Thelma Ritter
The most wonderful actress! She was so much fun in this movie. She delivered some of the best lines.
I also love that leather tote bag. I want it!!!!
As I recall, Ritter was nominated over and over again as Best Supporting Actress...and never won.
I suppose you could say that she played the same role over and over...but when she turned up in ANY movie, its quality rose accordingly. Hitchocck was lucky to get her, just once. And I can only believe the script was written with Ritter -- and only Ritter -- in mind for the role.
Ritter is perhaps most moving in "Pick Up on South Street," where she plays an old, tired, street criminal who gets killed by a bad guy and just "gives up" in letting it happen. Whereupon Richard Widmark avenges her by beating the HELL out of that bad guy. (They couldn't always kill them back then, but Dick messes him up good.) Later, after rescuing Ritter's corpse from being buried at Potter's Field.
Ritter also got a delightful chance to play "one of the world's richest women" in minks and jewels and great hair...in "For Love or Money." A great twist.
Thumbs up to your shout-out for Pickup On South Street. Ritter also played another very wealthy woman, the character based on Margaret "Molly" Brown - renamed Maude Young - in the 1953 Titanic. If Jessie Royce Landis hadn't been available for To Catch A Thief, Ritter might have made a suitable Jessie Stevens (renamed Thelma, perhaps?).
shareThumbs up to your shout-out for Pickup On South Street.
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Its great, Ritter's great, Widmark is great, the final fight is great. And Jean Peters is GORGEOUS. Sam Fuller with a studio budget.
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Ritter also played another very wealthy woman, the character based on Margaret "Molly" Brown - renamed Maude Young - in the 1953 Titanic.
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D'oh. Well, my expertise is limited.
I suppose the SLIGHT difference is that the rich lady in the Douglas film is in one of those fluffy Technicolor Universal things...kind of Rock/Doris territory. Modern day.
But still. D'oh.
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If Jessie Royce Landis hadn't been available for To Catch A Thief, Ritter might have made a suitable Jessie Stevens (renamed Thelma, perhaps?).
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That's a great thought. Funny thing is, I can't picture Jessie Royce Landis as Stella in Rear Window. Ritter had a talent that could be adapted. Rags to riches is do-able.
I'll say this for Landis: she could go from channeling an inner Marjorie Main and being credibly Oklahoma-bred nouveau riche as Jessie Stevens to becoming the bored, upscale Manhattanite Clara Thornhill with only the subtlest tweak to her persona, and made 'em both work. But it is difficult to imagine her as Stella...perhaps almost as difficult as imagining Ritter as Roger's mother!
shareI'll say this for Landis: she could go from channeling an inner Marjorie Main and being credibly Oklahoma-bred nouveau riche as Jessie Stevens
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Its a bit of a twist that Landis reveals to her snooty daughter Grace Kelly that the family came from nothing and that daddy was a bit of a con man.
Thelma Ritter COULD play that, but you'd see the twist coming.
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to becoming the bored, upscale Manhattanite Clara Thornhill with only the subtlest tweak to her persona, and made 'em both work.
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It was somewhat the lines, somewhat the "type." I always rather assumed that there was some blue blood in Roger's family. Perhaps more Roger Sterling(aha!) than Don Draper.
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But it is difficult to imagine her as Stella...perhaps almost as difficult as imagining Ritter as Roger's mother!
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That's right. Any given era has a small roster of stars to choose from, and a small roster of character actors, and what's interesting is...its often pretty clear which one is "best" casting. Thelma Ritter? Jessie Royce Landis?...the director knows which way to go...UNLESS they want to have fun casting against type(hence Ritter as the rich lady in For Love or Money.)
I've contemplated Hitchcock watching 12 Angry Men to find his Arbogast -- though he was looking AT Balsam, on recommendation of screenwriter Joe Stefano. Still, there were other character guys in that room -- Jack Warden, Jack Klugman, Ed Binns, Lee J. Cobb...even young and handsome Robert Webber, if Hitch had wanted to go "Peter Gunn" and give John Gavin some competish.
But Hitch went with Balsam.
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Slimmer pickings versus Thelma Ritter. I've heard Shirley Booth mentioned as a possible alternate Stella. Could have worked. But Ritter was best -- and it is GREAT to have Thelma Ritter in a Hitchcock.
If only he could have nabbed William Holden as he wished to...
Those are wonderful thoughts about 12 Angry Men; almost an Arbogast cattle call. Although E.G. Marshall is playing a reserved, buttoned-down type, I can imagine even him as a serviceable Arbogast; as a courtroom attorney on the early-'60s show The Defenders, he was considerably more dynamic, and the sort of cagey witness questioning geared to ferreting out information was something he did well and would have suited his interrogation scene with Norman.
Each of those actors would have brought his own spin to the character: Warden, burlier and a bit less smooth; Klugman, more of a keyhole-peeping weasel; Binns, very businesslike and suggesting more of a cop persona; Cobb could have done a younger version of his avuncular Kinderman. None, I think, would have been better than Balsam, but each could have comfortably fitted the role.
