Don't kid yourself. Women moviegoers found Webb very attractive, remote or not. He wouldn't have been a movie star if they hadn't. As soon as people find out an actor's gay, they always go back and retroactively negate his effectiveness in heterosexual roles. Sorry, but that's not the way it works. In "It's Always Fair Weather" Dolores Gray sings "I got a guy that's Clifton Webb and Marlon Brando combined." Webb played the difficult guy, a lot for any woman to put up with, who was worth it. He did romantic leads opposite Barbra Stanwyck, Jane Wyman and Ginger Rogers, and nobody ever doubted he was in love with Gene Tierney in Laura.
If you notice, it's pretty clear that the part was written with Webb in mind. The lines, which would have been such zingers coming out of Webb's mouth, are fairly flat from James Mason. When Boone says he thought Dahl might look down into the volcano, change her mind, and go back, Lindenbrook says "You make my mouth water." A classic Webb line. Another is "Madam, are you wearing stays? When you move, I can hear them creaking." They've also given the character the humanizing Clifton Webb speech to the female lead that always breaks down his starchy persona -- in this case, it's the speech about his mother and the porridge. In "Titanic," it's his farewell to Stanwyck.
Webb would have been great. He'd have played the curmudgeon (yelling at the housekeeper for bringing him food, fighting with his colleagues) and absent-minded professor (missing his own dinner party to melt the lava off a rock) much better than Mason did. He may not have had Mason's sex appeal, but he'd have sparred really well with Dahl. It wouldn't have been the first time; he had already done it in "Woman's World." Mason doesn't battle with equal conviction -- as always, he has a certain languor. I'll grant you he's sexier, and he's good in the part, but if it had been Webb instead, nobody would be complaining.
Anybody can go snark snark snark about the gay actor, years and many biographies later. There are already people claiming Cary Grant was never a convincing heterosexual on screen. Yeah, right.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. Gandhi.
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haristas
15 years ago
My only objection to Webb having played the part would be that he was too old. I'm glad they got Mason instead and I think the picture is better for it.
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cmgeyer
14 years ago
Hey, wonderful, spirited advocacy for Webb! I like it. Now I want to go back and look at some of his performances with a fresh willingness to appreciate. Thanks!
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hobnob53
12 years ago
No one's knocking Clifton Webb, a great actor and, personally, one of my favorites. But not every actor is suitable for every role. "ducdebrabant"'s polemic is mostly a defense of Webb's sexuality (an irrelevant issue) vis-a-vis his performances, which is ridiculous.
The dialogue may or may not have been written with Webb in mind (actually, this is almost certainly not the case), but that poster's notion that the lines are "flat" coming from Mason is preposterous. Mason was one of the world's finest actors and merely delivered his lines differently from the way Webb probably would have.
Of course, which one you'd prefer is all a matter of personal taste, but given Webb's age and ill health, his even being considered for this physically challenging part -- which clearly required a younger and fitter man -- is baffling. Not to mention that Mason was at least of the correct nationality for Professor Lindenbrook.
However, cmgeyer, I hope you have indeed been paying closer attention to many of Webb's performances. The films he made late in his career aren't very good, but much of his earlier work -- from the mid-40s through the mid-50s -- is filled with many good films and excellent performances from Webb. Plus it's true that he usually elevated even the bad films he was in, making them at least a little more interesting than they'd otherwise have been.
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