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Stanley Kauffman's Bad 1960 Review of Psycho

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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I found the New Republic review of Psycho from 1960, by Stanley Kauffman, who hated -- in order -- Vertigo, North by Northwest -- and here, Psycho.

Except it turns out he doesn't hate Psycho as much as the other two (I can find the NXNW review next.)

Kauffman's review of Psycho from June 1960, was quick and dismissive and tacked on behind a longer review of the "more important" film, "Sons and Lovers," with Trevor Howard getting the Best Actor nomination slot that should have gone to Tony Perkins. Kauffman liked the Howard performance.

Anyway, using "Sons and Lovers" as his jumping off point, here is Kauffman's review of Psycho:

BEGIN: Sons and Lovers might also be the title of Hitchcock’s new film Psycho, which is a suspense story dealing with a son (Anthony Perkins) and some lovers (Janet Leigh, John Gavin). This time Hitchcock has put his usual close-up face-nibbling sex scene at the very beginning, (as usual, it is quite dispensable) and then goes on to pad the first half of the picture for a reason that can’t b e revealed without giving away the twist.

The whole thing is, in fact, much too long, and the plot is full of holes. (Why, in ten years, hasn’t someone from the town seen the old woman walking past the window of the house? Why does the girl’s sister insist, on such brief acquaintance that the private detective has not merely run off?)

Two murders and a third attempt are among the most vicious I have ever seen in films, with Hitchcock employing his considerable skill in direction and cutting and in the use of sound and music to shock us past horror-entertainment into resentment.

END

Analysis follows.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

ANALYSIS:

Sons and Lovers might also be the title of Hitchcock’s new film Psycho, which is a suspense story dealing with a son (Anthony Perkins) and some lovers (Janet Leigh, John Gavin).

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Cute. But to my mind, these twinned reviews made sure that Sons and Lovers AND Psycho stayed twinned as 1960 films(b/w films) in my mind over the years.

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---This time Hitchcock has put his usual close-up face-nibbling sex scene at the very beginning,

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One year before, Kauffman had attacked the similar scene with Grant and Saint in the sleeping car in NXNW as "having the same relationship to sex as Hitchocck's recent films have to suspense."

I personally disagree and I think many audience members did too. But here's a key problem with Kauffman and Hitchocck: he doesn't "dig" what Hitchcock DOES. How can a critic write a review objectively, anyway?

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(as usual, it is quite dispensable)

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Why film critics aren't screenwriters( a lot of the time.) Dispensible? Its the first and last chance Psycho has for ANY healthy sexually-charged kissing. But more than that, it launches the entire damn movie (and was added TO the movie; this scene isn't in the book.)

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and then goes on to pad the first half of the picture

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ie The Marion Crane Story, and you know, Kauffman spent years atoning for not seeing what others saw. He called Vertigo "an asinine bore" and watched in horror as it climbed to the Greatest Film Ever Made slot.

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for a reason that can’t b e revealed without giving away the twist.

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Some kudos here to Mr. Kauffman, for here is a review that elects to tell the reader NOTHING about the story. Nothing about one twist(Marion dies) nothing about another twist(Norman is Mother) nothing about the theft, nothing about the Bates Motel or Norman Bates or the House...just nothing...except that there are two murders(more below.)

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The whole thing is, in fact, much too long, and the plot is full of holes.

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Too long? 109 minutes? Less than two hours? Oh, I suppose he's concerned about the padding of the Marion Crane story(all that detail) and the long wind-down to the fruit cellar and jailhouse revelations. But I think Psycho plays out at just about the right pace...starting slow but gathering steam as it goes.

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(Why, in ten years, hasn’t someone from the town seen the old woman walking past the window of the house? Why does the girl’s sister insist, on such brief acquaintance that the private detective has not merely run off?)

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I always love it when a reviewer spells out "plot holes" and reveals that the hole...seems to be in his head.

Last one first: Granted Lila's acquaintance with Arbogast is brief -- but the man has given her vital information about her sister's whereabouts, and it doesn't make sense that he WOULD run off. In any event, Lila is a desperate woman bound and determined to play this lead out. Did Kauffman expect her to just go home?

First one last: Why WOULD anybody "from the town" see Mother in the window -- or know what they were seeing -- for ten years? The Bates Motel is 15 miles from town. The house is back away from the old highway, its hard to see up to Mother's window, past the motel. Even if one DID see a figure in the window...it could be ANYBODY. (Norman's maid? )

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Two murders and a third attempt are among the most vicious I have ever seen in films,

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Here we again get a 1960 critic figuring out EXACTLY what the central power and landmark status of Psycho is: those two murders. Not Mother's backstory. Not the toilet flushing. Not Marion and Sam necking. Those MURDERS. Those SLAUGHTERS, which no one would ever forget.

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with Hitchcock employing his considerable skill in direction and cutting and in the use of sound and music

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Aha..here Kauffman at least gives lip service to Hitchcock's "considerable skill in direction and cutting," and by including "sound and music" also tips his hat to Herrmann. Kauffman didn't like Psycho...but he respected the talent that made it. (Actually, I think he liked Psycho more than Vertigo or NXNW.)

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to shock us past horror-entertainment into resentment.

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This complaint also sounded in the rape-murder in Frenzy, but with irony: folks felt the rape-murder in Frenzy, "lacked the fun of the murders in Psycho." Anyway you cut it, Hitchcock with these three murders pushed some people's buttons, into "resentment."

Time Magazine had a similar distaste for the graphic murders, particularly the one in the shower: "What could have been a fine creak-and-shriek melodrama becomes an exercise in stomach-churning horror." They got that right!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Hey lookee here:

I found Stanley Kauffman's 1972 review of The Godfather(a pan!) and there's this sentence in it:

Francis Ford Coppola, the director and co-adapter (with Mario Puzo), has saved all his limited ingenuity for the shootings and stranglings, which are among the most vicious I can remember on film.

Sound familiar?

From Kauffman's Psycho review:

Two murders and a third attempt are among the most vicious I have ever seen in films, with Hitchcock employing his considerable skill in direction and cutting and in the use of sound and music to shock us past horror-entertainment into resentment.

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Just goes to show ya: its not only film directors who steal from themselves.

And, advantage Hitchcock per Kauffman:

"Coppola ...has saved his limited ingenuity for "

"Hitchcock...employing his considerable skill in directing and cutting..."

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

I like Stanley Kaufman as a critic better than you do, EC. He was very good with films geared to his "level",--serious, modern dramas, adaptations of plays and novels, classic and modern alike--and he simply wasn't a genre guy. One has to be selective when reading his reviews. He was one of those critics who liked taking pot shots at Hollywood, whether it was the bloated epics of DeMille and his kind or attempts at serious cinemah (sic) that he believed fell short in some ways. His review of The Hustler, for instance, was in my opinion excellent.

That he rather linked Psycho with Sons and Lovers is something I really can't blame him for. It was an "in the air" scenario, ripe for Kaufman or any critic. It could as easily have been Psycho and Compulsion had they been released around the same time. Movies with the same or similar themes often came out in the same time period, and not because of copycatting. The elegiac The Gunfighter preceded High Noon by two years, and the latter was an instant classic, the former a flop. Nor is there any accounting for Shane, made a year before High Noon, not released till the following year.

Was Bruno Antony of Strangers On The Train a more genteel psycho killer than White Heat's Cody Jarrett of a couple of years earlier? Both men were batty and had "mother complexes", but then the precursor of both of them was likely Kiss Of Death's Tommy Udo, who tied up an old lady in a wheelchair and threw her down a flight of stairs! Direct or indirect "inspirations"? I'd say more indirect, and even more likely something amorphous that was floating around in the air, as it were, in the pop psychology and pop sociology of the postwar era.

Military courtroom dramas proliferated in the wake of the success of the book, play and then movie The Caine Mutiny. This in turn led to The Court-Martial Of Billy Mitchell, which wasn't a success. Then there were the back to back non-military The Wrong Man and 12 Angry Men, courtroom dramas.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Critics can get awfully cynical when they see the same or similar themes popping up in films. One can only guess why two "period" crime pictures, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre and Bonnie & Clyde, were released around the same time (1967), and there seemed no precedent for them but for maybe the success of the TV series The Untouchables of a few years earlier.

But trends are often trends, as happened with the bug-eyed monster cycle of Fifties sci-fi. After a while they tend to burn themselves out, even as sometimes takes several years, as witness the "disaster flick" cycle of the Seventies. Then there was that shorter lived teen slasher cycle of the late Seventies-early Eighties, which burnt out quickly.

