Never Mind the Bollocks,Here's the Bullock.

Live-blogging is dead. Long live Facebooking the Oscars. Or at least according to me and Bill and Ryan. The three of us Facebooked the Oscars rather than live-blogging them and it was quite enjoyable. We were joined by Pax and Rory and Deidre and Neil and many others and this morning I awoke to 42 notifications from late commenters on each of our many updates. However, don't think this means I'll be reviewing the show because that's what the Facebook updates were all about. We updated throughout, and we're all quite pleased that The Hurt Locker, despite it being none of our first choices for Best Picture, won out over the box office juggernaut Avatar (one of the few cases ever where I can use the term "box office juggernaut" and feel that cliche is completely justified) in both the Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow) and Best Picture categories. But I didn't post anything on that. My last update was about Sandra Bulluck in which I, not so delicately, said I liked her despite her sorry rep around the movie blogosphere. I stand by that (and thank all those who agreed).

I haven't seen The Blind Side and don't know if she deserved Best Actress any more than 90 percent of all Oscar winners have ever "deserved" their Oscars. I just know she is a talented actress who has been in a veritable treasure trove of awful movies and it's all those bad movies that helps sink her reputation. I won't judge an actor for taking the movies that come along to keep her career going especially if that eventually leads to a moment where said actor is accepting an Oscar. Besides, she made Love Potion #9 work, and that's one of the silliest movies ever made. You know what else she made work? Speed. If you've just got Keanu Reeves and his deadpan, no, scratch that, corpse-like delivery, that movie is sunk. Bullock made it work much better than it should have. No, she couldn't save Speed 2 but that's like criticizing an ant for not being able to stop the flow of Mount Vesuvius. Jesus Christ could have stayed on the cross for three years and not saved Speed 2. Humanity, yes, Speed 2, no.

So maybe the problem, or criticism, of Bullock is that people think it says something about someone so willing to appear in so many bad films. Something about her taste or judgment. Well, how many of our favorite character actors from the past have appeared in their fair share of stinkers? We remember the great ones and forget the countless duds. Fact is, I admire someone for accepting what roles come along in an effort to keep working because too many actors find themselves atop a shining hill in which only those roles "suitable to their grand talents" will be entertained. Michael Caine taught the post-studio controlled movie world that a real actor takes what comes along and doesn't complain. And Bullock does too. And bully to that!

The Heart of an Actor: Why I Love Boris Karloff

When we're younger we have less respect for hard work and dedication and more appreciation of the cliched and showy. We make grand pronouncements about what's great in this area, what's great in that and through it all hold fast that our youthful convictions are not only accurate and correct but always will be. As a parent to four children ranging in age from 8 to 20 I've seen the black and white certitude of youthful judgment firsthand from the other side as well. When we get older however we learn to, as the cliche states, appreciate the finer things, those things not necessarily thrown in front of our collective faces with lights flashing and bells ringing. Since childhood I have acted, played and composed music, drawn and painted and worked on short films. I love the arts and my view of the arts has changed as dramatically as my view of most other things in life.



I find myself now reacting with cringes and bristles to much of what I accepted without question in my youth. In youth I would have ranked Jimi Hendrix as the greatest guitarist ever and probably did but as an adult who loves the guitar I can now see the foolishness of such a proclamation. Oh it's not that Hendrix wasn't great and didn't know his way around a six-string, it's that in his short time here he didn't leave enough of a record and never grew as I know he would have beyond the basic trappings and limitations of the blues and rock and roll form. I'd still rank him pretty high but now find myself much more impressed with the fretwork of Wes Montgomery or Django Reinhardt or Les Paul. Hell, if I had to rank the 25 greatest guitarists of all time probably no more than two or three rock and roll guitarists would even make the list. But rock and roll is showy and rock and roll critics never grow much older than seventeen intellectually so don't expect much of a shakeup next time you stumble across a "Best Guitarists of All Time" list. Expect Hendrix near the top. Again. Look for the incredibly rich, expansive and mature stylings of Wes, Les and Django much further down the list and don't bother looking for geniuses like Barney Kessel or Jim Hall at all. Most twenty-something rock critics don't even know who they are.

Same goes with most of the other arts and certainly acting is no exception. When I was a teen studying acting and learning my craft it's probably an easy guess who I spent a lot of time brooding over as the all-time great. Brando. Of course. And again, as with Hendrix, I'm certainly not here to tell you that Brando wasn't great. Like Hendrix, he was. But something happened to me with acting as I watched thousands and thousands of movies and became a figure of authority and responsibility to four children getting ready to face the world. I began to greatly appreciate hard work. Greatly. Let's face it, Brando phoned in more than his allotted share of performances throughout his career and while that amuses me most of the time there arrives a point when it irritates me as well. I love Marlon Brando in many ways but it also feels like he never quite matured as he should have. Willaim Redfield, known to most people, if at all, as the chain-smoking patient Dale Harding in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was an actor working in theatre since the thirties and he had great hope for Brando. He felt Brando could bring to America the theatrical tradition that existed in Britain. But it was not to be. Redfield repeated in interviews later in life how disappointed he was in Brando's lack of dedication and his abandonment of the theatre. As a youth I might not have understood that but as an adult I feel Redfield's disappointment.

And all of this brings us around to a conversation I had with my wife just two days ago. We were talking about Peter Cushing and I remarked that when Cushing was making Star Wars, just one year after making At the Earth's Core, he had no idea of the magnitude of the success that Star Wars would have. Working on a soundstage in front of odd, futuristic looking sets he must have imagined this film would result in roughly the same level of technical quality as his previous Amicus production and probably around the same fate financially. And yet there he was turning in a goddamned performance, a real performance, despite it all. Peter Cushing did not phone it in. And neither did Boris Karloff, but more than that, Karloff was the one who set the standard.

Boris Karloff came to prominence in the most stepped on, beaten about and disrespected genre of filmmaking there is, horror. He played Frankenstein's monster and played it supremely well. So well that he became the standard bearer for the genre for most of the next two decades. He played the monsters, the mad scientists and even the dangerous butler and he played them all at the top of his form. Karloff must have known that despite his fame and popularity he was being sneered at by lesser known actors of the legitimate theater and he didn't care. He never stated it publicly, at least not to any direct degree, and never let it affect a performance. Hell, he even gave his all in this lighter commercial!



While other actors complained about being typecast Karloff revelled in it (as noted in the quote in the banner above - seen here for those using a reader view) and never let it affect his attitude. Whatever part he was given he would devote to it all of the skills and tools he had accumulated in learning the craft of acting. Karloff lent respect and credence to the growing success story of the horror genre in the thirties. The fact that such a fine actor happened to be where he was at the time Universal was casting Frankenstein, preventing the role from going to a lesser actor who may never have filled the role with the necessary pathos, is an act of supreme historical luck and a great gift to the genre and all fans of it.

