I don't often do obituaries here at Cinema Styles, a rare exception being Charles Bud Tingwell earlier this year because for reasons elaborated on in that post he felt like family. Karl is another member of my extended family. Most everyone reading this will be in the same position of having never met my father. That's okay because all you have to do is watch Patton if you want to meet him. He's the one they call Bradley, General Omar Bradley. Even my wife noticed it the first time she saw Patton after meeting my father. "He's just like your Dad!" Yep, he is, and was, and I'll miss him. I'm not joking about the Patton thing either. My Dad walks and talks like that and uses those mannerisms and has the same patience and demeanor and... and all of it. And Patton is one of the first movies, if not the first, I ever saw Malden in so he's always seemed slightly familiar to me.
However, don't think this familial similarity influences my next proclamation because it doesn't nor will it be written as a kind but empty gesture to a respected actor now deceased. I mean it. Sincerely: Karl Malden was, in my opinion, better than Marlon Brando and George C. Scott in On the Waterfront and Patton. I know, I know, that's crazy! It's insane! Those are two of the best performances in the history of cinema. They are, so maybe I should rephrase it. While Brando and Scott shone like fiery comets in their respective roles Malden had to play scenes with them as an ordinary Joe, a priest or a soldier's soldier, and NOT disappear into the woodworks. And he didn't. I'm impressed at how solidly good he was in the shadow of those two grand and BIG actors. He commanded attention in those roles and made them work to try and wrestle the scenes BACK from Malden. Pretty damn impressive.
Throughout his career, from A Streetcar Named Desire to his television series The Streets of San Francisco, Malden would turn in one reliable performance after another, a performance that made you believe not only in the character, but in the man. He had a strength about him that can't be faked. He was real, not studied, natural, not forced. He was a working actor, a character actor and a great actor and he'll be missed.
Karl Malden was 97.
