El factor Delta

Tay Garnett was never a pantheon director in the true sense of the word, but at the height of canonisation his name was mentioned. He was a workmanlike director of entertaining pictures peaking in the forties.

The Delta Factor underlines the collectiveness of Hollywood filmmaking: when Garnett was at his best he had a good script and the best crew the studios could offer. Also the help of charismatic stars must be remembered. Garnett then operated as a sort of "foreman" to keep everything in schedule and producers happy.

In the fifties the auteur theorists (Truffaut, Sarris) tried to attribute the good things in cinema to the personal talents of the director, thus helping to create myth of a film director as an artists comparable to novelists or painters.

The Delta Factor is a low budget effort made late in Garnett's career. He has also adapted the screenplay and produced the piece. The result is disappointing. Not much talent is evident in the finished product. The only redeeming feature is the car chase towards the end which is technically above the level of the rest of the film.

Watch this and remember Truffaut!