Michael Ritchie

Michael Ritchie (1938-2001), originally a television director, interested Robert Redford enough that the latter agreed to co-finance (and star in) two of his early films: the ski competition picture Downhill Racer (1969) and the 1972 political drama The Candidate. While Ritchie's first films raised considerable hopes, he failed to fulfil his promise - and work with Redford came to an end. He still drew attention for an ambitious look behind the scenes at a beauty contest in Smile (1974), but then he tried to follow up his victories with box-office hits; the most successful were the "sports" films The Bad News Bears (1976) and Wildcats (1986). At the end of his career he returned to television. As part of a series of portraits of famous people for the L' encyclopédie audiovisuelle he shot one on Einstein (1992).

MFF Karlovy Vary