The Director

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Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

China is a massive country with a recorded history stretching back thousands of years.

But it wasn't always one big united nation.

In ancient times, it was made up of many smaller kingdoms, and it took one man, the first emperor, to unite them all.

But the first emperor, despite his accomplishments, was not a beloved figure.

He was as cruel as he was visionary.

When most leaders die, they are treated to a state funeral, but when the first emperor died, his people did something very curious with the body.

Shi Wandi became king of the province of Qin when he was only 13 years old in 247 BC.

That name actually means first emperor and so obviously it wasn't his real name, but we'll keep using it since it's the name that he's best known by in history.

When he was about 21, his chief advisor and his mother both tried to overthrow his rule.

There's some historical evidence that his advisor was actually his real father rather than the previous king.

Rough parents, right?

But amazingly, Shi Wandi stopped the coup, his advisor/slash father killed himself, and his mother was imprisoned.

This whole experience obviously obviously traumatized Shi Wandi.

He became inspired by a philosophy known today as legalism, the idea that humans are inherently selfish and require a strong central government to rule over and punish them.

Having experienced a childhood where his own parents were so greedy that they turned on him, Shi Wan Di was ready to believe in the inherent evilness of human beings.

The only way that he could ever feel safe was if he ruled over all people.

Now, there were seven states in China at the time, and they were all constantly fighting with each other.

Part of this was because they all followed a strict code of honor that meant battles had to be fought in a certain way.

They would all line up in a field, giving each other a chance to get into formation, and then they would attack.

And so, battles were almost more like chess games played between two knights than a true attempt to completely defeat one another.

But Shiwandi's legalism beliefs meant that he would not be able to abide by these rules.

He would fight as ruthlessly as possible to ensure that everyone fell under his own thumb.

Why spend his life trusting greedy kings to follow codes of honor when he could just eliminate those kings entirely?

By 221 BC, he had conquered all seven kingdoms and declared himself emperor over it all.

And at first, China prospered under his rule in what became known as the Qin Dynasty.

His strong centralized system of government efficiently administered the entire country, growing the provinces and undertaking several large building projects.

He even built what would become the Great Wall of China, protecting the kingdoms from foreign invaders.

But even with all this power and a giant wall to protect him, Shi Wandi still didn't feel safe.

It bothered him that there were still those in the kingdom who would speak out against his rule and his legalism philosophy.

And so he instigated a brutal crackdown on any human expression that contradicted him or his beliefs.

He had many people killed and burned historical texts.

He wanted to make it as if there had only ever been one China, his China.

As the years went on, Shiwandi fended off multiple assassination attempts.

His own mortality weighed on him.

He constructed a massive palace for himself, which was to serve as his tomb if his enemies ever defeated him.

He had 8,000 terracotta warriors constructed around that tomb so that even in death, he would have an army to protect him.

But he wasn't dead yet.

Shiwandi next traveled throughout China looking for a way to make himself immortal.

He drank a variety of strange concoctions, some of them containing substances that we now know to be harmful, including toxins like mercury.

The irony is that in his quest for immortality, he may have cut his life short.

While on this tour through China, he died suddenly in 211 BC, leaving no will for instructions as to who should take his place.

Now, none of Shi Wang Di's servants mourned his passing.

They didn't like the guy.

But they worried what would happen if the seven kingdoms found out that he was dead with no designated heir.

And so, as they continued to travel, they hid his body body inside his carriage, changing his clothes for weeks and pretending to feed him.

They kept baskets of smelly fish near the carriage to cover up the smell of the rotting body.

And once they finally got back to the capital, they wrote up a fake will that declared one of the emperor's more impressionable sons to take his place.

Unfortunately, the new young emperor had all of his father's temperament and none of his father's vision and was soon deposed.

Despite all of Shiwandi's machinations, the Qin dynasty only lasted 15 years.

It was replaced by the Han dynasty, which came to power in 202 BC.

The Han dynasty was known for being much more open-minded, incorporating a variety of philosophies from across China.

As such, it lasted for over two centuries.

It's curious that even though it was the Qin dynasty that united China, it was the Han dynasty that actually made its people see themselves as one.

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Alan was a nobody when he arrived in Hollywood, hoping to see his name in lights.

He wasn't one of the millions of kids with dreams of becoming an actor.

