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Monte Hellman

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Filmmaker

The Resume

    (July 12, 1932-April 20, 2021)
    Born in Brooklyn, New York
    Birth name was Monte Jay Himmelbaum
    Directed the films ‘Beast from Haunted Cave’ (1959), ‘Fight to Fury’ (1964), ‘Back Door to Hell’ (1964), ‘The Shooting’ (1966), ‘Ride in the Whirlwind’ (1966), ‘Two Lane Blacktop’ (1971), ‘Cockfighter’ (1974), ‘China 9, Liberty 37’ (1978), ‘Iguana’ (1988), ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!’ (1989), and ‘Road to Nowhere’ (2010)
    Edited ‘The Wild Angels’ (1966), ‘Head’ (1968), ‘The Killer Elite’ (1975), and ‘Fighting Mad’ (1976)
    Executive producer of ‘Reservoir Dogs’ (1992)
    Died of complications from a fall at his home

Why he might be annoying:

    None of his films were box office successes.
    Producer Roger Corman claimed that ‘Cockfighter’ was the only film he distributed through New World Pictures that lost money.
    ’Cockfighter’ controversially included actual footage of roosters fighting (which has kept the film from ever being shown in Great Britain).
    Disappointingly, New World decided against advertising ‘Cockfighter’ with the tagline, ‘He came into town with his cock in his hand, and what he did with it was illegal in 49 states.’
    His ‘existential Westerns’ ‘The Shooting’ and ‘Ride in the Whirlwind’ ended up in legal for two years after the French company he sold the European rights to went bankrupt, after which the films were bought by an American company that never gave them a theatrical release, instead consigning them to late, late night television slots.
    ’Two Lane Blacktop’ was hyped pre-release by ‘Esquire,’ which called it ‘the movie of the year’ and predicted it would follow ‘Easy Rider’ as a counterculture event. After the film failed to live up to the elevated expectations, ‘Esquire’ gave themselves one of their year-end ‘Dubious Achievement’ awards.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He worked frequently with Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates.
    Many of his films developed a cult following.
    Although he admitted that ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night 3’ was probably the worst film he made, he was proud that he was able to complete it in only three months.
    He was a member of the jury at the Sundance Film Festival (1989).
    ’Two Lane Blacktop’ was called ‘one of the greatest road films ever made’ by Film Talk and was added to the National Film Registry for being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.’ (2012)
    He taught film directing at the California Institute of the Arts.
    He won a special Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (2010), where jury head Quentin Tarantino praised him as ‘a great cinematic artist and a minimalist poet.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 89 Votes: 52.81% Annoying