As to Kaufman and Psycho, the poor man had probably already been forced to sit through any number of gimmicky old dark house horrors of the kind William Castle brought back to prominence two or three years prior to Psycho, thus he was prepared to be disappointed, unable to see the forest for the trees, thus the Hitchcock picture, upon just one viewing, played like yet another variation on the same theme.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Critics can get awfully cynical when they see the same or similar themes popping up in films. One can only guess why two "period" crime pictures, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre and Bonnie & Clyde, were released around the same time (1967), and there seemed no precedent for them but for maybe the success of the TV series The Untouchables of a few years earlier.

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And maybe "Some Like It Hot" for St. Valentines. That movie was interesting: Roger Corman kicking up the budget just a little bit to hire Jason Robards and George Segal(not quite the big star he would be yet) for the main roles. With Corman trainees Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern in small parts!

The St. Valentine's movie made the crossover point(underlined with Corman's horror past) that the gangster movie could be a derivative of the horror movie. As The Godfather and GoodFellas would prove, gangsters committed horrible, bloody, psychopathic murders with no remorse at all.

But Bonnie and Clyde went for a more artistic approach, carefully emulating the European films of the time while using "prestige movie" American studio techniques.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But trends are often trends, as happened with the bug-eyed monster cycle of Fifties sci-fi. After a while they tend to burn themselves out, even as sometimes takes several years, as witness the "disaster flick" cycle of the Seventies. Then there was that shorter lived teen slasher cycle of the late Seventies-early Eighties, which burnt out quickly.

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Funny , those trends. Like lemmings with checkbooks, studio chiefs greenlit more of the same and then watched a sub-genre collapse. I can pinpoint The End of the Disaster Movie: its called "When Time Ran Out,"(fitting title) and its by Irwin Allen, who made The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno and combined their casts this time(Paul Newman and William Holden meet Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine.) It came out, fittingly, in 1980(the seventies were over) and it was so awful that it single-handedly killed off the disaster movie and Irwin Allen's career.

As for the "teenage psycho kill" movies, well, horror always burns out fast. The bloody shock murders of "Psycho" went from unspeakable and unique to acceptable and too-often. And the victims weren't played by known, good actors. They were played by....kids.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As to Kaufman and Psycho, the poor man had probably already been forced to sit through any number of gimmicky old dark house horrors of the kind William Castle brought back to prominence two or three years prior to Psycho, thus he was prepared to be disappointed, unable to see the forest for the trees, thus the Hitchcock picture, upon just one viewing, played like yet another variation on the same theme.

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I always have to remember that for critics of 1960 -- often men in their 30s or 40s -- Psycho probably looked pretty ridiculous to them. And fairly slow. But here I feel that Hitchcock's complaint -- "valuing content over style" holds.

How could an ostensible "trained professional critic" NOT respond to such great shots as Norman going up the stairs and carrying mother down; or the camera under Norman's throat during Arbogast's interrogation...or the GREAT final shots in the cell that mix music, acting(Perkins) and direction in a profound manner?

I'm reminded that the unnamed film critic for Time Magazine in 1961 found Homicidal to be a better film than Psycho(simply as a matter of speed and pace). I can only picture Hitchcock crumpling up the magazine and throwing it away -- all the artistic and technical bravado he threw into Psycho and a critic didn't see it as any different than "Homicidal"?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I'm also reminded of how individual movies become part of the individual life experience of each and every viewer who sees them. I've detailed how Psycho rose up as this massive, giant, haunting THING in the 1960s for me --- the forbidden nature of it, the CBS cancellation, the scary LA billboard for its TV debut, so many school friends talking about it-- "Psycho," the movie comes to ME with those attachments, forever.

To a somewhat lesser extent, Frenzy comes with some "extra lift" as well: that early Newsweek review I read that said Frenzy "is one of Hitchcock's very best...he fooled us into thinking he was in decline." With a young fan's utter surprise and delight that Frenzy could be such a comeback and so well-reviewed almost everywhere...THAT's my memory of Frenzy. I think I'm more attached to the rave reviews the film got than I am to the film itself. In any event, the reviews and the movie are inseparable to me. A package.

Someone who just puts Psycho or Frenzy into the DVD player now, for the first time, simply cannot be getting those experiences.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

I now find The St. Valentine's Day Massacre much more watchable than the deliberately aesthetic Bonnie & Clyde. Heresy, you say!

It plays like the final entry in the period crime flick cycle that more or less began with Baby Face Nelson and Al Capone in 1957, climaxed, in a manner of speaking, with Billy Wilder's classic farce, Some Like It Hot, even achieving a validation of sorts on the small screen with The Lawless Years, The Roaring 20s and, most famous of all, The Untouchables, which it echoes in its extreme violence as well as in its casting of many supporting players.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I now find The St. Valentine's Day Massacre much more watchable than the deliberately aesthetic Bonnie & Clyde. Heresy, you say!

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Not I say. I've always found Bonnie and Clyde to be the most "mannered" and least interesting of the "violence trilogy" that has Psycho before it and The Wild Bunch after it. Even if some of them had real southern roots(Beatty and Dunaway), this felt like "New York method actors" posing and screaming and overemoting. Not to say there weren't some great scenes, and the final slaughter of Bonnie and Clyde is clearly influenced by the shower scene while adding slo-mo to the mix.

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(St Valentine) plays like the final entry in the period crime flick cycle that more or less began with Baby Face Nelson and Al Capone in 1957, climaxed, in a manner of speaking, with Billy Wilder's classic farce, Some Like It Hot,

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Which has its very own(and pretty violent, for a comedy) St Valentine's massacre.

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even achieving a validation of sorts on the small screen with The Lawless Years, The Roaring 20s and, most famous of all, The Untouchables, which it echoes in its extreme violence as well as in its casting of many supporting players

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Yep. There was also a sexy scene with some sexy blonde gal fighting George Segal ("some sex to go with th violence.") And I liked the ominous narration over shots of each victim-to-be of the Massacre: "On the last day of his life, Sam Brown woke up and had some coffee." "On the last day of his life, Jim Smith said goodbye to his mother." Etc.

Hitchcock liked to START movies with such portent: Notorious, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Topaz begin with some sort of ominous printed statement on screen, and sometimes a date(as Psycho begins.)

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

I love that corny, old school narration. It was probably Reed Hadley, whom I believe was the narrator for all the Louis de Rochemont (sp?) semi-docs of the middle to late Forties (House On 92nd Street, etc.) as well as similar films from other studios. I believe Hadley actually appears in St. Valentine's Day Massacre as well as, if memory serves, a character named Hymie Weiss. Jason Robard's hammy performance as Al Capone, as he appears to be going into a seizure,--speaking Italian!--is one for the worst performance of all time record books, and yet it's right for the almost quaint, near cartoonish old Hollywood style of the film as a whole. The movie was also sort of an even sub-Burke's Law level elephant's graveyard for stars and character players of an earlier time.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I like Stanley Kaufman as a critic better than you do, EC. He was very good with films geared to his "level",--serious, modern dramas, adaptations of plays and novels, classic and modern alike--and he simply wasn't a genre guy. One has to be selective when reading his reviews. He was one of those critics who liked taking pot shots at Hollywood, whether it was the bloated epics of DeMille and his kind or attempts at serious cinemah (sic) that he believed fell short in some ways. His review of The Hustler, for instance, was in my opinion excellent.

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Its funny. I've pretty much only read Kauffman's Hitchcock reviews(I came to them through library microfiche research on Hitchcock originally), and they were so vitriolic towards Hitchcock's films (roughly from Vertigo through Family Plot), that Truffaut actually named Kauffman as "the loser" in his battle towards Hitchcock when the films from Vertigo through The Birds were heralded everywhere else ("Stanley Kauffman has lost.")

But you, telegonus, seem to have read Kauffman's reviews in a more general and broad-based sense, and its true: critics who specialized in valuing serious American films and all foreign films just dismissed genre out of hand. Pauline Kael wrote of Hitchcock, "if he is a master, he is a master of a very limited genre." Maybe so, but I got more excitement and pleasure out of watching Arbogast climb those stairs, and Thornhill wait for that crop duster, than in most other film experiences.





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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

That he rather linked Psycho with Sons and Lovers is something I really can't blame him for. It was an "in the air" scenario, ripe for Kaufman or any critic. It could as easily have been Psycho and Compulsion had they been released around the same time.

