Robert Altman‘s O.C. and Stiggs (shot in ’83, released in ’87) was his all-time lowest, slummiest gig. Not that he made a habit of slumming, but almost every director runs aground sooner or later and is sometimes forced to direct a film that he/she feels no connection with and would never touch if financial pressure didn’t require it. The trick, of course, is to do the very best job you can (at the very least technically) even if your heart isn’t in it. In his own mind Oliver Stone may not have been slumming when he made World Trade Center and Savages, but these films always struck me as comedowns — they were certainly well beneath his usual level. The reprehensible Honky Tonk Freeway (’81) was easily John Schlesinger‘s slummiest gig. Looking for other legendary misfortunes along these lines…any director, any film.