American film director Martin Ritt started out as a Broadway actor. Ritt's stage role as "Gleason" in Winged Victory brought him to Hollywood for the film version, for which the studio publicity billed him, along with the rest of the male cast, by the rank he held in the Army (Private First Class Martin Ritt). A victim of the Hollywood blacklist, Ritt's career came to a standstill in the early 1950s. He reemerged, not as an actor, but as a director for the 1956 film Edge of the City. A favorite of actor Paul Newman, Ritt directed Newman in The Long Hot Summer (1958), Paris Blues (1961), Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962), Hud (1963), The Outrage (1964) and Hombre (1967). Other Ritt-directed films of note were Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), Cross Creek (1984), Murphy's Romance (1985), and, his last film, Stanley and Iris (1990). If there doesn't seem to be a central throughline in these films it was because Ritt steadfastly refused to be typecast as a director. One project that brought him immense satisfaction was The Front (1976), a comedy-drama of the blacklist years in which Ritt worked with fellow blacklistees Martin Balsam, Zero Mostel, Joshua Shelley, Herschel Bernardi, Lloyd Gough, and screenwriter Walter Bernstein. In 1985, Ritt made a surprising but delightful return to acting in the role of an excitable baseball manager in the otherwise disposable The Slugger's Wife (1985).
| Title | Year | Editors' Rating | User Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Denial
Co-producer |
1991 | |||
|
Stanley & Iris
Director |
1990 | |||
|
Nuts
Director |
1987 | |||
|
50 Years of Action!
Participant |
1986 | |||
|
Murphy's Romance
Director, Producer |
1985 | |||
|
The Slugger's Wife
Actor |
1985 | |||
|
Cross Creek
Director |
1983 | |||
|
Back Roads
Director |
1981 | |||
|
Norma Rae
Director |
1979 | |||
|
Casey's Shadow
Director |
1978 | |||
|
Hollywood on Trial
Interviewee |
1976 | |||
|
The Front
Director, Producer |
1976 | |||
| 1975 | ||||
|
Conrack
Actor, Director, Producer |
1974 | |||
|
Awake and Sing!
Actor |
1972 | |||
|
Pete 'n' Tillie
Director |
1972 | |||
|
Sounder
Director |
1972 | |||
|
The Great White Hope
Director |
1970 | |||
|
The Molly Maguires
Director, Producer |
1970 | |||
|
The Brotherhood
Director |
1968 | |||
|
Hombre
Director, Producer |
1967 | |||
|
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Director, Producer |
1965 | |||
|
The Outrage
Director |
1964 | |||
|
Hud
Director, Producer |
1963 | |||
|
Adventures of a Young Man
Director |
1962 | |||
|
Paris Blues
Director |
1961 | |||
|
Five Branded Women
Director |
1960 | |||
|
The Sound and the Fury
Director |
1959 | |||
|
The Black Orchid
Director |
1958 | |||
|
The Long, Hot Summer
Director |
1958 | |||
|
Edge of the City
Director |
1957 | |||
|
No Down Payment
Director |
1957 | |||
|
Winged Victory
Actor |
1944 |