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I think the key link here is Young Dean Stockwell, a rather sensitive lad in those years (long before he became more menacing in Blue Velvet and Married to the Mob), who was in Sons and Lovers and Compulsion and who Stephen Rebello suggests was the only other actor who could have played Norman Bates (hey, how about Roddy McDowall?)

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Movies with the same or similar themes often came out in the same time period, and not because of copycatting. The elegiac The Gunfighter preceded High Noon by two years, and the latter was an instant classic, the former a flop.

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An interesting match-up. Zanuck felt The Gunfighter flopped because Greg Peck wore a moustache, but it had a far more downbeat ending than High Noon, maybe that's why.

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Nor is there any accounting for Shane, made a year before High Noon, not released till the following year.

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"I did not know that." Interesting: in The Gunfighter, the hero dies; in High Noon, the hero lives (after being pegged as " a goner for sure" with no help.) In Shane....we don't know, really. I think it could go either way, given his wounds.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Was Bruno Antony of Strangers On The Train a more genteel psycho killer than White Heat's Cody Jarrett of a couple of years earlier? Both men were batty and had "mother complexes", but then the precursor of both of them was likely Kiss Of Death's Tommy Udo, who tied up an old lady in a wheelchair and threw her down a flight of stairs! Direct or indirect "inspirations"? I'd say more indirect, and even more likely something amorphous that was floating around in the air, as it were, in the pop psychology and pop sociology of the postwar era.

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Just as Freudian psychology was "in the air" in films like Spellbound, within a few years, psychoPATHS were in the air and Kiss of Death, White Heat, and Strangers on a Train gave us a look at scary men with no moral compass(and mother issues in two cases.) Flash thought: younger versions of James Cagney and Richard Widmark probably could have played Bruno. There is a certain energy to the character, a certain flash. But Hitchcock went younger, and more boyish(shades of Norman to come.)

The postwar era seems to have demanded tougher movies about tougher people -- the Hays Code started its fall way back in the late forties, it just took decades to collapse.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Yes, EC, the postwar years were a whole new ballgame in the movies. Freud and psychoanalysis were becoming fads, had been for some time, were now entering the mainstream film. Spellbound's an early example and somewhat atypical in being almost too Freudian and "meticulous" in its use of his ideas.

It's so ironic that in the years following the world war that the very notion of the hero in the classic sense was in eclipse in the movies aside from serials and very low budget fare. Oh, Cooper was still there; and so was Gable. But the "we know he's the good guy" sort of movie seems to have fallen on hard times.

This is probably where John Wayne came in: the great new superstar. He'd been a B and serials guy till Stagecoach, then rose to action and western star status as the A- level, rose to superstardom with Red River. From then on he was an A+ star and that never really wavered till his death.

There was an attempt, and this has been commented on by serious film scholars, to revive the idea of the hero in the rise, circa 1950, of the costume programmer, whether of the Arabian Nights, Biblical, pirate, swashbuckler or dungeons and dragons kind. Between them, Universal-Inernational and Columbia dominated the field, usually with some boyish up and comer in the lead, with Tony Curtis and John Derek being among the best known. Jon Hall, Louis Hayward and Buster Crabbe made their share as well. Most of these films were in color, and they did very well at the matinees and in the smaller theaters with names like the Bijou and the Rialto.

Eventually the hero came back, but with doubts,--LOL!--as one can see in the work of Glenn Ford. A total good guy, yet there was that angst about him. William Holden often came off as a downright reluctant hero. Robert Mitchum was a fringe dwelling hipster good guy. Alan Ladd had that air of vulnerability about him. Burt and Kirk were so strident, downright primitive, as to often overshoot the mark:




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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

their energy was the energy of villainy. These two not so dapper stars were the nearest rivals to the new kids on the block of the Method sort; Brando and Clift in particular. They could match them, so to speak, in their intensity. Gregory Peck was there, came up at the end of the war, and he held the middle ground as the good liberal, and was enormously successful if not so thrilling a screen presence as the others.

As to Hitchcock, the hero qua hero seemed not to interest him as a type even early in his career. There was a softness to Robert Donat, a dandyishness to Leslie Banks, early on, while his leading men of his American years often had somewhat ambiguous qualities, as played by Joseph Cotten and Bob Cummings. Later, Jimmy and Cary became his favorites, but they were older, and the parts they played were often downright ambiguous. Stewart more overtly, with Grant playing a suspected killer here, a reformed thief there, a man whose very name, hence his identity, is in question in North By Northwest.

Clearly, villainy interested Hitchcock more than heroism anyway. The psychology of his villains and his ambiguous or ambivalent heroes were what interested him more. He loved those contrasting types, too, and he liked to "match them": Olivier vs. George Sanders in Rebecca, Bob Cummings vs. Norman Lloyd in Saboteur, Joseph Cotten vs. Macdonald Carey in Shadow Of A Doubt, a whole boatload of the flotsam of society in Lifeboat vs. a super-competent Walter Slezak.

In this, to move back into Psycho territory here, Psycho was typical in its Norman vs. Sam "rivalry", not really a rivalry at all since the former never had a chance with Marion,--aside from the chance to kill her--and Sam a morose and somewhat reluctant hero till he brought down fruity Norman in, fittingly enough, the fruit cellar. It's no wonder Hitchcock designated the film as a comedy, as it was, albeit only fitfully.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Gregory Peck was there, came up at the end of the war, and he held the middle ground as the good liberal, and was enormously successful if not so thrilling a screen presence as the others.

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Such a "second wave" of movie stars -- the fifties guys. Most of them got their start in the Postwar forties, and became big, bigger, biggest across the fifties, then spending the early sixties at their peak(Spartacus, To Kill a Mockingbird) before fading to "name character roles"(and Westerns for a lot of them, considered a "retirement home" for Mitchum, Ford, Holden, Douglas, Lancaster -- with often Wayne as the bigger co-star.)

Peck could be awful dull, but I like him in his sixties thrillers -- facing down psycho Bob Mitchum in Cape Fear ("You are the lowest...I'm sick to breathe the same air as you.") and teaming up with private eye Walter Matthau to solve his amnesia in Mirage. Arabesque is weaker than Charade(they are both Stanley Donen thrillers) but Peck and Sophia Loren were well-matched as great physical specimens not yet aged out of sexual attractiveness.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Truly, Peck was the odd man out of the postwar bunch, EC. He had, almost from the git, a kind of international quality akin to the later Charlton Heston, Anthony Quinn, Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and even Omar Sharif. What these actors all had in common was that they often appeared to be "above" their films; above nationality. (The same could be said for Yul Brynner, I suppose, but his period of stardom was brief; and it was the same for Christopher Plummer a decade later.)

But the actors above all rose to a high level of name and face recognition. Some were freshly minted, like O'Toole, a virtual newbie when he played T.E. Lawrence. Burton drifted as a gifted Brit before achieving fame (and notoriety) as Liz Taylor's paramour on and off the set of Cleopatra. Sharif, like O'Toole, was a made man early on, and he lasted almost exactly through the Sixties, amazing considering how little real charisma he had. Quinn was a force of nature in films for many years.

But Peck, he began with Selznick, which gave him an international "aura" early on, in his work with Hitchcock as well as in other films, often set abroad or adapted from highly regarded novels. I think that this may be yet another key (forget the damned mustache) to The Gunfighter's failure at the same of its release: it wasn't "western" enough, was considered a mainstream art film, and Peck, while a major star, carried no wild west gravitas, thus he was, to the average moviegoer just a handsome man in a heap of trouble wearing a cowboy hat. Even if he'd accepted High Noon I don't think it would have worked with Peck as the town marshal. It's like he carried his suburban ADA-ACLU credentials around with him in his wallet. Cooper was the right man for that film, and really the only truly right one for that particular project.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Truly, Peck was the odd man out of the postwar bunch, EC. He had, almost from the git, a kind of international quality akin to the later Charlton Heston, Anthony Quinn, Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and even Omar Sharif. What these actors all had in common was that they often appeared to be "above" their films; above nationality. (The same could be said for Yul Brynner, I suppose, but his period of stardom was brief; and it was the same for Christopher Plummer a decade later.)

