Victor Fleming

Washington Post

"VICTOR FLEMING - An American Movie Master" by Michael
Sragnow (Amazon.com: http://xrl.us/VictF )

Is easy labeling a prerequisite for lasting greatness in
the arts? At first blush, the case of Victor Fleming
suggests that the answer may be yes. Although he directed
two of the most durably popular movies of all time, "The
Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind," Fleming is seldom
mentioned in the same breath as D.W. Griffith, Ernst
Lubitsch, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Howard Hawks.

Griffith formulated "the grammar of film"; Lubitsch applied
his elegant "touch"; Hitchcock was "the master of
suspense"; Ford once summed himself up by saying, "I make
westerns"; and Hawks is famous for dramatizing the same
theme in movie after movie: the camaraderie exulted in by
men (and the occasional woman) who team up skillfully on
dangerous assignments. No phrase or motif sums up Fleming,
who failed to specialize in a genre or develop a trademark
approach to the variegated material he took on. In this
nimble, well-paced biography, however, Baltimore Sun film
critic Michael Sragow tries to find room for his man in the
pantheon...

Continued: http://xrl.us/VFleming