Alan was going to be a director, the kind who made movies that were were personal and bold that audiences lined up to see on opening weekends.

This was the late 1960s, when directors were becoming stars in their own right.

It was the era of the auteur, the French word meaning author, used in film to describe directors whose style and vision are so strong the movie feels like their personal creation.

Think Steven Spielberg or Wes Anderson.

And in this era, the director's vision often outranked the producer, the screenwriter, and even the studio.

And these auteurs weren't just making art house films, they were directing mega hits with massive budgets.

Stanley Kubrick had just released 2001 A Space Odyssey, and Francis Fort Coppola would soon make The Godfather.

These were the kinds of directors shaping Hollywood's future, and every young filmmaker wanted to be one of them.

So Alan got his chance with the 1969 Death of a Gunfighter, a gritty, character-driven Western that blended old-school shootouts with modern themes.

The film's original director had had a falling out with a star and was fired mid-production.

Alan was brought on to finish the film, and while it was his first time behind the camera, he pulled it off.

Amazingly, the film was a modest success and earned strong reviews with critics.

Roger Ebert praised the direction while admitting that he had never heard of the filmmaker before.

And he wasn't alone.

Before this film, almost no one in Hollywood knew the name Alan Smithy, but now the whole town would be watching his career.

And what a career it was.

Over the next few decades, Alan worked in almost every genre imaginable, directing splashy action flicks, expensive sci-fi thrillers, quiet dramas, and dark comedies.

A few of his movies belonged to massive franchises too, like the Twilight Zone movie and Birds to Land's End, a sequel to the Alfred Hitchcock classic.

He dabbled in television and animation as well, directing episodes of MacGyver and even Tiny Toon's Adventures.

But despite the growing credits, Alan remained something of a mystery.

He never gave interviews, never appeared in behind-the-scenes footage, and avoided the spotlights entirely.

While other directors built public personas, Alan stayed firmly behind the camera.

As for the work itself, well, the results were mixed.

There were a few modest successes, but most of his films failed to impress audiences.

One of his lowest points came with the 1997 Burn Hollywood Burn, a satire about a director losing control of his own movie.

It was panned by critics and swept at the Razzies, winning five awards there, including Worst Picture and Worst Director.

But somehow, Alan kept getting hired.

The strangest thing about his career wasn't just the number of duds, it was how wildly inconsistent his movies were.

One film would be loud and over-the-top and the next would be quiet and serious.

Some were cheap, made-for-TV soap operas, while others had big stars and even bigger budgets.

While he was born out of the Auteur era, Alan had no signature style of his own.

His films didn't even feel like they were made by the same person.

Which made sense because in reality, they weren't.

I said Alan Smithy came to Hollywood a nobody and that was true.

He was always a nobody because he literally did not exist.

Alan Smithy was a pseudonym created by the Directors Guild of America in 1968 and used whenever a director wanted to disown a film they were making.

If a movie had been re-edited, rewritten, or altered so much that it no longer reflected the director's vision, they could simply ask to have their name removed.

But the guild required a name to appear in the credits, and so they invented one.

And that's why Alan's filmography is so inconsistent, and why so many of his movies turned out to be disasters.

The fact that he's credited on over 100 projects is a testament to just how often movies spiral out of control.

His IMDb page is a graveyard of Hollywood failures, but at least the films got finished.

And maybe there's a lesson in that.

Because for a guy who never existed, Alan Smithy has had one of the longest and most prolific careers in Hollywood.

No ego, no drama, no vision, and always available.

Maybe that's the real secret to surviving in the film industry.

I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting CuriositiesPodcast.com.

This show was created by me, Aaron Mankey, in partnership with How Stuff Works.

I make another award-winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show.

And you can learn all about it over at theworldoflore.com.

And until next time, stay curious.

This show is sponsored by American Public University.

Balancing work, family, and education isn't easy, but American Public University makes it possible.

With online courses, monthly start dates, and flexible schedules, APU is designed for busy professionals who need education that fits their lives.

And affordability matters too.

APU offers the Opportunity Grant, giving students 10% off undergraduate and master's level tuition, helping you reach your goals without breaking the bank.

Plus, they provide career services and 24/7 mental health support at no extra cost.

Visit apu.apus.edu to learn more.

That's apu.apus.edu.

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