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An interesting group, to be sure...Peck got his start in the forties(with a little movie called Spellbound among others), powered up in the fifties, and rather peaked in the early sixties -- I think the three-in-a-row of Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear and To Kill a Mockingbird(the Oscar-winner for Peck) are where he looked his best and most sexily mature. He's a fairly skinny fellah in his (some say, equally great) movies of the early fifties(12 O'clock High, The Gunfighter, Roman Holiday.) But I really like that early sixties bunch -- it is of a group with Hitchcock's "50s/60s" cusp and the peaking of other stars like Kirk Douglas(Spartacus/Lonely are the Brave) and Burt Lancaster.

There are two thrillers for Peck in 1965(Mirage, with Walter Matthau) and 1966 (Arabesque, with Sophia Loren) where Peck pretty much ended his career(without really knowing it.) He worked after Arabesque, but never really at "top star level" again.

With the exception of course, of "The Omen" (1976) which was Peck's biggest hit without Peck having much to do with it. Indeed, he was rather "throwaway casting" -- a faded name, no longer so big(Charlton Heston had turned the role down.)

I've always felt that Hitchcock got Peck too early -- his young, skinny and callow in both Spellbound and The Paradine Case(with unbelievable gray hair to " age" the character.) Hitch didn't get Peck in his most authoritative years -- but word is he was a near teen idol in "Spellbound" -- a bit like Tony Perkins.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But the actors above all rose to a high level of name and face recognition. Some were freshly minted, like O'Toole, a virtual newbie when he played T.E. Lawrence.

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Considered for Lawrence were Brando(who turned it down), and Tony Perkins(who almost got it...did Norman screw that up?)

Think if Anthony Perkins had been BOTH Norman Bates AND Lawrence of Arabia. The mind boggles. But Perkins certainly fit Lawrence....

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Burton drifted as a gifted Brit before achieving fame (and notoriety) as Liz Taylor's paramour on and off the set of Cleopatra.

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It is said that Liz turned Dick into a Big Hollywood Movie Star, and threw him off his Shakespearean game. Burton was considered for two films by Hitchcock: the unmade "No Bail for the Judge"(as a gentleman thief opposite Audrey Hepburn; Laurence Harvey got the role but the production was scuttled.) And Frenzy. Richard Burton WAS Dick Blaney(Blamey) as pictured in the book, but Burton refused to act for the man who called actors cattle.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Sharif, like O'Toole, was a made man early on, and he lasted almost exactly through the Sixties, amazing considering how little real charisma he had.

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Well, Lawrence, Zchivago, and..Funny Girl(!) bought Sharif time. But he's horrible as a Mexican bandit opposite Greg Peck in the awful "MacKenna's Gold."

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Quinn was a force of nature in films for many years.

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I was thinking that Quinn, like Richard Widmark, couldn't carry movies alone, but I decided I was wrong. Zorba the Greek, for one. A few others where he had the male lead (such as The Black Orchid, the only script for a movie written by Joe Stefano BEFORE Psycho.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But Peck, he began with Selznick, which gave him an international "aura" early on, in his work with Hitchcock as well as in other films, often set abroad or adapted from highly regarded novels. I think that this may be yet another key (forget the damned mustache)

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Ha, ha...look, ZANUCK said that was it, not me...

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to The Gunfighter's failure at the same of its release: it wasn't "western" enough, was considered a mainstream art film, and Peck, while a major star, carried no wild west gravitas, thus he was, to the average moviegoer just a handsome man in a heap of trouble wearing a cowboy hat. Even if he'd accepted High Noon I don't think it would have worked with Peck as the town marshal. It's like he carried his suburban ADA-ACLU credentials around with him in his wallet. Cooper was the right man for that film, and really the only truly right one for that particular project.

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Its interesting. It has been written that many a male star -- particularly as they aged -- used the Western as a "hideaway retirement annuity" but not all male stars LOOKED right in Westerns. Peck was one of them. His successful big Western -- the Big Country -- cast him "to type" as an Eastern sea captain stranded and proving himself in the West.

In his later years, Peck was put in some forlorn cheapjack Westerns like Shootout and Billy Two Hats....aimless movies that just needed a name, any name, to be made.

Still, with Peck...better to remember his forties, fifties and half-the-sixties work. He was a star then, a bit too solid to give Cary Grant any REAL competition, but stalwart and handsome on his own. MGM wanted Peck, not Grant, in NXNW....it wouldn't have been as good, but it would have been better than Jimmy Stewart.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Anthony Quinn carried a fair number of modestly budgeted westerns and crime pictures of the Fifties, and he was good in every one of them that I've seen. He was an actor who truly never phoned it in. In Guns Of Navarone, made later on, on the cusp of Quinn's international superstardom (and a likely factor in putting him over), he comes close to stealing the movie from the top billed Gregory Peck and second billed David Niven, who were both at the top of their games.

I was surprised, when I caught the movie on the tube a couple of months ago, that Quinn WAS third billed. Having seen it in the theater three times when it was first released I could have sworn that Quinn's name came after Peck's. It was a wonderful movie, too, though way overlong by today's standards. While I wouldn't say that it bides its time,--the narrative drive is strong--it does not barrel along like, say, Jaws does. It's easy to get lost in its details, not quite impatient but near drowsiness, before the pace picks up. Up and down it goes, even right to the end, with the business of the explosives and the big guns.

Favorite non-action scene: the issue of what to do about the spy, how she was revealed as one, and the resolution, courtesy of Irene Pappas; still shocking now. Also great: Peck going ballistic, so to speak, on Niven and threatening him, belittling him and telling him he'd better fix the explosives and get it right or HE (Peck) will use them on him (Niven). Peck seldom lost his cool on screen, but when he did, watch it! Ask Robert Mitchum...

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Omar Sharif was a sort of novelty star. Pauline Kael's dreamy thoughts on him helped. Funny Girl was a save. Dr. Zhivago was his absolute peak, though, and he didn't even "own" the film at the star level, not with that supporting cast; and yet he played the title character!

The Yul Brynner of his field maybe. Hollywood was sort of on and off with exotic stars. This goes back to the early silent days and the first screen "vamp" Theda Bara. She put Fox studios on the map during the First World War, and before America's involvement in it.

There were many others later on, most somewhat less exotic but still by Middle American standard's foreign: Pola Negri, Alla Nazimova, Olga Baclanova and the greatest of them of, women's division, Greta Garbo. Of the men, Rudolph Valentino came first. Then the deluge of Latin Lovers, from Ricardo Cortez to Ramon Novarro, with Gilbert Roland in there somewhere.

But the world began to shrink in the wake of the second war, and with foreign travel becoming more common. Brynner was right for the Fifties, Sharif for the Sixties. The decline of that type, male or female, is easy to see,--as to why, I mean--as we're simply a more cosmopolitan society now, and people travel around the world all the time, have foreign friends, and most of them (us?) don't really think of them as foreign, just friends.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Omar Sharif was a sort of novelty star. Pauline Kael's dreamy thoughts on him helped.

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Pauline went for him, hmm?

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Funny Girl was a save.

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Yes, kind of a way to "break with David Lean." And this began La Streisand's quite interesting career of giving all sorts of male stars (Sharif, Matthau, Segal, Redford, Caan) some of their best roles opposite her. She was really a male actor's full employment and rejuvenation bureau.

But Sharif was mean about Babs: "The problem is," he said, "she thinks she's a beautiful woman. And she's neither."

Sharif also had a career going as a "master bridge player." He took it very seriously, and I think he made money at it. ( A lot of movie star actors back then were "good at something else" -- racing cars, golf, bridge.)

Little known: in the 1984 spy comedy "Top Secret" -- by the guys who made Airplane -- Sharif did an unbilled cameo in which his suave personage was blown up, battered, and ended up holding dog poop in his hands to retrieve information. What made it funny was that all this humiliating stuff was happening to OMAR SHARIF.

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Dr. Zhivago was his absolute peak, though, and he didn't even "own" the film at the star level, not with that supporting cast; and yet he played the title character!

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He'd been the second lead to O'Toole in Lawrence, but it seemed that Lean didn't quite trust him as a star in Zhivago. Gorgeous Julie Christie took over most of the picture, with Rod Steiger doing his over-the-top Rod Steiger thing to take what was left.

I saw Dr. Zchvago at the theater, with my family, and I was bored to tears. It felt like 2/3 of the movie took place in a crowded boxcar. But I hear it was the love story hit of college-age 1965 couples. And it had That Song. Oh the sixties, where instrumental versions and lyric versions of movie themes became radio hits.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The Yul Brynner of his field maybe. Hollywood was sort of on and off with exotic stars.