And another stroke of incredible luck was that this actor of such awe-inspiring talent was also an actor of hark work and dedication. The genre not only needed someone with talent to lend it respect but someone willing to be a refined and well-spoken cheerleader inviting in the masses that might otherwise turn away.

As for myself, I came to realize all of this much later in life. As a youth I saw all the Universal classics and loved them through and through. I knew Karloff was a good actor but never thought of him as a great actor, so blind was I to the brilliantly mimed performance of Frankenstein. Then, years later, older and hopefully wiser in the ways of film, I saw The Body Snatcher. It was a revelation. I was immediately struck by the supreme artistry on display as I watched Karloff's murderous John Gray weave webs of cunning charm and sinister pseudo-sincerity all the while hypnotizing the viewer. It was a brilliant performance, sadly and unfairly ignored for consideration for an Oscar during the time of its release.



Not long after seeing The Body Snatcher Karloff began to elevate in my mind as an actor and soon, very soon, he was among my favorites. And his hard work and dedication to the genre that he helped achieve its greatest success inspired other actors of dedication to follow, such as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

I can offer up many accolades to Boris Karloff as an actor but for me, personally, it is his hard work in honing his skils to complete his craft that stands above all else and says something to me about him as a person. There are and will continue to be several great actors in the world of film and I like many of them but as I get older I love Boris more and more and it's only natural. Karloff goes better with age, or better put, age goes better with Karloff. Boris Karloff was and is an actor for grown-ups, and that's the highest praise I can offer.

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This post has been a contribution to Pierre Fournier's Boris Karloff Blogathon taking place at Frankensteinia this week.

January 12, 2010

In less than two months, on that date, Luise Rainer will be 100. I can handle the cake but could someone help with the cups, plates and napkins? Also, anyone know if this is on the Mayan calendar?

Seriously though, 100. Unlike Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn (100 in 2007) and Bette Davis (100 in 2008) Luise will be around to celebrate it with us, God willing. Now Olivia DeHavilland and Joan Fontaine just have to make it to theirs, in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Kirk Douglas reaches his 100th in 2016 as well. Almost all of Classic Hollywood, and by the use of "classic" here I am referring to the first wave of sound productions in the thirties and forties before television took hold, is gone. There are only a few left. After they go, all of what is known to us as "Hollywood's Golden Age" will be academic.

At the River Crossing Edward Woodward 1930-2009

"These are memories to be hoarded" - Harry "Breaker" Morant

The first time I had any real knowledge of who Edward Woodward was was in the 1984 Hallmark Hall of Fame version of A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. In that version Woodward plays the Ghost of Christmas Present and in every version of A Christmas Carol I have ever seen (and I have damn near seen them all including several versions on stage) I stack up the actor playing that part against Woodward. They always come up short.

Edward Woodward was an actor of formidable ability. He enjoyed brief fame on television as the title character of The Equalizer, a show I enjoyed watching if only for him, but if one really wants to understand the depth of Edward Woodward the actor one need view only two films, The Wicker Man and Breaker Morant. He is brilliant in both.

I saw both films not upon their release but years later after seeing Woodward in A Christmas Carol and The Equalizer. In The Wicker Man Woodward plays the part of the self-righteous rigidly Christian policeman so well that I would have sworn that's who he was as a person had I not seen his other work that convinced me likewise in respect to their characters. When one thinks of the superb film that is The Wicker Man one has to wonder how effective the film would have been without the central character being utterly believable. In other words, I don't watch that film and see an actor playing a self-righteous man that the audience will lose sympathy for, no. I see a character filled with piety who believes in his principles and is trying in his heart and according to his religion to do the right thing and save an abducted girl. Woodward lets the rigid adherence to dogma show but never lets the audience off the hook by making his character despicable like a mad Christian zealot. The audience believes that his character would in fact abandon some of his beliefs if it meant saving that little girl and that's a hell of a feat on the part of Woodward.

And then there is Breaker Morant, a beautiful and fascinating film that is by all measure the final argument one needs in the case of Edward Woodward, underappreciated actor. As Harry "Breaker" Morant he blends the rugged militaristic rough edges of an Australian officer fighting in the Boer War with the soul of a poet. His performance is magnificent and the denial of an Oscar nomination underlined the lack of peer recognition this great actor would receive throughout his career.

Edward Woodward died on November 16 at the age of 79 from complications from various illnesses including pneumonia. He will be missed.

It was always Peter

I recently watched The Curse of Frankenstein again and was once again impressed with how boldly Hammer Film Productions, director Terence Fisher and write Jimmy Sangster all worked together to produce such a splendid reboot of a story (before they were called reboots and one year before their Dracula reboot) so familiar to so many fans. How they took the basic framework of the story and twisted it around just enough to make a story they could call their own while still enjoying the benefits that come from attaching the name "Frankenstein" to the end product. I was again impressed with how well Christopher Lee does in evoking sympathy for the pathetic creature he must play, much more pathetic than his original literary counterpart or the 1931 Universal creation. But more than anything I think I realized, or perhaps better put, finally let myself accept, that without Peter Cushing Hammer films would have never succeeded. That is high praise indeed and I intend it to be the highest praise I can give to an actor underrated by legions of non-horror fans and deified by those in the fold.

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are associated with Hammer more than any other two names but the two films that put Hammer on the horror map were this one and the previously discussed Horror of Dracula and in both, even Dracula, Lee is but a supporting player. It is Cushing that carries both films. It is Cushing that makes both films. Without Cushing neither film would have been the success it was and Hammer, perhaps, would have moved on to other things. Goddamit, it was Peter. It was always Peter.

And it's not just that this film, this Frankenstein, wouldn't have worked without Cushing. The 1931 Universal Frankenstein wouldn't have worked with Cushing in the role of the doctor. That role needed an actor who could exhort wildly that his creation had life and then recede into the framework while we follow the monster and his doings. Colin Clive played that role and did it well. But this Frankenstein is Cushing and nothing else. The creature is damn near an afterthought. In fact, he could have never succeeded in bringing the creature to life and it wouldn't have hurt the movie. He could have just kept on killing people and kept on trying and that would have been enough. With another actor it wouldn't have been but with Cushing? Yes, easily.

