Last Man Standing : Kirk Douglas Dead at 103

I know that Olivia DeHavilland is still with us over 100 but Kirk was sort of the "last man standing" from the "late Golden Era" of MALE movie stars. And he managed to make a few public appearances after 100.

Its a career that started in the late forties, "solidified" in the fifties, and peaked in the early 60's. In this regard, Douglas rather "beat" late starters like Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis, perhaps tied with Gregory Peck in years of service.

In retrospect, Douglas should have had too mean, narrow and harsh a face for a movie star, but he made up for it in macho, menace, and sex appeal. And -- like all great stars -- he had great voice that could be imitated(best by Frank Gorshin.) SOME of that voice came down in his softer looking, more pleasant son Michael. (Who nonetheless borrowed some of his father's fierceness for later roles, including the sex star ones.)

He often played a good guy who was kind of scary, and he went ahead and played a few heels(Champion, Ace in the Hole, Detective Story) and at least one flat out villain(the master of disguise murderer in John Huston's Hitchcockian "The List of Adrian Messenger.)

Rather like some other stars like Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, and directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, Douglas peaked during the 50's/60s cusp. Its where you find Shootout at the OK Corral(Douglas comes in second to Val Kilmer as the best Doc Holliday), where you find Kubrick's Paths of Glory(with Kirk's ultra-raging "You can GO TO HELL before I ever apologize to you!!!") where you find The Vikings(with Janet Leigh), where you find Douglas, Lancaster and Olivier in The Devil's Disciple...and where you find Spartacus...that Big One from the Psycho year of 1960, filmed on the same lot(Universal) as Psycho, with one shared star(John Gavin.) Rumor has it that if you shifted the camera to the right of the Psycho house in 1959/1960, you'd see the Spartacus slave training facility about 300 yards away. And Little Michael Douglas said that as a kid, he wandered off the Spartacus set to go watch Hitchcock's editors cut the shower scene(there...on topic.)

In 1962, Douglas made the film he called his favorite: the modern-day chase Western, Lonely are the Brave. Its also Michael Douglas favorite of his dad's films, and co-star Walter Matthau ranked it his own favorite of HIS films. (Matthau's billed as support, but he is the second star of the movie -- the laconic New Mexican sheriff tracking jail escapee Douglas over a mountain range to Mexico.) And its my favorite of Kirk's films -- right behind Spartacus, also written by Dalton Trumbo.

Lonely are the Brave is a 1962 Universal film that rather looks and feels like 1960 Psycho at times -- the sets, the b/w cinematography, the backlot ,the sound effects, etc. And Douglas rodentoid features had filled out to a certain handsomeness by then -- his physical peak, in his forties.

I rather liked Kirk Douglas as John Wayne's co-star in the almost back-to-back In Harm's Way(Otto Preminger's 1965 WWII Navy tale that's really about expert bureaucratic infighting) and The War Wagon(a 1967 buddy Western with a comic streak). Kirk's intense fury seemed to cool out into a certain maturity with the Duke holding him in check.

And Douglas holds his own with his pal Lancaster and Fredric March in the political thriller Seven Days in May of 1964(co-starring Martin Balsam, who calls in information from a phone booth and gets killed in the next scene. Sound familiar?)

As the 60's bled into the 70's, Douglas hung on. I think the last time you can see him really being the STAR of a movie is in Brian DePalma's 1978 The Fury, but by then Kirk's features had aged and winnowed. He looked scary wihout the sex appeal.

Also from 1960 I also like the "adult" tale of adultery in the LA suburbs, "Strangers When We Meet" , with Ernie Kovacs and Walter Matthau providing adroit support to a hopeless love affair between the married Kirk and the married Kim Novak. This movie gives us a look at "contemporary" 1960 in a way that Spartacus the same year could not.

Hey..that's a lot of movies. Kirk Douglas WAS a great star. And maybe a great actor, too --for what its worth, film critic Stanley Kauffman felt that only Douglas was in reach of Marlon Brando's brilliance in the 50's.

And at 103...he beat 'em all. The guys, that is.

RIP, Kirk. And I do believe that I'll take a gander at Lonely are the Brave this week.