While director Richard Donner is mainly known for his big blockbuster films like Lethal Weapon series (1987-98), Goonies (1985), one of the best versions of Dickens’ story Scrooged (1988), there are a few other titles that made a strong impact on my life that he was responsible for. In 1978, he gave us the first REAL super-hero film with Superman that actually worked. But two years before that, he showed us that evil was alive and living amongst us in The Omen (1976), which still remains a powerful film even today, almost 50 years later.
But even before all of that, it was an episode of the TV show Ghost Story called The Concrete Captain that aired in September of 1972, that starred Stuart Whitman and Gena Rowlands, that I can still vividly remember watching as a 7-year-old kid, laying on my living room floor just being entranced by this little cheesy spooky story. Granted, at the time, I had no idea who the director was or whatever a director did. But I remembered that episode. It was a little later when I was able to catch one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, catching a rerun of it. It was Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, starring William Shatner. That was enough to give anybody nightmares, especially if you were going to be on a plane at night! Both of those episodes were directed by Richard Donner.
Donner passed away yesterday at the age of 91. For someone that did work on the big Hollywood films, he still made some damn fine entertainment, no matter what genre he worked in. His talent will be dearly missed, but thankfully we still have all the incredible films that he has left us. Our thoughts go out to his friends and family during this difficult time.
Thank you, Mr. Donner, for showing us that a man really could fly.