Peter Cushing had an intensity as an actor that few like him have possessed. Critics and actors like to use the word "intensity" to describe the Marlon Brandos or the John Garfields of the acting world (or any actor associated with Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler or Sanford Meisner), actors playing a brutal or brutalized working class American raised on the streets of Brooklyn. But Peter Cushing had an intensity that put all of them to shame - And NO, I am not just saying that for the sake of hyperbole, October celebrations or to give respect to a disrespected genre. I am saying it because it is true. How many people remember Peter Cushing in Star Wars? Everyone! He has but a few lines and yes, I know it's among the most popular films ever made so even minor characters are known, but still, with all the action and starfights and light sabers and Darth Vader roaming around all moody-like there's Grand Moff Tarkin, and he stands out. Now, think back to the movie, the whole saga in fact. There is no character working for the Empire, save the Emperor himself of course, who does not tremble in Vader's presence, except Tarkin. Cushing's intensity was such that he simply wouldn't have been believable fearing anyone.

It is that intensity that makes his Dr. Frankenstein such an astonishing creation. His face, his eyes, his build, his manner of speaking all signal to the audience far beyond the machinations of the script that this Doctor is mad. Homicidally mad. And that becomes our story, and would further become the story of more Hammer Films Frankensteins because fans couldn't get enough of this great yet sadly unheralded actor playing crazy. Peter Cushing changed the way horror fans thought of Doctor Frankenstein. There was the Doctor from the Universal films, the Doctor from the television productions that followed the novel more closely or even the Doctor from Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. They all had a madness to them, an obsession that drove their desire to create life from dead tissue. But they were all also, at their core, decent human beings who loved and felt guilt and revulsion at what they had wrought upon the world. And then there's Cushing's Frankenstein. No guilt, no revulsion. This Doctor is a bastard.

While the movie contains many scenes that make this clear, including a scene early on where the good doctor kindly ushers a brilliant scientist guest to his death over the second floor railings just so he can use his brain for his reanimated creature, the scene that projects it best and brilliantly is one of true horror and perversion. Frankenstein has dug up his first failed creature and brought him back to the lab where he has chained him to the wall and brought his former tutor and mentor to the lab to show him off. He orders him thuggishly to "Stand up!" "Sit down!" and so forth while the creature performs these rudimentary actions with oafish inexactitude. His mentor, and the audience, see a pathetic and horrifying display. A mentally disabled man, chained to a wall, clearly afraid, being yelled at to perform like an organ grinder's monkey. But one look at Frankenstein and the audience knows he's thinking, "Isn't this great?! Look at this! That son of a bitch does whatever I tell him - And he was DEAD before! Goddamn I'm good! Aren't you stunningly impressed?" Peter Cushing's Frankenstein cannot, will not, see that he has done something morally repugnant. He can only see personal glory no matter what the cost has been to others (Cushing would have been superb as Colonel Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai - not that Alec Guiness wasn't mind you).

The Curse of Frankenstein put Peter Cushing in the public eye but he never achieved the peer recognition that an actor of his immense talents should have. The Curse of Frankenstein is a fantastic reboot of the Frankenstein story but without Cushing it would have been so much less. The Curse of Frankenstein and The Horror of Dracula that followed set Hammer up for life but none of it would have happened like it did without Cushing. It was Peter. It was always Peter.

An Absence of Style? Elia Kazan at 100

I was perusing the pages of Wikipedia recently and came upon the birthday of Elia Kazan. He was born on September 7, 1909 making this past September 7th his 100th birthday. The 100s are always pretty big events in the blogosphere but I don't recall reading anything on Kazan on that day. Nothing odd about that, I don't get around the entire blogosphere so I'm sure there were posts written that I missed. It's just that even when I went to the sites that compile the links, such as Greencine Daily or David Hudson's The Auteurs, I still didn't find anything overwhelming. I do remember back in July of 2007 the legions of posts dedicated to Barbara Stanwyck when she turned 100 and every year there are birthday celebrations of the great figures of the cinema from Alfred Hitchcock to Bette Davis. But call out to the blogging world for a hundred year celebration of Kazan and you'll hear nothing but an echo in return.

Why?

We all know Elia Kazan ran afoul of the film community back when he decided to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, a decision that seemed harmless to his career at the time (hell, one could even say it was helpful in that Oscars and glory followed with On the Waterfront) but a changing attitude towards the committee (dissolved in 1975) and the almost comically ironic fact that a committee investigating things "Un-American" and doing so by enlisting citizens to rat out each other's political preferences is more Soviet than American, decidedly placed Kazan on the wrong side of history. But as others much better at this than me have said, in the end, the guy had a family and wanted to protect his career. That doesn't make him the most courageous man on Earth but it's not a position any of us glass house dwellers are likely to be in anytime soon. But I don't think that's why he doesn't get the red carpet treatment on the movie blogs.

So what is it? Style, or the lack thereof. Kazan has no signature as a director, at least in none of the important cinephile categories of visual style, genre mastery or pacing/editing technique. Seeking out a connecting visual motif between Gentleman's Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire or America, America is a task doomed to leave the seeker unsatisfied and empty-handed. Seeking out genre mastery will also prove futile: Ford had westerns, Hitchcock suspense, Spielberg adventure/sci-fi but Kazan? Nothing. Well, drama, but that's the standard genre around which all others are built which is to say, to state the obvious, Ford's westerns are dramas too. How about editing or pacing? Howard Hawks and Michael Curtiz come up spades in that area knowing how to race through set-ups and dialogue with ease allowing them to work in all genres, especially Hawks, and stamp their signature on each, but again, Kazan doesn't stand out here either.

No, in the end, Kazan's signature was the ease in which he worked with actors. Pick an Elia Kazan movie out of a hat and it probably has acting nominations and awards to its credit. From A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to On the Waterfront, Kazan movies are known for their performances. Both of those films received Oscars for acting and one of his films, A Streetcar Named Desire, damn near swept the field in 1951 winning all but Best Actor for Marlon Brando's seminal performance as Stanley Kowalski. But winning or being nominated for Oscars makes no difference because even in cases where there were no nominations, such as in the case of Andy Griffith's inexplicable snub for A Face in the Crowd (a film that received not one nomination - not one!) it is generally agreed that when one watches a Kazan movie, one will be treated to some great acting. And acting I have noticed (as Cinema Styles good friend Marilyn Ferdinand has noticed with dancing) isn't much discussed among cinephiles in general. To be sure, actors are discussed, from the aforementioned Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis to Spencer Tracy and Marlon Brando, but when a cinephile writes up a movie or a director's career they want a motif on which to hang their hat, a visual style, an editing technique. It might be accepted that Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw all do a great job in Jaws, but when a cinephile decides (s)he's going to analyze Jaws it's going to come down to Spielberg's cinematographic and editorial decisions more often than focusing on the performances. It is agreed, in other words, that while the performances are good what makes the movie good is Spielberg's decisions on how to show the shark, when to show the shark, how to create tension on the boat, and so forth. The performances are an added bonus.

