Introduction
“[John] Huston is still coasting on his reputation as a wronged individualist with an alibi for every bad movie … Huston has confused indifference with integrity for such a long time that he is no longer the competent craftsman of The Asphalt Jungle, The Maltese Falcon, and The African Queen, films that owe more to casting coups than to directorial acumen.” — Andrew Sarris, “John Huston: Less than Meets the Eye” in The American Cinema (1968).
“People often ask if I have any regrets over my rankings of directors in The American Cinema. Actually, there have been shifts and slides, rises and falls, all along the line. Film history is always in the process of revision, and some of our earliest masters are still alive. The American Cinema was a very tentative probe designed mainly to establish the existence of a subject worthy of study. The rest is refinement and elaboration.”— Andrew Sarris, “Billy Wilder Reconsidered” in You Ain’t Heard Nothing Yet (1998).