Those are wonderful thoughts about 12 Angry Men; almost an Arbogast cattle call.
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Hitchcock(like fellow director Clint Eastwood) preferred to "audition" actors by watching them on film rather than by meeting with them.
According to the MacGilligan book, Joe Stefano recommended Martin Balsam for Arbogast(a total change from the look of the character in the book) and Simon Oakland for Dr. Richmond.
Hitchcock looked at 12 Angry Men to audition Balsam. So he was "pre-interested" in Balsam as Arbogast (and perhaps supportive of his screenwriter.) But boy were there a ton of other character guy choices.
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Although E.G. Marshall is playing a reserved, buttoned-down type, I can imagine even him as a serviceable Arbogast; as a courtroom attorney on the early-'60s show The Defenders, he was considerably more dynamic, and the sort of cagey witness questioning geared to ferreting out information was something he did well and would have suited his interrogation scene with Norman.
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Certainly, let's add him. He had the interrogatory style for the part, and a "roundness" of head and face that might have made the face slashing work as well as it did with Balsam(as an "artistic statement.")
But -- hell, practically every guy in the room save Henry Fonda and the little old man probably could have given us SOME version of Arbogast. Well, Fonda too if Hitchcock wanted to go with a really big star shock.
I figure Hitchcock chose Balsam on the basis of his big head and balding forehead(Hitchcock must have "seen" the image of Arbogast's bloodied head in his mind long before he filmed the shot), and on the basis of Balsam(who was playing a baseball coach in 12 Angry Men) being JUST fit and physical enough to suggest a tough guy, while being small enough to be "taken" by an old lady(Jack Warden was too brawny, really.)
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Each of those actors would have brought his own spin to the character: Warden, burlier and a bit less smooth; Klugman, more of a keyhole-peeping weasel; Binns, very businesslike and suggesting more of a cop persona; Cobb could have done a younger version of his avuncular Kinderman. ---
I like each of those "thumbnails." Of the group, I liked Jack Warden's acting the best -- he was always kind of practical, warm, and down-to-earth in his playing, even his villains. Perhaps given the staircase fall mechanism, Warden wouldn't have been TOO big a guy for the role. Mother evens the odds with that staircase.
BTW, Ed Binns has just played a cop for Hitchcock the year before in "North by Northwest," at Glen Cove. So Hitch probably wrote Binns off immediately.
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None, I think, would have been better than Balsam, but each could have comfortably fitted the role
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Which brings up a point, impossible to prove, but: let's say that Jack Warden HAD played Arbogast, and we learned that Hitchcock watched 12 Angry Men to find him. We might look at the others on the list and think -- "Martin Balsam, no not right -- Warden was a better choice."
In short, we become used to the character we are given...
....but Balsam WAS the right choice.
PS. For fun, I have entertained the idea of Robert Webber as Arbogast. In the hardware store scene where the detective confronts Sam, there might have been greater conflict -- and jealousy -- as Gavin realizes this good looking guy is going to go looking for Marion. Hell, it would ruin the plot, you'd have Sam saying "Wait a minute, pal -- if you're going off to find my girlfriend...I'm going with you!"
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Oh, my, lost in a Psycho discussion on the Rear Window Board. I can't help myself.
So I'll add this: As I note elsewhere, I think that Wendell Corey's Doyle in Rear Window is a "dry run" for Arbogast if only in being a sensible, charismatic supporting detective character who is "the reality principle." And: the gory unseen murder in "Rear Window' is a warm-up for the gory full-view murders in Psycho.
BTW, Ed Binns has just played a cop for Hitchcock the year before in "North by Northwest," at Glen Cove. So Hitch probably wrote Binns off immediately.How could I have forgotten that even momentarily?
I especially liked his name: Captain Junket. From Websters: "junket: a trip made by an official at public expense." share
I especially liked his name: Captain Junket. From Websters: "junket: a trip made by an official at public expense."
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I've always remembered that name, too. This in the movie with "Sergeant Emile Klinger" -- memorable for other reasons("I didn't believe it, either.") One too-serious critic felt that "Klinger" referred to Thornhill later being a "clinger" off of Mount Rushmore! I don't think so...
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I'm reminded that -- even accounting for the eight or so fascinating character actors in the small-scale Psycho -- North by Northwest has about TWENTY of them, strewn through the epic movie like an epic parade of character guys:
Ed Platt(the Chief from Get Smart) as Thornhill's lawyer("Well, if this is what Mr. Thornhill says happened, I'm sure it happened") Ed Binns as a cop and the roly-poly guy from the Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" as Binns' cop partner(Stanley Adams.) The Glen Cove doctor who checks Thornhill for drunkenness was in The Tingler the same year. Phil Ober getting a knife in the back at the UN. Ned Glass at Grand Central Station selling tickets. Ken Lynch as a Chicago cop. Les Tremayne and Olan Soule(those names!) as the auctioneers. And on and on and on..