But consistently eliciting great performances from actors is a talent underestimated in the film world and Elia Kazan did it better than most. Whether working with the stoic actor (Gregory Peck), the theatrical actor (James Dunn), the classical actor (Vivien Leigh), the entertainer/comedian turned actor (Andy Griffith), the new to the medium actor (Eva Marie Saint), the child actor (Peggy Ann Garner), the non-actor (Stathis Giallelis) or the reputation-precedes-him actor (Marlon Brando), Kazan knew how to draw a performance from all of them that was not only great but that didn't stand out in contrast to every other performance in the movie. He produced acting consistency in his movies. He standardized the acting in his movies by bringing the big actors down, the little actors up and the working actors to the fore. It's a cliche I can't stand but it's fitting: He made sure everyone was on the same page. In the end, the best way to describe his talents might be to call him an Ego-Wrangler. He could lasso vanity and insecurity in equal measure and haul them both in.

Elia Kazan died in 2003 and four years prior, in 1999, received an Oscar for a lifetime of achievement. Ten years later his 100th birthday didn't even show up on my radar and I'm sorry for that. I am an actor and know how difficult actors can be for directors. I also know how difficult a bad director can be for an actor. And I know that Elia Kazan's talent with actors is just as important to me as Hitchcock's talent with genre. So Happy Birthday Elia. Sorry it's so late.

Happy Birthday Jack Thompson

One of my favorite actors for years, Jack Thompson turns 69 today. The Australian actor first came to my attention years ago in Bruce Beresford's Australian football film The Club. Shown on a seemingly continuous loop on Showtime back in the early eighties I must've watched it a dozen times. Up There Cazaly is as familiar to me now as any movie song out there. And Jack Thompson made a hell of an impression: Strong, rugged, commanding. His was a presence that did not go unnoticed. It's currently available as an import DVD in the PAL format but I'd love to see it get a full release here in the States by Criterion, a wish I'm sure will go unfulfilled.

The very same year Thompson made The Club with Beresford the two worked together on the more notable effort Breaker Morant, for my money every bit as good a film as Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick's examination of military justice meted out in war that mirrors many of the same themes. Breaker Morant is a stunning film that rewards the viewer upon multiple viewings with a depth not normally present in courtroom dramas, in part because it resists many of the standard cliches associated with the genre. And again, Thompson as the courtroom defender of three Australian officers (two of which are played by Edward Woodward and Bryan Brown) is simply terrific, displaying the same strength he had in The Club.

Thompson never became the star in America or Europe that he was in Australia but his career never lagged as a result. He's made dozens of films and if you're unfamiliar with his work I heartily recommend both The Club and Breaker Morant. You won't be disappointed. So Happy Birthday once more to Jack Thompson. Here's hoping there are many to follow.

The Wanderers: Geoffrey Lewis

Here at Cinema Styles I occasionally showcase what I refer to as a wanderer, an actor who goes from job to job, is constantly working and has no major lead role to his credit but at the same time isn't a supporting player with Oscars or recognition like a Thomas Mitchell or Thelma Ritter. These are the actors that don't get the credit they deserve for a lifetime of hard, consistent, quality work. Today is the birthday of one of those actors, Geoffrey Lewis. He's 74 today.

I'd like to write a brilliant essay on the talents of Geoffrey Lewis but all I can get out is that I love the guy. If you watched television or the movies in the seventies through the mid-eighties, you know Lewis. He was everywhere. I probably couldn't say with any accuracy when is the first time I saw him. He guested on The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Police Woman, Streets of San Francisco, Alice, Laverne and Shirley, The Six Million Dollar Man, McCloud, Hawaii Five-O and on and on and on. I could have seen him for the first time in any one of those shows and not known I was looking at future favorite Wanderer Geoffrey Lewis.

The first time I remember seeing him was in 1978's Every Which Way but Loose with Clint Eastwood. A good movie? Hardly. But Lewis stood out for me. That face and his almost defeated way of speaking, like the world had destroyed his dreams before the first word even came out of his mouth, stuck with me. I recognized him every time I saw him after that. The most notable occasion would probably be Salem's Lot. The rocking chair, the dirt covered clothes (from Danny Glick's grave) and the line, "Look at me, teacher. Loooook at me." This casting choice fascinated me. It fascinated me because I found Lewis to be so non-threatening as a vampire. I just assumed any vampire played by Lewis would eventually, and quickly, give up on trying to lure and kill human victims and just drink the blood from whatever dead animal he happened across. And in fact his quick exit out the window when confronted with opposition lent credence to this hypothesis. That's because Lewis excelled at playing the guy who's been beaten down by life. The undead life shouldn't be any different.

The Oscars are rarely held up by a cinephile as an actual measure of quality in filmmaking and yet there is a heavy air of legitimacy that hangs over them. An unfair sense of legitimacy that goes to a very few. Even though we can all admit the awards have little actual meaning it doesn't stop me from wishing sometimes that a lifetime achievement award would go to someone who, just once, was never nominated for anything in their career prior, never had a role bigger than a minor supporting role and never achieved name recognition beyond a few dedicated fans but achieved facial recognition the world over. Actors like Geoffrey Lewis, with over 200(!) credits on his IMDB page, who have never disappointed, never phoned it in and never stormed off a set.

Happy Birthday Geoffrey. It may not be an Oscar, but you're a Lifetime Achievement Wanderer as acknowledged by Cinema Styles. And you deserve it.

An Actor Named Malden

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.

The Wanderers: James Edwards

Years ago I watched Bright Victory for the first time on cable. As I watched it I thought what most people probably think while watching it: "Arthur Kennedy is really great in this! Too bad he didn't get used more often in quality lead roles."

Then I thought the second thing most people probably think: "The guy playing his friend is great too!"

That actor was James Edwards. It took me a moment or two to realize it was the same actor who had played the paralyzed Private Peter Moss in Mark Robson's Home of the Brave (1949). In that film, as well as Bright Victory, Edwards plays the "black man." He's not a character who happens to be black, but rather a character whose skin color is of vital importance to the plot. In fact, in the play Home of the Brave, upon which the movie is based, the character is Jewish but thanks to the 1948 legislation that desegregated the Armed Forces the character was changed to a black soldier to keep up with the headlines, even if it meant being completely historically inaccurate by placing a black soldier in the same unit as white soldiers in World War II.

