John Landis
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John Landis (born August 3, 1950) is an American movie actor, director, writer, and producer.
His career began as a teenager, working as a mailboy at 20th Century Fox. He starred in Schlock (1976), which he also wrote and directed, and also directed The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). In 1980, Landis directed The Blues Brothers (which he co-wrote with Dan Aykroyd) and then An American Werewolf in London, which he also wrote, in 1981. American Werewolf was perhaps Landis's most personal project, a film which he had been planning to make since 1969. Landis also directed the opening teaser and first segment of (1983). That same year saw another Landis-directed film, the Prince-And-The-Pauper style comedy Trading Places, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy.
Landis also directed the classic Michael Jackson music videos "Thriller" and "Black or White".
Twilight Zone tragedy
During the filming of Twilight Zone, actor Vic Morrow was decapitated and two child extras, Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were killed by a helicopter. The parents of the children sued. At trial, prosecutors attempted to show that Landis was reckless and that he had violated laws relating to child actors by not telling their parents and others about the children's proximity to explosives and helicopters and the hours they could work. He was also accused of negligence in his directions to the crew regarding the use of the helicopter. Landis was acquitted, after it was shown that much of the evidence cleared Landis from any direct responsibility other than being a reasonably easy scapegoat in the tragedy.
Vic Morrow’s daughters, Carrie Morrow and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, also sued and settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
Other credits
Other credits include Into The Night (1986), Spies Like Us (1985), ¡Three Amigos! (1986), Coming to America (1988), Innocent Blood (1992), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), The Stupids (1996) Blues Brothers 2000 (1998) and Susan's Plan (1998). Landis has also directed for television and taken small acting roles in a variety of films, including Stephen King's Sleepwalkers (1992) and, most recently, Spider-Man 2 (2004).Career slump
Because Landis's list of credits in the late 1970s and 1980s include so many beloved classics and crowd pleasers, many peers and film buffs consider him a comedy giant. However, the 1990s saw a string of box office and critical failures, from which Landis's career has yet to recover. Beverly Hills Cop III, directed by Landis in 1994, scored a mere 9 points of 100 possible at the Rotten Tomatoes website.His more recent "00" era work has taken him in a much different direction; his episode of Masters of Horror, "Deer Woman" (written by his son, Max Landis) is a throwback to the giddy silliness that brought Landis so much acclaim in the early portion of his career, while his documentary "Slasher" is both funny and moving.
Trademarks
One of Landis' trademarks is to insert references to a fictional film called See You Next Wednesday in movies he directs. The line is from Stanley Kubrick's as the final goodbye from Frank Poole's parents on the video from them he is watching. Also, for the films he directed for Universal Pictures (Animal House, The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London), there is the famous "Ask for Babs" promo (referring to the character, Babs, in Animal House) for Universal Studios Hollywood, shown at the end of the credits; of course, contrary to popular belief, there was no such promo and it was just an in-joke by Landis. In almost all of his films Landis includes cameo appearances from Muppeteer/film director Frank Oz. He considers Oz a good luck charm. Oz did not appear in The Twilight Zone and Landis did not have good luck (see above). Landis casts famous film directors in cameo appearances in almost all of his movies.2000s
In 2004, Landis directed the critically acclaimed documentary Slasher for the Independent Film Channel. The film was produced by Steven Cantor, Daniel Laikind, and Chris Kobin. In 2005 he directed the Masters of Horror episode Deer Woman.External links
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