really... why?

In a kind of bizarre turn, the director most represented in my dvd collection after Hitchcock and Woody Allen turns out to be William Wyler, for no other reason than that he made my 3 favorite films of the 1930's, The Good Fairy, Dodsworth and Come and Get It. Plus I seem to have acquired a couple of proto noir and gangster pictures, The Letter and Dead End, just in the last couple of months.

There's no design to this, other than mere coincidence. Wyler doesn't really have a style, per se. He's not a hack, just a solid craftsman who approaches direction from the "artfully invisible" school. He also seems to be pretty keen on breaking down social barriers, tackling adultery, open marriage, prostitution, gang violence and vicious gossip. And that's all before 1939. His films all seem kind of refreshingly modern in their instincts, and I think that's the power they've got over an audience today. He also gets incredibly good performances and works consistently with actors, not movie stars. The leads in his films would for the most part be considered character types by everyone else. He trusts their ability to sell the scenes, not the movies for their success.