Edwards' characters in both films are noble black characters suffering under an oppressive system of inequality. Thanks to the time these movies were made the messages are a bit heavy-handed, falling more on the side of Clifford Odets' obviousness than subtle, nuanced psychological study. But that's what makes Edwards so good in both. When the blunt points have been made up front it's up to Edwards to provide the subtext with a look, a tremor in the voice or a simple body movement. His performance in Home of the Brave is justly celebrated but in Bright Victory too, he excels with very little to work from.

Bright Victory tells the story of a blinded war veteran, Larry Nevins (Arthur Kennedy), going through rehabilitation at an Army hospital. While there, he befriends another blinded veteran undergoing the same rehabilitation, Joe Morgan (James Edwards). Neither one knows the race of the other and at one point someone mentions that some new soldiers from a Negro unit will be showing up soon. Kennedy is surprised to hear this, thinking it's an all-white hospital and soon uses the word that quickly establishes his race to Morgan, and by Morgan's reaction, his to Kennedy. The friendship ends there and the rest of the film is concerned with Larry Nevins' guilt and changing attitudes as he returns home and finds he cannot be with his family and friends anymore who have racist beliefs. In the end, he meets up with Morgan and asks if they can be friends again. As in the rest of the film, Edwards uses subtlety in the face of an unsubtle (but still good) script. The pause, the look on his face, a look that can be interpreted a thousand different ways, the look that says, "Can I trust this guy again? Should I tell him to 'go to hell?'" Edwards isn't given much to work with in Bright Victory (it is, in the end, Kennedy's movie through and through) but what he is given he works with in ways a lesser actor never could.

Edwards never became a big star, working steadily in small and sometimes bit parts, always strong, always reliable. A wanderer, taking whatever work he could get to satisfy his need to perform, to hone his craft. In her excellent piece on him at TCM, Moira Finnie wonders about the fact that Edwards never became a star.

While Edwards and Poitier both entered movies at the same time, it is possible that Poitier’s disarming manner was easier for audiences to relate to in that period. Perhaps too, Poitier was the more natural star, as his timely performance in Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones would prove, while Edwards was simply a good, hardworking actor whose potential would find only fitful expression.

Or maybe, at the time, there was room for just one "black actor" in Hollywood. Oh sure, others could get roles, like Edwards and Harry Belafonte, but only one could be a star. Hollywood often figures out a way to sell one performer as the genuine article (Marilyn Monroe) and everyone else as the knock-offs(Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, Diana Dors) and it would appear no different here. Besides, it was the fifties and there weren't exactly a lot of roles for black actors and parts in which a black actor could be cast where race didn't matter were small, so once the big roles were filled by Poitier there wasn't much left for Edwards. Too bad, because as much as I like Poitier, I like Edwards better. It's an impossible comparison of course since Poitier had so many more roles to analyze and Edwards so few. Still, Edwards subtle gifts as an actor portray a confident and skilled artist less inclined to some of the histrionics Poitier sometimes fell victim to (and Edwards command of speaking dialogue naturalistically far outshone Poitier's). Of course, in a perfect world they would have both been stars but Edwards worked steadily nonetheless. His final role was that of General George Patton's valet in Franklin Schaffner's Patton (1970). Shortly after completing his work on the film, and before it was released, he died of a heart attack.

I like to think had he lived the seventies and the type of independent movies being made then would have afforded him the opportunity to explore roles that had never been available to him before. Either way, he established himself early on a hard-working actor dedicated to his craft on both the stage and film. He was a wanderer, a pioneer, a journeyman, a professional and, above all else, a damn fine actor.

The Wanderers: Diane Baker

You know who that is in the photo? It's a young actress in 1958 named Diane Baker. When the photo was taken she had just signed her first movie contract and was on her way to ... well, not stardom but work, steady work. She's been in dozens of movies and even more television shows with the number of her IMDB credits stretching well past the century mark. But most people know her for one thing and one thing only and it's a bit part with only a few lines. And this is an actress who right out of the starting gate played Anne's sister Margot Frank in 1959's The Diary of Anne Frank so it's not like she hasn't had any decent roles. But in 1991 she played a character whose daughter was abducted and her one scene involved talking to another character who possibly had information on the abduction. At the end of that scene the character with the information says to her, " Oh, and Senator, just one more thing: love your suit!"

Yes, in 1991 she played Senator Ruth Martin in The Silence of the Lambs. She still works steadily today and as previously stated has acted in over a hundred movies and television shows but if you had to explain to someone who she was you'd probably have to say, "You know, the Senator in The Silence of the Lambs, the one whose daughter got abducted."

Diane Baker is what some people call a Journeyman Actor, taken from the Journeyman term applied to those with skill in a trade but no workshop, no permanent locale. They travel from job to job and earn a day's wages for a day's work. They're nomadic by nature and I like to romantically refer to them as wanderers. They're the kind actor that doesn't get the big parts, supporting or lead, but they're always there, always working, always ready to play whatever part they've been given and do a good job with it. And Baker's done more than most people realize.

Aside from The Diary of Anne Frank and The Silence of the Lambs she also costarred in Journey to the Center of the Earth with James Mason and Pat Boone. I don't care what anyone says about that movie either, I love it. Yeah, I know, the dinosaurs are lizards with plates glued to their back and Boone gets a little annoying with the concertina but I still have a great time watching it.

She also had a small part in Marnie and played the love interest of David Janssen in the final two episodes of The Fugitive, making her one of the most seen actresses in television history. But most bloggers would also know her as Joan Crawford's daughter in the 1964 William Castle directed Strait-Jacket. After that her movie career tapered off into primarily television work but it was steady work and up to an episode of House, MD just last year, she was still going at it. Her career started 50 years ago with a part in The Diary of Anne Frank and she's been working steadily ever since, always reliable, always professional, always on top of her craft.

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This is the first post in the Wanderer series that will be included under the Acting category on the sidebar. After writing up Charles Bud Tingwell last week I decided I wanted to highlight more of the lesser known actors in the movies on this blog, the ones we all know but whose name might escape us.

Charles "Bud" Tingwell 1923 - 2009

I don't do obituaries here on Cinema Styles for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I'm never prepared and feel others are more up to the task. Second, I don't want to pick and choose, doing the big stars but not the smaller ones. As such, if I did do obituaries I would feel obligated to include everyone, not just the big stars, at which point this blog would become nothing more than a long chain of unending death notices. That's why usually I just put up a picture on the sidebar with the necessary dates and call it a day.