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Brynner's one of those stars whose career boiled down to "just a few things." In this case, three:

The King and I (Best Actor Oscar)
The Magnificent Seven (So much hipper and cooler than the King of Siam; a Western leader of men)
Westworld(Scarily reprising his black-clad Magnificent 7 Western hero as a scary robotic villain -- The Terminator 11 years early.)

It was a short-lived stardom; by the time Brynner did Westworld, he was already pretty much past it. But he was perhaps our first Fully Bald Star (only Telly Savalas and Bruce Willis compare, am I right?) And he used touring stage revivals of The King and I around the world to earn a living to the end of his life.

Trivia: Based on an early draft of the North by Northwest screenplay, Hitchcock envisioned Yul Brynner as the villain...but not to be called Vandamm. He would have been called Mendoza. We got James Mason instead -- rather a doppelganger for Cary Grant -- but Brynner would have been quite menacing yes? (Play dead? "Your very next role. You'll be quite convincing, I assure you.") Brynner could have been Hitchcock's Most Macho Villain...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As to Hitchcock, the hero qua hero seemed not to interest him as a type even early in his career. There was a softness to Robert Donat, a dandyishness to Leslie Banks, early on, while his leading men of his American years often had somewhat ambiguous qualities, as played by Joseph Cotten and Bob Cummings.

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Not much to work with there, no? Some folks like Joseph Cotten, but I never found him particularly compelling, and his looks faded to a kind of grizzled wrinkliness fairly early on. He's my least favorite of the Hitchcock psychos -- too brooding and cold.

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Later, Jimmy and Cary became his favorites, but they were older, and the parts they played were often downright ambiguous. Stewart more overtly, with Grant playing a suspected killer here, a reformed thief there, a man whose very name, hence his identity, is in question in North By Northwest.

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Its interesting that Cary and Jimmy became THE Hitchcock heroes. Four movies apiece, two masterpieces apiece(Rear Window, Vertigo; Notorious, North by Northwest) and, indeed, a certain darkness to ALL of their characters.

That said, Cary and Jimmy became THE Hitchcock heroes almost by default. Because other male stars turned Hitchcock down. He had said in England that if he came to America, "Gary Cooper would be the perfect Hitchocck star." Well, Cooper turned down Foreign Correspondent and Saboteur. And William Holden turned down Strangers on a Train and The Trouble With Harry. And Henry Fonda turned down Lifeboat...though Hitch finally got him -- just once -- for The Wrong Man(perfect!). Once Cary and Jimmy aged, Hitchcock only landed one major male movie star after them -- Paul Newman.



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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Clearly, villainy interested Hitchcock more than heroism anyway. The psychology of his villains and his ambiguous or ambivalent heroes were what interested him more.

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In one of his maddeningly simple answers to an interviewer on the subject, this:

Interviewer: Your villains seem to be more interesting than your heroes.
Hitchcock: Of course. That's logical.

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But of course, when Cary Grant or James Stewart was the hero, "star protocol" made them a bigger deal than the villains. The villains in those movies were "character guys"(Claude Rains, Ray Burr, Tom Helmore)...except for James Mason in NXNW...a delicious match to Cary Grant in voice, bearing and even star power, somewhat.

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He loved those contrasting types, too, and he liked to "match them": Olivier vs. George Sanders in Rebecca, Bob Cummings vs. Norman Lloyd in Saboteur, Joseph Cotten vs. Macdonald Carey in Shadow Of A Doubt, a whole boatload of the flotsam of society in Lifeboat vs. a super-competent Walter Slezak.

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The "super competent" Walter Slezak in Lifeboat bugged 40's reviewers. But that was rather the point of the story: the focused and ruthless shall win. So the good guys have to be focused and ruthless -- but at what cost? I though one key to Slezak is that he had a cuddly plump body and a very sweet and kind face. It was as if Santa Claus had been cast as the villain.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In this, to move back into Psycho territory here, Psycho was typical in its Norman vs. Sam "rivalry", not really a rivalry at all since the former never had a chance with Marion,--aside from the chance to kill her--and Sam a morose and somewhat reluctant hero

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Yes. One man wanted Marion; one man had her. Audiences were sorta rooting for Norman to win when he entered the movie(in the means of a bigger star.)

That Sam and Norman finally DO meet in the climactic scenes is pretty exciting, really. Facing each other across that desk, Sam towering over Norman, our sympathies torn between the two men -- its very dynamic and suspenseful. And the two men end up having TWO fights: Norman wins the first one(surprise! He's STRONG!), but Sam wins the second one (But not that strong.)

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till he brought down fruity Norman in, fittingly enough, the fruit cellar.

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"Think I'm fruity, hah?" jokes Mother. Interesting: today, the word "fruity" can be seen as perjorative towards gays but neutral towards "the insane." I think when Psycho was made, we were to infer it was about insanity -- Mrs. Bates KNEW she was insane. Which means Norman did. Critic Robin Wood went serious on this: "Think I'm fruity -- could mean the source of sexual fruition had gone sour in the symbolic fruit cellar." Well...OK.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It's no wonder Hitchcock designated the film as a comedy, as it was, albeit only fitfully

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I always think in various interviews, Hitchcock bungled his trying to explain Psycho as a comedy. He was more on point when he said it was meant to be "fun," even with those horrible, tragic murders. First and foremost, they were SHOCK murders, meant to make people jump and scream and to live in terror waiting for the next one. That's not comedy...but it is entertainment.

And yet, there is plenty of humor in Psycho. Little jokes abound, start to finish, deadpan humor is in evidence(Norman's face when the car won't sink). And the interrogations of Norman by Arbogast (first) and Sam(later) are staged for humor. Like here with Arbogast:

Arbogast: Care to look at the picture again?
Norman:(Looks) Oh...yeahhh.
(Audience laughs.)
Norman: I tell you, its not a very good picture of her.
Arbogast: I guess not.

With Sam(and Lila) we get that little running gag where Norman keeps trying to come out from behind the counter and Sam keeps saying things to push him back in:

"Anywhere else in this country you check in without bags, you have to pay in advance."
"That receipt?"

Norman keeps stopping, raising a finger like "oh yeah," goes back behind the desk. Funny.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Yes, that's a funny moment between Norman and Sam. Also borderline humorous at times: Simon Oakland's masterful, near heroic reading of (da) Shrink. His occasional flourishes are near comic, and I think the actor knew that.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Yes, that's a funny moment between Norman and Sam. Also borderline humorous at times: Simon Oakland's masterful, near heroic reading of (da) Shrink. His occasional flourishes are near comic, and I think the actor knew that.

===

"Yes....and NO!"

"and MOTHER KILLED THE GIRL!"

I think Oakland maybe saw the "ham" in this character, was perhaps directed by Hitchcock to play it up.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Walter Slezak is disturbingly appealing in Lifeboat, isn't he?

But wasn't that the point?

Hitchcock wanted to viewer to think, not just react. Even James Agee had problems with the film, though he didn't pan it, not for that reason. It's probably my favorite Hitchcock picture that doesn't feel like a Hitchcock picture. John Steinbeck worked on it, not sure if he actually wrote the script. It's awfully wickedly witty, showing a mastery of wartime slang, and almost hip in the way the various characters react to one another, with a laconic knowingness.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Walter Slezak is disturbingly appealing in Lifeboat, isn't he?

But wasn't that the point?

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Another "charming Hitchcock villain." Which disturbed people because he was a Nazi and the war wasn't over yet. But he DOES turn evil by various inches along the way...hoarding water, steering the lifeboat to the Nazi ship, and ...worst of all...killing William Bendix with the final send off: "Remember your name is Schmidt."

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Hitchcock wanted to viewer to think, not just react. Even James Agee had problems with the film, though he didn't pan it, not for that reason. It's probably my favorite Hitchcock picture that doesn't feel like a Hitchcock picture.

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For years when I was very young, Lifeboat came on and I didn't KNOW it was a Hitchcock picture.

But his "touches" abound. Best is early on: a close-up of a ship's smokestack -- camera down, we don't see the whole ship, we just see the stack sink into the waves( a budget saver). Then the pan of all the items in the water that "tell of us of lives."

And I find it a very Hitchcockian shot when Slezak keeps rowing his hands right into the camera -- its like 3-D.

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John Steinbeck worked on it, not sure if he actually wrote the script.

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A treatment, I think, to get his name on it, but many of the characters are his. Hitchcock had a few famous authors "co-sold" with his movies: Daphne DuMaurier, Thornton Wilder, Steinbeck...Raymond Chandler(though Hitch swore not a word of Chandler's script made it into Strangers on a Train.)

