Background
Lumet, Sidney was born on June 25, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Baruch and Eugenia (Wermus) Lumet.
Lumet, Sidney was born on June 25, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Baruch and Eugenia (Wermus) Lumet.
Educated at Professional Children's School and later attended Columbia University.
He was a child actor on the stage and in One Third of a Nation (39, Dudley Murphv). After an education at Columbia and the Actors Studio, he had his training in five TV drama. His debut. Twelve Angry Men, was an acclaimed picture in its day: it was a model for liberal reason and fellowship in the Eisenhower era; or maybe it was an alarming example of how easilv am jurv could be swayed. Perhaps, finally, it was just an exercise for group acting.
Lumet quickly became esteemed, even if he was out of his element with the romanticism of Stage St nick and That Kind of Woman. He did well by quality literary adaptations and gave due scope to Hepburn, Richardson, Robards, and Stockwell in what is a superb Long Day’s Journey. Though not well known today. The Fugitive Kind was faithful to Tennessee Williams, it kept Brando and Magnani in intriguing balance and used Boris Kaufmans black and white poetically.
Solemnity set in where there had never been much humor. Lumet got a habit for big issues— Fail-Safe, The Pawnbroker, The Hill—and seemed torn between dullness and pathos. Still, in the seventies he made several good procedural thrillers—The Anderson Tapes (he was an early believer in an un-Bonded Sean Connery) and Ser-pico—and he was able to catch the wild, emotional panache of Pacino and John Cazale in the tragi-comic Dog Day Afternoon. Network plainly belonged to Paddy Chayefsky, but Lumet understood that and did nothing to impede the film. It was the closest he had come to a successful comedy. He was that rarity of the 1970s, a director happy to serve his material—yet seemingly not touched or changed by it.
Equus was a bad film, but mavbe its a bad play that reveals its flaws in close-up. Prince of the City is a very dogged, labyrinthine study of police corruption—and one that has twice defied wakefulness in this viewer. Whatever the answer, there’s a gloom in Prince of the City that feels dutiful or depressed. The Verdict looked and felt like an Oscar vehicle for Paul Newman. As with Twelve Angry Men, its supposed criticism of how justice works was only the mechanics for suspense.
Daniel and Running on Empty are touching and stricken films, with good performances from such young actors as Amanda Plummer, River Phoenix, and Martha Plimpton. Time and again over the years (he has helped eighteen acting nominations), Lumet has shown us more than we expected in actors. That was true of Jane Fonda and Jeft Bridges in The Morning After But the films seemed set, sad, and one-paced. Q & A is one of Lumet’s best, with an extraordinary performance from Nick Nolte. But A Stranger Among Us (Melanie Griffith as an undercover cop in a Hasidic community) is as dottv a choice as any A-list director has ever made.
Linnet was seventy in 1994. How odd to think of him as a veteran, for he seems unformed still, and likely to do anything. It’s a distinguished career but it doesn't begin to tell us who Sidney Lumet is.
Of his recent films, only Night Falls on Manhattan was compelling—that old instinct for corruption in law and order. But Lumet had another recent credit: in 1995, he published Making Movies, a genuinely instructive and thoroughly planned book about managing a picture into being. But it was so clear, so logical, so sensible, it left one at a loss as to how Lumet had made so many pictures that are travesties, and a few—like The Verdict—that never lose their harsh taste. If only making movies was as straightforward as he makes it seem—if only the book was wilder, angrier, and more in love. Then a few more films might be great.
Directors Guild of America. Films include Twelve Angry Men 1957. Stage Struck 1958, That Kind of Woman 1959, The Fugitive Kind 1960, A View from the Bridge 1961, Long Day’s Journey into Night 1962, The Pawnbroker 1963, Fail Safe 1964, The Hill 1965, The Group 1965, The Deadly Affair 1966, Bye, Bye Braverman 1968, The Seagull 1968, The Appointment 1969, Blood Kin 1969, The Offence, The Anderson Tapes 1972, Child's Play 1973, Serpico 1973, Lovin' Molly 1974, Murder on the Orient Express 1974, Dog Day Afternoon 1975, Network 1976, Equus 1977, The Wiz 1978, Just Tell Me What You Want 1980, Prince of the City 1981, Deathtrap 1982, The Verdict 1982, Daniel 1983, Garbo Talks 1984, Power 1986, The Morning After 1987, Running on Empty 1988, Family Business 1989, Q & A 1989.
Play: Caligula 1960.
On the one hand, Lumet has made forty-three films. He has been nominated as best director four times. He has steady themes: the fragility of justice and the police and their corruption. He can deliver powerhouse performances from lead actors, and fine work from character actors. He is one of the stalwart figures of New York moviemaking. He abides by good scripts, when he gets them. Yet there is also the Lumet of such follies as The Wiz, Power, Family Business, A Stranger Among Us, and Guilty as Sin—all of which are 1978 and later. It is in his ostensible maturity that Lumet has been most wayward and inexplicable.
Married Rita Gam, 1949 (divorced 1954). Married Gloria Vanderbilt, August 27, 1956 (divorced 1963). Married Gail Jones, November 23, 1963 (divorced 1978).
Married Mary Gimbel, October 1980. Children: Amy, Jenny.