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Dante's Pick: Director Joe Dante Selects His 13 Favourite Films
Ian Schultz , September 16th, 2016 08:40

To coincide with the release of his cult classic Matinee on Blu-Ray, the director of Gremlins, The Burbs and Explorers, Joe Dante, picks a Baker's Dozen of his favourite films for The Quietus

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Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)

Foreign Correspondent is an amazingly underrated movie. I think it was made just before we got into the war. The screenplay is by Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, all these great wits, but it was designed by William Cameron Menzies, who is another of my favourites, one of the great art directors of all time. Whatever people like about the way that Gone With the Wind looks is due entirely to Menzies, because there were so many other people going in and out the door that there was only one force, and that was William Cameron Menzies, In this film he creates some amazing illusions. There's an air crash where an airplane crashes into the ocean, and this is done entirely on a soundstage with rear projection, and it's just amazing. And the set pieces in the movie are very Hitchcockian. I think that when Hitchcock became a brand of his own and merchandised himself people started to undervalue a little bit the black and white stuff that he had made in his early Hollywood period. And of course his British period was also great! There are just too many movies to like to only choose 13.