But this time's different. Why, you may ask, would I not do obits for so many big stars but make an exception for Charles "Bud" Tingwell, the Australian actor who died from prostate cancer this morning in Australia? Because Bud was virtually a member of the family, that's why.

My youngest daughter (seven years old) adores the Miss Marple movies of the sixties with Margaret Rutherford. My wife and I got her into the habit of watching old films from around the age of two and she is now fully versed in their rhythms and pacing. Oh sure, she still watches what other kids watch too but she understands classic film and will watch it on her own without any pushing or prodding. More often than not, if she has her choice of a movie to watch, it will be a Miss Marple film from the sixties. Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford), Mr. Stringer (Stringer Davis) and Inspector Craddock (Charles "Bud' Tingwell) have thus become familiar faces and names in our household and now the last, Craddock, played with such charm and wit by Tingwell, is gone. It's like saying goodbye to a favorite uncle.

I visited Tingwell's blog a couple of times (he only updated it twice, years ago) and read about him after we first started watching the movies a few years back. He even had a mild career resuscitation when he began appearing on The Late Show in the role of "Gramps" in the "Charlie the Wonderdog" segments that ran on the show in the mid-nineties. If you read his bio here you'll see that he had a full and rich life. And I recommend going there for biographical details because I intend only to talk about Inspector Craddock, and how wonderful he was in the role.

The Miss Marple movies of the sixties, Murder She Said (1961), Murder at the Gallop (1963), Murder Most Foul (1964) and Murder Ahoy (1964) will never be remembered as great examples of the art of cinema or even as the best examples of the mystery genre on film but they have a charm about them that is undeniable, and that charm has two actors at it's epicenter, Margaret Rutherford and Bud Tingwell. Rutherford as the nosey and headstrong Miss Marple constantly running up against, and intellectually besting, Inspector Craddock every time, in every movie, is formula to be sure but one given vigorous new life by those two eminently appealing actors. Tingwell did more than hold his own against Rutherford, at times you felt he was making her hold her own against him and that's no mean feat considering the immense screen charisma of Rutherford. But there's more.

Moviegoers and cinephiles are forever discussing chemistry between actors and usually, if not always, it centers around a male and female in a romantic relationship movie or two actors or actresses playing off each other in a Buddy picture. Well, I'm here to say that Rutherford and Tingwell had some of the best chemistry I've ever seen from a screen couple and their characters were not romantically involved nor were they buddy buddy. Nevertheless, those two played off each other as well as any team I can think of.

It may not be much of an honor to be written up on Cinema Styles but it is certainly an honor for me to write a goodbye to an actor that did something immeasurably important for me and my wife: He helped our youngest daughter fall in love with old movies and that's not something so easy to do these days. If not for him and his chemistry with Rutherford, it might not have happened. Thank you Bud. You were a gifted and charming actor and somehow, a good friend. You'll be missed.

Deep Background: Building the Career-Long Character

Alan Ladd was no Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy or Fredric March. Nor was he a Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman before his time. He was Alan Ladd. He was serviceable. For the most part, he got the job done and didn't ask anyone to give him an Oscar, or even a nomination, for his troubles. And no one would have anyway. It's not that he was bad because he wasn't. It's just that no one ever left an Alan Ladd movie and thought, "Wow! What a performance!" But he created characters based on his own persona that allowed for an exploration of those characters over the course of his career. Allow me to explain.

Whenever I hear someone say, "Oh (insert name of underrated actor here) just plays himself all the time" or "she's just being (insert name again) in all of her movies" I get a little annoyed. I think most people with acting experience reading this would agree that the best actors always infuse a character with their own personality, the better to establish the character as a real human being that the actor can inhabit. And more importantly, playing yourself isn't easy. When I was living at home all those years ago my mother would read through plays with me when I was memorizing lines for a part. She tried to act while doing so. She was awful (sorry Mom). She e-nun-see-ay-ted ev-vuh-ree word in some bizarre Stratford-on-Avon mock British construct. It was unnerving. She was under the false impression so many have, that anyone can act if they're just playing themselves. They can't. Reading lines and making them sound like words that you just happen to be saying doesn't come naturally to a lot of people. Alan Ladd may not be Edwin Booth but he was good at his craft and knew his limitations. Like his frequent co-star Veronica Lake, he never attempted to go outside of his established low-key persona. And as I said in the opening paragraph, that allowed him to develop one character over the course of his career.

Alad Ladd became a star with his portrayal of cold and calculating Philip Raven, the hired assassin of This Gun for Hire in 1942. Eleven years later he had his biggest success with Shane and every time I see either of those movies I think of the other. To me, Shane the character is Philip Raven, older and worn down. I don't mean literally since they obviously take place in different times and Raven dies at the end of his outing but inside the psyche where the character resides. Shane is Raven, older. I can imagine Shane spending his earlier days shooting people for money and as much is implied in the film. Shane understands Jack Wilson (Jack Palance) because Shane was Jack Wilson when he was Philip Raven but now he's fighting the good fight and doing it free of charge. And the only reason I can get that character lineage from Raven to Shane is because Alan Ladd played himself in both.

When an actor creates a wholly new character for each performance, like a Marlon Brando, Paul Muni or Meryl Streep, you can't follow a character over the course of their career. But when they play themselves, you can. Take John Wayne, who excelled at placing his personality at the center of the character he was playing. Doing that makes it easy to imagine that Ethan Edwards of The Searchers is the older version of the Ringo Kid from Stagecoach. The Ringo Kid has none of the bitterness or rage of Ethan but he's young and inexperienced. Because of John Wayne's persona I can easily see him becoming Ethan over the long haul and it allows me, when watching The Searchers, to "remember" what Ethan was like when he was younger.

Another great example, this time over the course of three movies, is Paul Le Mat's characters from American Graffiti, Handle With Care and Melvin and Howard. That's the same guy at three different stages in his life. Can't you see the hot rod drag racer of American Graffiti becoming the trucker later in life before settling down to an empty, low-income existence in the Las Vegas desert? Those three movies are a way of seeing what the Graffiti character of John Milner would have become had he lived on.

Sometimes I imagine the character fell into a downward spiral somewhere along the way. Think about the Elizabeth Taylor of A Place in the Sun or Father of the Bride becoming the raging drunk of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Or what if Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara finally snaps under the pressure of constantly having to fight for everything and becomes the hollowed-out shell that is Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire? James Bond of Goldfinger is given up by the agency as a scapegoat and the CIA locks him away for decades until he's the silver-haired incarcerated secret agent of The Rock. Joan Crawford's musical star of the stage in Dancing Lady becomes the wheelchair-bound has-been dependent upon her sister in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

It's fun to imagine these character connections but also surprisingly useful in fleshing out a character beyond what the film provides (in fact, I couldn't even have made it through The Rock if I hadn't actively imagined that was James Bond after 35 years of imprisonment). Shane doesn't overtly provide background details for the title character though it is implied throughout. Fortunately, Alan Ladd made it possible to see what Shane was like before the 1953 movie came along by playing the character in an earlier incarnation in This Gun for Hire. And that was possible because Alan Ladd played himself, which may make him appear limited to some but it also made it possible for him to do what Paul Muni never could: Create a character and spend the rest of his career building a history for him.

