April 25, 2015 – June 6, 2015
Nicholas Ray (1911-1979) was one of the most innovative and consistently entertaining filmmakers of the Hollywood studio era, remaining legendary for his intense personality, fierce individuality, and restless creative growth. Coming up through the left-wing Theater of Action in New York City followed by the Federal Theatre Project (alongside John Houseman and Elia Kazan), Ray was known as an “actor’s director” for his tendency to allow the actor to define their own role. Despite a relatively short career and working within myriad generic confines—Westerns, film noir, melodramas, and “social problem” pictures—at disparate studios, Ray managed to infuse his films with distinctive visual and thematic style and iconic results. His brash yet sensitive portrayals of American individuality and the collective in flux earned Ray his place among the great American filmmakers; devotee Jean-Luc Godard enthused, “There was theatre (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rossellini), dance (Eisenstein), music (Renoir). Henceforward there is cinema. And the cinema is Nicholas Ray.”
A Woman’s Secret
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Written and produced by the esteemed Herman Mankiewicz (Citizen Kane), Ray’s second feature for RKO concerns aging, cosmopolitan singer Marian …
Bigger Than Life
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Moving to 20th Century Fox for this indictment of traditional masculinity in the American home — in addition to the …
In a Lonely Place
Directed by Nicholas Ray
In this second of two collaborations with Humphrey Bogart, Ray portrays the murderous side of the movie business, Bogart starring …
Johnny Guitar
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Widely cited as an allegory for the anti-Communist hearings overseen by the House Un-American Activities Committee that led to the …
King of Kings
Directed by Nicholas Ray
King of Kings, Ray’s second film for MGM, is truly his “epic” (featuring narration by Orson Welles!), a lavish historical …
Knock on Any Door
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Nearing the end of a highly productive era at Warner Brothers, Humphrey Bogart started his own company, Santana Productions, and …
Lightning Over Water
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Ray, dying of cancer, fought hard to make this last film, a document of his final days in New York …
On Dangerous Ground
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Injecting atmosphere and detailed character development to an already very strong script by A.I. Bezzerides, Robert Ryan stars as Jim …
Party Girl
Directed by Nicholas Ray
A latter-day mob tale made for glamorous MGM—ironic, at that most softboiled of studios—Ray follows the gritty gangster classics of …
Rebel Without a Cause
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Ray reinvigorated and expanded upon the generational-crisis motif of his earlier works in this Warner Brothers-made, mythical tale of a …
The Lusty Men
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Shot primarily in Pendleton, Oregon, The Lusty Men was produced during the Howard Hughes RKO era, a period of relative …
They Live by Night
Directed by Nicholas Ray
After working with Elia Kazan for many years as an assistant, Ray’s directorial debut is the first in a significant …
We Can’t Go Home Again
Directed by Nicholas Ray
In 1971, Ray, at the invitation of experimental filmmakers Larry Gottheim and Ken Jacobs, took a teaching post at SUNY …