4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

108 years ago today, the director J. Lee Thompson was born in Bristol, England.  Thompson started his career making social realist films before he moved into making genre pictures.  He was nominated for Best Director for his work on 1961’s The Guns of Navarone.  That said, during his lifetime, Thompson was never exactly a critical favorite.  When they were first released, critics were dismissive of his entries in the original Planet of the Apes franchise and they were downright hostile to his work with Charles Bronson.  However, all of those films were better appreciated by audiences and they remain cult classics to this day.  Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, with its themes of protest and revolution, has especially been the subject of much recent critical reevaluation.  Thompson may have been a genre director but that didn’t mean that his film were devoid of subtext.  If anything, Thompson was a master of sneaking subversive themes into the least likely of works.

Thompson was a filmmaker who knew how to tell a story and who always did the best with whatever he had to work with.  To be honest, many aspiring and working directors could learn a lot from spending a weekend watching some of Thompson’s films.

In honor of the man and his legacy, here are….

4 Shots From 4 J. Lee Thompson Films

Cape Fear (1962, dir by J. Lee Thompson, DP: Sam Leavitt)

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972, dir by J. Lee Thompson, DP: Bruce Surtees)

Happy Birthday To Me (1981, dir by J. Lee Thompson, DP: Miklos Lente)

10 To Midnight (1983, dir by J. Lee Thompson, DP: Adam Greenberg)