Ten People I Know

There's this viral meme infecting the blogs these days having something to do with naming ten favorite characters in the movies. So many have admitted that they have dozens of favorites and that the list changes from day to day and that a little bending of the rules is required that I don't feel bad about changing it around a little bit for myself as well.

I have dozens if not a couple of hundred favorite characters in the movies. Maybe more. Seriously. Think about how many movies where you see a character with only a line or two but they're so good you say in reference to them forever after, "I love that guy!" or "I love that lady!" Happens to me all the time. Or favorites from childhood like the Cowardly Lion played by Bert Lahr. I love the Cowardly Lion played by Bert Lahr ("Unusual weather we're having, ain't it?"). But, for favorites, true favorites, characters that really connect with me on a deeper level, well... that's a whole different ballgame.

Favorite characters for me are the ones that resemble someone in my life or remind me of some time in my life. And not just a passing resemblance but a feeling of "dear Lord that's me, or him, or her, or that time!" Where without even knowing me, the filmmakers and actors somehow pinned down an exact moment or time or relationship and got it dead on accurate. It happens in literature and music as well. Many people have a book they read again and again because it mirrors so closely something they have experienced or has a character that is all too familiar. And probably everyone has heard a song with a lyric that seems written for them. Having said that I am a bit trepidatious about revealing this list lest it feel too exhibitionist but what use is a blog for personal expression if one cannot express oneself personally. It's my view that most of us are covering up for something lacking in our lives and I'm no different. Think whatever you will about Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, but the tagline (one of several) of that movie is like a mantra to me: You may be through with the past but the past ain't through with you. With that in mind, here's the list:

Oma, Fat City. Not only do I think Susan Tyrrell, who played Oma, should have walked away (walked, as in no competition) with the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, I think she should get a Presidential Medal of Freedom for the role. And if you think she or Stacy Keach, also fantastic as fellow drunkard Tully, overplayed their roles well then sorry, I guess you haven't known many alcoholics. I have. They're a part of my life, from my own family to working at a liquor store in a poor neighborhood (probably the saddest job I ever had) right up to today. My wife and I have a friend right now who is a raging alcoholic but also, and more importantly, there's my sister, and no one can steal the crown from my sister. She's been screwed up on drugs and alcohol for as long as I can remember, in jail and out, even married to a drug dealer in the eighties until the F.B.I. closed in and they both made deals to nab the higher-ups. After that they divorced. My sister, almost fifty, lives at home with my parents, sober now but no longer able to make her own way in this world. If you're curious what that looks like, watch Fat City and watch a brilliant portrayal of alcoholism by Susan Tyrrell.

Woody Allen in Husbands and Wives, Manhattan and Deconstructing Harry at various times and various moments of my life. I look nothing like him and certainly don't have groups of friends anywhere near as pretentious or self-important but I swear when I watch those movies it's like that son of a bitch followed me around.

George Bailey, It's a Wonderful Life, played by James Stewart, near the end when he's suicidal because everything, fucking everything, is closing in on him at once. Let me tell you, sometimes you really do feel like giving up. Fortunately I have a guardian angel just like George did and it's my wife.

Marion Crane, Psycho, played by Janet Leigh. Boy, how many times have I felt like taking off with a bagful of money? Too many to count. I feel for Marion and the unfair end she comes to after doing something not out of malice but desperation. She comes to her senses (fortunately I've yet to leave mine) just a little too late.

Madame de, The Earrings of Madame de..., played by Danielle Darrieux. She finally found love and look what it got her. I want her to find love and be happy. God I feel for her.

Laura, Brief Encounter, played by Celia Johnson. She is so like her. So very much like her I can't think of anyone else when I see her. And she's wonderful, both the character and the real person so close to me.

Cooper "Gooper" Pollitt, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, played by Jack Carson. A minor character sure, but there's someone I always think about with him and I have great sympathy for just how badly he misses it. How he just doesn't get it. He just doesn't understand that playing by all the rules and having a tidy life doesn't mean acceptance or even love will come your way. Come to think of it, I know a few people like that. And yet sometimes I envy them even while I know they often envy the stragglers.

Kay Adams, The Godfather I, II and III. Even though I can confidently say my first wife and her friends and family were not gangsters I cannot watch The Godfather and see Kay Adams and not feel an absolute closeness to her and what she's going through. I was never, ever, connected to the world my first wife lived in and she never made any attempt to connect me to it. Not that I wanted to. Like Kay, I made several futile attempts to get her out of it but never could. Oddly enough, the most derided of all Godfather films, the third one, provides the most dead on line for me in my situation with my first wife. When Michael says to Kay, "You hate me, don't you?" she responds, "I don't hate you, I dread you." Wow! That is it! Spot on!

Everyone seems to have a cheat on these lists and here's mine: Dodsworth, all three leads played by Walter Huston, Mary Astor and Ruth Chatterton. They're all wonderful and I feel for all three, even Ruth Chatterton, desperately trying to cling to youth by bedding younger men.

Howard Beale, Network, played by Peter Finch. I have no connection to this character whatsoever. None. But this line - "I just ran out of bullshit" - that he uses to explain his dramatic change on the air in how he addresses the world... well, I just wish it were that easy sometimes. To just run out of bullshit and bombard the world with brutal honesty. But then you get fired from your job and your kids go hungry and your friends desert you and someone eventually finds a way to kill you, not as dramatically as Howard, but in a slow creeping way. They say "Bullshit makes the world go round" and they're probably right. If I let my higher ups in on my true feelings I'd be cleaning out my desk within the hour and I know it. So I keep feeding them bullshit and my kids keep eating. My wife and I run out of bullshit from time to time but usually realize it's sometime more cruel to tell someone the truth than feed them a lie. You might be ready to be blunt but that doesn't mean someone else is and they've got to get there on their own, same as you. Still, wouldn't it be nice?

I hope no one reading this thinks less of me for the mild exhibitionism in this post but that is how a character truly does become an all-time favorite of mine, a character I can think about at different peaks and valleys of life for inspiration, guidance or even as a warning. It's just one of the reasons the movies mean so much to me, because in so many ways, they are and always will be, a part of me.