Much later, the catch of Anthony Shaffer on Frenzy just after he'd hit so big on Broadway with Sleuth, kind of had that effect.

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It's awfully wickedly witty, showing a mastery of wartime slang, and almost hip in the way the various characters react to one another, with a laconic knowingness

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I think its VERY hip, and noirish, and tough. Plus, I'm sure that the Bankhead and Hodiak charcters had sex, probably while everybody was sleeping, maybe under a blanket.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Yes, EC, the postwar years were a whole new ballgame in the movies.

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Word is that many men returning home from the horrors and bleak realities of WWII wanted to see more realistic, darker films. They -- and their wives and girlfriends -- still liked entertainment, but to see a "cotton candy" representation of the world was harder to take. Films like The Lost Weekend and Gentleman's Agreement got into social issues; From Here to Eternity was a fairly tough and sexual take on military life; On the Waterfront exposed the realities of organized crime arising in America, etc.

And those were the "important films." Noir killer thrillers started popping up like weeds. And White Heat gave us "The Gangster as Homicidal Maniac."

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Freud and psychoanalysis were becoming fads, had been for some time, were now entering the mainstream film. Spellbound's an early example and somewhat atypical in being almost too Freudian and "meticulous" in its use of his ideas.

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I hear that Spellbound was so meticulous because producer David O. Selznick and his wife were deep into Freudian psychiatry and had a hand in the script. Selznick pretty much left Hitchcock alone to do the next one -- Notorious -- while he did "Duel in the Sun" and that's why Notorious is less talky and laborious than Spellbound, which was nonetheless interesting, suspenseful, romantic, and a hit.

I'm not up on Freudian debates, but there can be no doubt that Hollywood in general -- and Hitchcock in particular -- took up Freudian analsyis as the key to practically everything, for a coupla decades. For Hitchcock, that would be Spellbound, Rope, Strangers on a Train, The Wrong Man, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds(no shrinks, but the family dynamics are a study in Mother-driven disfunction), Marnie, and Frenzy.

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It's so ironic that in the years following the world war that the very notion of the hero in the classic sense was in eclipse in the movies aside from serials and very low budget fare. Oh, Cooper was still there; and so was Gable. But the "we know he's the good guy" sort of movie seems to have fallen on hard times.

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True. Suddenly, Hollywood dug the tough guy, from old reliables like Bogart and Cagney(both aging, both still tough and dangerous) to new guys like Lancaster, Douglas, Mitchum (all of whom Hitchcock shied away from as leads, though he did say he wanted Lancaster instead of Joe Cotton in Under Capricorn; I don't know if an offer was made.) And yes, even William Holden had huge doses of cynicism in his All-American look -- Stalag 17, Sunset Boulevard. He died a lot in his movies, too.

The Method trio of Brando, Clift, and Dean went in other directions...but heroism wasn't much there "in its usual form." And yet what Brando does in Waterfront and Clift does in From Here to Eternity are HEROIC acts...particularly "versus the rest of the crowd."

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This is probably where John Wayne came in: the great new superstar. He'd been a B and serials guy till Stagecoach, then rose to action and western star status as the A- level, rose to superstardom with Red River. From then on he was an A+ star and that never really wavered till his death.

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I have elsewhere opined that Clint Eastwood is the biggest success in Hollywood history -- a TV career until 1966 and movie stardom, and in movies as a star until 2011(to date), plus directing huge hits after 2011.

That's a forty-plus year acting career for Clint -- but Wayne managed that pretty much, too. And he was a solid star in the forties, a superstar in the fifties and sixties, and an honored senior star in the 70s(only Wayne and Clint could get a Western made, it was said -- wrongly.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

There was an attempt, and this has been commented on by serious film scholars, to revive the idea of the hero in the rise, circa 1950, of the costume programmer, whether of the Arabian Nights, Biblical, pirate, swashbuckler or dungeons and dragons kind. Between them, Universal-Inernational and Columbia dominated the field, usually with some boyish up and comer in the lead, with Tony Curtis and John Derek being among the best known. Jon Hall, Louis Hayward and Buster Crabbe made their share as well. Most of these films were in color, and they did very well at the matinees and in the smaller theaters with names like the Bijou and the Rialto.

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Interesting. I know of those films, can't say I watched many. I'm not big on epics or Biblicals. (Thrillers, crime, Westerns, action, musicals, comedies, good dramas -- Yes.)

I used to watch The Crimson Pirate on the Million Dollar Movie. Burt Lancaster cut quite the figure in his red tight-fitting garments. I actually saw Lancaster -- in his late fifties -- at a seminar in Hollywood where a member of the audience pleaded with Lancaster to make MORE Crimson Pirates. The exchange:

Lancaster: But I'm too old to do that anymore...
Guest: No, no, no, Mr. Lancaster! Look at you, you are so strong and fit! You could do this easily!

Lancaster smiled that big grin and laughed hard. He was really touched.

Lancaster: Well, OK, I'll think about it.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

I agree that Clint Eastwood's had an amazing career, EC. On paper anyway. I'm immune to his charm, find him a dull presence. He was most charismatic, such as he ever was, playing off against those incongruously European looking bad guys in his early spaghetti days; and of course as one of the trio in the sublime The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Everything after seems like a postscript to me, but I seem to be way in the minority in this.

On this I agree: Eastwood has managed his career better than any other major star I can think of offhand with the exceptions of Charlie Chaplin and Bing Crosby. Like them, he remained "relevant", a major force in films for several decades,--with Crosby more the all-round entertainer, Chaplin the compleat film-maker, as director and producer.

Sean Connery's done nicely at the star level, and like Eastwood he's enjoyed a near "record busting" run than even such superstars with long careers at the top as Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant. Those guys had three and a half to four decades, depending on how one does the math, while Connery and Eastwood literally reached the half-century mark. Amazing! If you throw in Clint's Rawhide years he's got 'em all beat. A major accomplishment, that. A lesser star who also enjoyed a long career and who's like Valium to me on screen: Harrison Ford. I can't see his appeal with a microscope, but then I'm immune to the charms of the Star Wars-Indiana Jones type films that were his special province. There's something off puttingly stonerish about him. I feel the same way about Jeff Bridges and William Hurt. Dope? Meds? Or maybe just phlegmatic. Cool, I suppose, but I can't relate.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I agree that Clint Eastwood's had an amazing career, EC. On paper anyway.

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On paper...but ...

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I'm immune to his charm, find him a dull presence.
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Me, too. Look at him in Paint Your Wagon and Kelly's Heroes. Everybody else has charisma, he just sort of stands there looking blank and boyish.

The Sergio Leone Westerns had made him, but not necessarily with true star charisma. The movie that that did THAT was Dirty Harry. His whispery voice finally had some emotional power behind it(Harry was ENRAGED by the psycho Scorpio; you could feel it in your chest), and he had some toughest guy on the block cool.

Clint Eastwood and George Clooney play the same role in my movie going life: I've seen practically every movie each man ever made, but I don't particularly LIKE their output.

Well, reverse that. Clooney made some good movies (Up in the Air, The Descendants) but most of his films weren't seen by most people. Eastwood's movies WERE seen, but they weren't very good. Anybody remember The Gauntlet? Bronco Billy?(well reviewed, but teeny tiny and nothing happens), Honky Tonk Man? FIREFOX(probably his dullest movie, with too much of a Torn Curtain Cold War feel -- Torn Curtain is WAY better.) Even City Heat -- Clint and Burt Reynolds but after Burt's sell-by date; a real flop.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

He was most charismatic, such as he ever was, playing off against those incongruously European looking bad guys in his early spaghetti days; and of course as one of the trio in the sublime The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Everything after seems like a postscript to me, but I seem to be way in the minority in this.

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Not with me. I've written on this before: Depression-baby Clint seemed to want his movies to be as cheap-looking and low budget as he could get away with. Skimpy -- insulting to the audience. What ran them was Clint's star power and little else. And he got away with it until about 1988, when a skimpy Dirty Harry 5 got trounced by a Big Budget Die Hard. Then he made some really bad movies that nobody saw(except me, I saw all of them): Pink Cadillac(there's no ENDING to that one) The Rookie(with Charlie Sheen; Lethal Weapon for S/M freaks, truly grim), and Black Hunter Black Heart or whatever it was(arty Oscar-bait that was neither.)

