A Man of Potential: Visions of Paul Wendkos, the Godard of Gidget

Paul Wendkos stood as a magnet for auteurist fixation during the early 1960s, a high-water mark for his work in feature cinema. He made his imprint with genre outings such as The Burglar (1957) and Face of a Fugitive (1959), along with the hit Gidget (1959) and his acclaimed indictment of evangelicalism Angel Baby (1961). Many of the era's leading critics and writers lauded his stylistic approach, even as studio contracts repeatedly confined him to commercially empty vehicles. Quentin Tarantino even credited him as the director of the faux action saga The 14 Fists of McCluskey in his Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. What is there to Paul Wendkos when we look at him and his work today?