drew 64, 45, and 40 letters, respectively. But the biggest point of contention was our inclusion of Jerry Lewis: Sixty-eight readers thought the Nutty Professor should have been denied tenure. We still like our list.
Corrections: Due to a typographical error in Melissa Rossi's unauthorized biography, Courtney Love: Queen of Noise (Pocket Books), we incorrectly stated the number of nannies Love employed between August 1992 and March 1994 (News & Notes). The correct figure is five. The Internet address of Warner Bros.' official Ace Ventura website should have read http://pathfinder. com/wb/ace (Multimedia). And finally, we misspelled the name of rap group Kausion (Music).
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