And then Unforgiven saved him. BUT -- after being in another director's big budget action hit(In the Line of Fire, for Wolfgang Peterson), Clint went back to being his own producer-director and gave us MORE skimpy cheapjack movies. Just with bigger co-stars now(Streep, Hackman, etc.)

"On paper," what Clint Eastwood did was to comeback in the 90's(25 years ago!) and to outlast other stars: McQueen(born the same year as Eastwood; died 35 years ago); Reynolds (burned out his star career), Bronson(burned out HIS smaller star career), Arnold and Sly(not even gravitas between them.)

Eastwood may act again, but his real career now is producing-directing. Still -- on paper -- pretty much a 45-year run as an over-the-title star, no TV movies, no TV series(since becoming a star.)



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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Eventually the hero came back, but with doubts,--LOL!--as one can see in the work of Glenn Ford. A total good guy, yet there was that angst about him.

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I keep forgetting about Glenn Ford, who, I think, managed to get the Number One male star slot a coupla times in the fifties and then held on in the Top Ten. But not for long. Remember my quote from Paul Newman's agenta bout Newman soon becoming Glenn Ford? Irony: Newman did NOT...he was a rare long-distance star. But Ford was reduced to B Westerns and TV soon enough.

Hitchcock wanted William Holden in a movie or two, but never indicated an interest in Glenn Ford.

I always found that Ford had a weird apologetic tone to his voice, like he was embarrassed or something. But he found a way to be tough. In The Big Heat, he's tough as a cop avenging his wife's murder by the mob -- except his toughness is what got his wife killed -- and other women to come.

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William Holden often came off as a downright reluctant hero.

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But so damn handsome in the fifties and early sixties before drinking took its toll, and "crinkled handsome" after that. Holden and Cary Grant were the two "regular guys" who could go shirtless for the longest number of years.

Said Bill Murray of William Holden: " He was such a stud! Doing most of Picnic with his shirt off. And even in Network, he's a STUD! That's a stud performance." (It is; Holden beds Faye Dunaway on screen and fights with all the other men in the cast for "the right causes." Except for his friend, Mad Peter Finch.)
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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Robert Mitchum was a fringe dwelling hipster good guy.

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And occasionally, a fringe dwelling SCARY hipster BAD guy: Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear. Like Brando, I think the deal with Mitchum was: you never felt he was really taking movies or the world seriously, but he was too good at what he did and you'd "catch him being great."

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Alan Ladd had that air of vulnerability about him.

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Well, he was a short man, famously, and you could feel that infecting his performances.

I've noted that Alan Ladd ALMOST got the lead in Bad Day at Black Rock while Spencer Tracy dithered on it.

I recently read that Alan Ladd was director George Stevens first choice for the James Dean role in Giant(which, by the film's end, is a rather villainous role.) Stevens had directed Ladd in Shane. Ladd's wife and manager nixed the deal -- she felt it was a supporting role. Oops.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Burt and Kirk were so strident, downright primitive, as to often overshoot the mark

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Douglas especially, but you know, Stanley Kauffman felt that there were only two truly great movie actors in the fifties: Marlon Brando and Kirk Douglas. Kauffman felt that Douglas had an ability to reach deep into his emotions and project everything from fury to cynicism to kindness to humor.

Burt and Kirk were quite the team there for awhile. What, six, seven movies? And big ones in the middle: OK Corral(Kirk is the second best Doc Holiday after Val Kilmer), The Devil's Disciple(with Olivier!) and my favorite Seven Days in May(Burt is a villainous US General; Kirk the heroic colonel who brings him down.)

Burt and Kirk even made one late, late-breaking 1986 film called "Tough Guys" about old bank robbers released from prison to 80's aerobics and music videos. It was piffle made poignant just by seeing those guys together again. I liked the sexual component: studly Kirk gets a younger girlfriend at the gym; courtly Burt courts an age-peer(Alexis Smith, as I recall) but fights for their right to have sex at the retirement home.

I have written before of seeing Burt and Kirk live on stage in San Francisco in 1981, in a failed try-out of a play about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn as adults with "secrets." I don't remember the dark secrets, but I do remember both men needing their script girls to feed them lines from off stage. Burt especially had trouble. I don't think they took the play further than SF.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

In the Fifties Glenn Ford seemed to be vying with Richard Widmark (post-psycho) to become the dullest and most respectable leading man in Hollywood, and yet in each case with a neurotic undercurrent: Ford, with what you aptly described as his apologetic, humble acting style; Widmark with that underlying hysteria, as if keeping his inner maniac in check, something he, alas, slowly outgrew as the years went by. He did nicely revive his villainy in The Bedford Incident. What a juicy good guy/bad guy star Widmark might have made if he'd been born fifteen or twenty years later, arrived in films circa 1970, along with the likes of Pacino, Caan, De Niro, Hackman and the rest!

Glenn Ford had a near generic success, was rather a name player in name only. Did he have fan clubs? Did women swoon at the sight of him and men want to be just like him? Unlikely. He worked in the middle range, with the key to his stardom, aside from the good fortune of being teamed with Rita Hayworth in a few films, being that air of the modern man about him. I found Ford, like Holden, a hard sell in anything not contemporary. Neither seemed at home on the range. Both seemed more at home with a cocktail in hand more than a six-shooter. Yet Ford enjoyed a good thirty years in films as a bankable star, with roughly sixteen years in the A list (from Gilda through Experiment In Terror), allowing for several years at, early on, the B+ level, later, the "fading A lister". Still, a good run.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In the Fifties Glenn Ford seemed to be vying with Richard Widmark (post-psycho) to become the dullest and most respectable leading man in Hollywood,

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That's funny about Widmark -- yes -- turning out that way. His early skinny sneering psychos seemed another actor entirely.

As opposed to Glenn Ford, who could carry a movie on his own(The Blackboard Jungle, The Big Heat), Widmark seemed to be a star who always had to be billed WITH ANOTHER STAR to get work. You'll find him in movies with James Stewart, William Holden, John Wayne, Henry Fonda -- but never all by himself as the lead until he did TV movies.

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and yet in each case with a neurotic undercurrent: Ford, with what you aptly described as his apologetic, humble acting style;

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Check it out in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father." Yes, the young mother has died, but Ford plays the lead like a basket case at times. He is also oddly this way as a gangster in Capra's final film "Pocketful of Miracles"(Capra hated Ford by the way, said his behavior was particularly bad for "a garden variety star"like Ford.)

Me, I liked Ford enough, and he was certainly heroic as the FBI man in the "scary without any blood" Experiment in Terror.

His vengeful cop in The Big Heat is a pre-Dirty Harry, on a righteous rampage of revenge against the Mafia(they aren't called that, but they truly are that.) I call The Big Heat "an aaaaarrrggh movie!" --that's the raging voice of the raging avenger. Other examples are Death Wish and Walking Tall.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Glenn had his time in the sun, had some nice "comebacks" in the late Seventies, with Midway, then the Superman movie.

I was fortunate to be able to chat with him on line some fifteen years ago. His son Peter ran a Glenn Ford website. He was humble and very appreciative that so many people remembered him and knew who he was.

Also like Widmark: no scandals with Ford (that I know of). He lived his life mostly out of the limelight. It's like being a movie star was a job for him. It was his career, and he lived like the good professional he was.

Another like that: Cliff Robertson.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

One film where humble and apologizing worked well for FOrd was Blackboard Jungle which is important because the audience is supposed to share his fear of entering that classroom every day. Wouldn't work with a Holden or a Peck.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

One film where humble and apologizing worked well for FOrd was Blackboard Jungle which is important because the audience is supposed to share his fear of entering that classroom every day. Wouldn't work with a Holden or a Peck.

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Great point. To this extent, Glenn Ford's persona was exactly right to convince us that he WAS an inner city school teacher. And of course, he gains heroic action hero-type strength along the way.

I wonder if this, rather than Gilda, was his biggest hit? Rock Around the Clock and all...

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

It's up there, EC, as a Glenn Ford hit, although the same year's (1955) Interrupted Melody, believe it or not, also did big business. Blackboard Jungle had that young, sexy exploitation vibe going for it, kind of like The Wild One from a year or so earlier.

As to Ford's top grossing pictures, he had a lot of solid moneymakers that didn't make waves, did rake in huge profits: The Fastest Gun Alive (I think that's the right title) was a huge success in '56. Also, from the same year, and needless to say, Teahouse Of The August Moon, from the Broadway play, and with Marlon Brando, no less.

