The fifty-seven-year career of Toronto-born film director Sidney J. Furie laughs in the face of monotony, surely ranking among the most fascinating in the history of the industry. Emigrating to London after blazing a trail as a pioneer in his home country of Canada, the young Furie built his reputation early as a visual daredevil, an enfant terrible, and a bankable name, only to be cruelly (and flippantly) dismissed in later years as a “wizened old hack” and a journeyman on a losing streak. What these later detractors often fail to remember, however, is that Furie provided key creative signatu ... More

The fifty-seven-year career of Toronto-born film director Sidney J. Furie laughs in the face of monotony, surely ranking among the most fascinating in the history of the industry. Emigrating to London after blazing a trail as a pioneer in his home country of Canada, the young Furie built his reputation early as a visual daredevil, an enfant terrible, and a bankable name, only to be cruelly (and flippantly) dismissed in later years as a “wizened old hack” and a journeyman on a losing streak. What these later detractors often fail to remember, however, is that Furie provided key creative signatures for films like the art-house espionage drama The Ipcress File (1965), the award-winning box-office smash Lady Sings the Blues (1972), the influential Vietnam War drama/satire The Boys in Company C (1978), the stylish horror film The Entity (1982), and other classics. This critical biography, the first book ever written on Furie, gets to the heart of this paradox, as well as the surrounding evolution of the individual, the artist, and his oeuvre. It also examines Furie’s auteur status, probing the recurring themes and trademarks that pervade his films. Over the course of a breathtakingly diverse journey, Furie made an indelible mark on early Canadian independent cinema, the British New Wave, the New Hollywood, the studio system, the blockbuster era, and, finally, the direct-to-video assembly line. All-new stories surface on Furie’s many collaborators, including Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Peter O’Toole, Robert Redford, Diana Ross, Michael Caine, Richard Pryor, and many others.