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Now comes the matter of tagging. Well, I don't know who is left at this point. I thank Flickhead and Brian for tagging me for this meme and extend the tag to anyone who has not yet been tagged. And even if they have already been tagged, I still want to tag Arbogast, Neil, Marilyn, Sheila and Ryan. Also anyone who is linked on my sidebar and has not been tagged yet I tag YOU! Seriously. Look on the blogroll. If you're there and have not been tagged yet consider this official. I just don't want to type out all those links right now. Thanks.

Dames in Frames

I was tagged by Rick Olson for this 20 Actresses meme which was started by my friend and sometime drinking buddy Nathaniel at The Film Experience. I love many, many lead actresses in Hollywood and World Cinema history and could make a list of 20 plus easily without breaking a sweat. But it's the character actresses that usually bring a smile to my face more frequently and since they are always forgotten at times like these I decided to focus on them exclusively. Some of these got lead roles in B-pictures (Cinema Styles favorite Glenda Farrell) while others never went beyond bit parts that called for comic relief (Mary Wickes, Marion Lorne). Some were formidable actresses on stage as well as screen (Edith Evans, Kate Reid) and some didn't hit full character actress stride until late in their careers (Margaret Rutherford, Ruby Dee). But I love them all. Here they are, in alphabetical order, my Dames in Frames:

The official list is Beulah Bondi, Billie Burke, Ruby Dee, Mildred Dunnock, Dame Edith Evans, Glenda Farrell, Margaret Hamilton, Elsa Lanchester, Marion Lorne, Hattie McDaniel, Agnes Moorehead, Una O'Connor, Maria Ouspenskaya, Kate Reid, Thelma Ritter, Margaret Rutherford, Frances Sternhagen, Billie Whitelaw, Mary Wickes and Estelle Winwood. Even at 20 I had to make some cuts. I considered Marie Dressler but eventually decided she was a star (she did win a Best Actress Oscar after all which none of these did although Hattie McCaniel and Margaret Rutherford won Supporting Oscars) and dropped her from the list but she is most definitely an honorable mention.

And now as always I tag you, and you... and YOU!

The Kindness of Strangers

On October 25th my wife and I took in Strangers on a Train at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland. It was a great experience to see it on the big screen for the first time after having seen it so many times on the small screen exclusively. Once again it was a wonderful audience who laughed and gasped at all the right places and once again the film historian introducing it went on a little too long and offered up a little too much elementary interpretation for what we were about to see. But when he asked how many of us had already seen it (it was a sold out show) I was happy to see that you could count on one hand the number of hands that didn't go up. This was an audience of film lovers waiting to see the film again on the big screen, many of us, as stated above, for the very first time.

But the real treat of seeing this showing of Strangers on a Train was the fact that Farley Granger was there and spoke with the audience after the show and signed autographs after that. Sometimes Hollywood stars disappoint in person but this was not one of those times. Granger was entertaining, honest and kind in every way imaginable. When I met him after the show and shook his hand he seemed genuinely friendly. I asked him to sign the program to my wife and he happily obliged. The interview he did on stage with the film historian, whose name I can't remember and who is not listed on the AFI site or the program (maybe he just wandered in off the street), was illuminating and delightful. Granger's bluntly honest response to several questions was refreshing but my favorite was:

Interviewer: "Did Hitchcock discuss the psychological motivations of the character with you before shooting?"

Granger: "No, no. He wasn't big on bullshit."

Granger was so endearing that even when he spoke of his love of the stage over film (something we've all heard from Hollywood stars at one point or another) he sounded like he actually meant it, not like so many stars sound where they think saying that will give them instant credibility. And he discussed his other works as well. Rope he said was a chore. "You do eight minutes and something falls on the set and you gotta do the whole goddamn scene over." And "Jimmy (Stewart) wasn't right for the part and Hitch knew it and Jimmy knew it and Jimmy felt he had to struggle with it. The part is a snooty, elitist professor and Jimmy just doesn't project snooty elitism. Someone like James Mason would've been better suited for the part."

On Nicholas Ray: "He had such a feel for gritty personal films and then he started doing a bunch of glitzy crap. I said, 'Nick what's with all the glitzy crap' and by that point he didn't care what he was making anymore."

On Shelley Winters: "We were at this hotel that had pictures of the stars and she says to the manager, 'You should have my picture up there' and the manager didn't even know who she was and wouldn't put her picture up (Granger laughs). I just told her to shut up about it. She was a great lady to work with but you know, these stars sometimes, they get a little big headed." Amazingly he pulled that last statement off without a hint of irony. He really didn't have that "Star" mentality about him so he could talk about "stars" as if he wasn't one.

And then there was Samuel Goldwyn who he didn't like at all. Goldwyn had demanded Granger pay him all the money on the contract that he had received because Granger wanted to quit working with Goldwyn after Hans Christian Anderson. Granger paid back the money and left. The thing is, aside from relaying those facts, he didn't elaborate any further on what problems he and Goldwyn had and when asked about the book he had written he said he had contacted everyone or their relatives before writing it and told them what he wanted to write. If they objected to anything he left it out. He even called Goldwyn's children and asked if it was okay to recount the stories of the troubles he had with Goldwyn. They said it was okay. Geez louise, what a guy. I don't have the book myself, but I'm told it has the same "blunt honesty without being mean spirited" attitude that came off in the interview. And it mainly concerns his life in the theatre which he enjoyed much more than film.

Of course, for me, the highlight of the interview was when he spoke about Robert Walker during the course of making Strangers on a Train. I've written about Walker here before and prior to that Sheila O'Malley had an excellent write-up on Strangers on a Train so I won't rehash the story of Walker's life or his excellent performance in the film. Rather I'll let Farley Granger have the final word from this video I shot of the interview (I was in the back lower balcony area, the best place to sit at the theatre. The seats back there are bigger, more like recliners, and have tables between them for your refreshments and at least four feet of room before the next seat in front of you or behind you but you have to get there early for those seats - which I always do). In the clip Granger describes the first night he, Hitchcock and Walker got together in Washington, D.C. before the first day of shooting. They went out to dinner downtown before retiring to their rooms at the hotel, at which point Walker started to panic. The rest I'll leave to Granger but from this story I was reminded of how fragile was Robert Walker, and how gracious and sympathetic was Granger. Walker must have sensed that to let himself go in front of him like he did, and Granger didn't let him down. They had just met but Granger treated him like a brother. It's a great story and it was a great experience seeing and meeting Farley Granger. Enjoy the clip.