Robert Wise

Robert Wise's output was so varying in content and style that he is not easy to categorise: he made critically acclaimed films like "The Set Up", horror films in his early years and, of course the immensely popular "The Sound of Music". David Thomson, the American critic, is not a fan: "he wandered easily into mediocrity or worse...." "he brought to the screen the appalling but grotesqely successful 'The Sound of Music' ". I get the feeling that as a young director of horror films like "The Curse of the Cat People" he showed great promise which, later, was dissipated in a materialistic union with Hollywood values.
Robert Wise returned to his horror genre later when he directed an immensely scary film called "The Haunting". Whenever I walk under trees in the wind, as I did today, that first scene of "The Haunting" comes to mind as the heroine, maybe a bit deranged, walks towards the house that is the scene of the haunting. Makes me shiver now. I don't think I can watch the film again. When it's put on now, on TCM or Film 4, it's always late at night; you can't watch that and hope for a good night's sleep.
The remake, I am told, is poor in comparision.
The "appalling" "The Sound of Music" ran in Cardiff for ages and I avoided seeing it then (I have since seen it on TV) not wishing to drown in syrupy sentimentality. There was a woman who attended every performance of the film, afternoon and evening. Eventually the manager of the cinema decided to let her in for nothing (maybe with the idea that if the sound track broke down she'd be able to supply the vocals to the "miming" on the screen!).
I don't suppose he was one of the great directors but it seems to me he was an artisan who did his best to make what he was given to direct entertaining.
But surely, if you want to talk of"classic Horrors", "The Haunting" is up there with the scariest of them.