A lot of Ford's success came from his being tied to both MGM and Columbia, plus his loyalty to both, his working with and within the system as a good team player. He maybe produced an indie production here and there but overall he was a good company man, was rewarded with good scripts and, especially, projects that were right for him.

For some reason, in the wake of the success of Teahouse, Ford became the go-to guy for the at the time very popular sub-genre (and probably influenced by Mister Roberts), the military or "service" comedy, of which he appeared in a fair number, among them Don't Go Near The Water, Imitation General and Cry For Happy. His westerns were solid hits if not blockbusters, and his comedies did nicely. The Gazebo was quite popular.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It's up there, EC, as a Glenn Ford hit, although the same year's (1955) Interrupted Melody, believe it or not, also did big business.

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I did not know that. Well, its pretty clear how and why Glenn Ford was a big star for a few years there. He was in hits. And DIVERSE ones, too. Dramas, musicals, comedies, Westerns.

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Blackboard Jungle had that young, sexy exploitation vibe going for it, kind of like The Wild One from a year or so earlier.

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That's how I understand it. And it was one of the first movies to postulate a high school classroom as a den of danger, with criminals and sex predators in their earliest incarnation. Its somewhat of a horror movie in that regard, with many of the teachers cowering in fear of their own charges. And Sidney Poitier a little unbelievable as a teenager, but sticking up for the African-American's role in these places; the hero of the piece alongside Ford.

Note in passing: I've always felt that if Hitchcock had chosen to make Topaz with "an all-star cast," Poitier would have been a great star cameo in the Roscoe Lee Browne role.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

True, EC: not since the Dead End Kids of the Depression era had teens been shown as sp dangerous as they were in a major motion picture (City Across The River, from 1949, being an exception, but its bad boys were like the Dead Enders gone wild, a far cry from the near proto-beatnick cool cats of BJ).

The movie was a revelation, of sorts, as grownups just didn't get these kids; not their jargon, their need for rebellion and freedom. Glenn Ford was the perfect incarnation of the square class, and not a bad one, either. He had an empathy that often wasn't there in representatives of the "older folks" in later films and TV shows.

There was much talk of alienated youth, the "shook-up generation" by journalists and psychologists back then. Unlike the later, more middle class and specifically agin' the system hippies, who were actually a mixed bag, thus easier to classify and understand, these Lost Boys & Girls of the Fifties were truly enigmatic.

Junior beatnicks they may have been, they're tough nuts to crack by today's standards. I think of Marlon Brando's biker character in The Wild One being asked by an older guy what he was rebelling against, with his answer the now famous "whaddaya got?". That laconic answer resonated for years, right into our age group a decade later, yet in the New Millennium it sounds rather puzzling all over again.

Young folks today cannot afford to rebel like that, and they know it. If anything they're MORE CONFORMIST than their parents, and their brand of hip is totally different from the earlier kind, as in going with the System (big time) rather than against it. But do they have much choice in the matter? It's such a different world today.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

True, EC: not since the Dead End Kids of the Depression era had teens been shown as sp dangerous as they were in a major motion picture (City Across The River, from 1949, being an exception, but its bad boys were like the Dead Enders gone wild, a far cry from the near proto-beatnick cool cats of BJ).

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I' know the Dead End Kids and I've read of City Across the River, but I really don' t know the films. I believe the Dead End Kids went from Dead Serious to goofballs as The Bowery Boys, yes? (Or at least a few of them.)

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The movie was a revelation, of sorts, as grownups just didn't get these kids; not their jargon, their need for rebellion and freedom.

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Blackboard Jungle was from MGM in 1955; Warners gave us Rebel Without a Cause the same year. I guess they are rather flip sides of the coin, in "Rebel," the adults don't get the teenagers, but the teenagers are only sort of dangerous(though one has a knife, yes?) In Blackboard Jungle, the adults don't get the teenagers, but there are some very dangerous kids in there.

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Glenn Ford was the perfect incarnation of the square class, and not a bad one, either. He had an empathy that often wasn't there in representatives of the "older folks" in later films and TV shows.

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True...that humble and apologetic speaking pattern, again. Though when they go after his wife..its The Big Heat, baby.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

There was much talk of alienated youth, the "shook-up generation" by journalists and psychologists back then. Unlike the later, more middle class and specifically agin' the system hippies, who were actually a mixed bag, thus easier to classify and understand, these Lost Boys & Girls of the Fifties were truly enigmatic.

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Thoughtful remarks. Hard to say what was going on. The "basics" as I get it about the fifties is that, with the twin terrors of the Depression and WWII over, a new generation of parents begat a rather spoiled and aimless generation of kids BUT...kids are people, too and the confusions of the teenage years always lead to SOME rebellion.

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Junior beatnicks they may have been, they're tough nuts to crack by today's standards. I think of Marlon Brando's biker character in The Wild One being asked by an older guy what he was rebelling against, with his answer the now famous "whaddaya got?".

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Its a great line.

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That laconic answer resonated for years, right into our age group a decade later, yet in the New Millennium it sounds rather puzzling all over again.



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Its hard for me to deal with it. I have my own teenage memories, from the "hippie period" in which not everyone was hippies, and now I find myself -- at a rather older age than it was supposed to happen -- dealing with a new generation of teenagers "up close and personal" and...I haven't a thing to tell them. I'm intrigued by rap music. Some of those lyrics are as down and dirty as anything I've ever encountered, but young guys AND gals seem to love them.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Young folks today cannot afford to rebel like that, and they know it. If anything they're MORE CONFORMIST than their parents, and their brand of hip is totally different from the earlier kind, as in going with the System (big time) rather than against it. But do they have much choice in the matter? It's such a different world today.

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In "the movie world," I've always been intrigued that the horrific corporate lifestyle postulated in "The Apartment" of 1960 SEEMED to have been challenged by the counterculture, but when all was said and done, decades later, the corporation came back stronger than ever. Just without coats and ties and dresses. In Silicon Valley for starters.

As someone wrote, MTV took over rock and roll and recreated it in a corporate manner -- with concerts tied in to beers and soft drinks and artists "recording" for computer streaming.

And in another thread, I've mentioned our new generation of movie stars show up for their Oscar speeches with lists of studio execs, agents, managers, and lawyers to thank for their Oscars -- no way they will ignore their corporate masters.

Again, with the teenagers I deal with, I'm saddest about how expensive things are where we live: cars, gas, housing. New strategies of living must be undertaken: used cars, restricted travel, young people living with parents, roomates before marriage.....

Its why we still need the movies to escape...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Its been a long time since I've seen The Blackboard Jungle, but as I recall, something else that it was postulating -- in a not too subtle way -- was: a high school's student body can only be as good as the parents and the community from which they issue.

And in impoverished inner cities, oftimes parental involvement is minimal, drug-ridden, dangerous. And high school is where the kids of criminals start being criminals themselves.

This as opposed to the prosperous suburbs and small town high schools of America which, we have seen, have all sorts of dysfunctional familes, too, but not necessarily so many criminals.

A less sensational version of The Blackboard Jungle came in the 60s with the book and film of "Up the Down Staircase," in which a fragile FEMALE teacher(quivery Sandy Dennis in the movie) took on a mixed bag of inner-city kids, only one of which was really dangerous; the rest could be "reached." I'll plug that movie -- from the To Kill a Mockingbird team -- as having a fine, twee, folk-rock musical score that made the tough story most palatable. Its a sweet score for a tough movie.

And of course we had 1967's "To Sir With Love," giving us the same story but done in London with an African-American teacher(Poitier.) Years since I saw that one -- I recall seeing it on release as part of some kid's birthday party, and I didn't want to see that movie. It wasn't a Western or a thriller. But I liked it, and I liked the song.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Right about the hippie thing, EC. I remember it well. Can we forget? As I recall, where I grew up, east coast suburbia, middle to upper middle class, it was largely kids from either educated or affluent families. Those from the other side of the tracks, whether the "projects" or just plain working class, were living in a Fifties time warp of sorts, wore short hair, pronounced marijuana with the j sounding like a j, didn't know acid from acidosis. The dazed and confused Seventies were still down the road a bit, and as a friend of mine with a history degree and I have discussed often,--we're the same age--it was the "vices" of the Sixties that endured when the Counterculture sh!t the bed, not the virtues, such as they can be called, which is why, today, there's not only an opiod crisis in the land but a dope one, too, in addition to gambling and alcoholism both very common problems these days, and self-medication in general. For the affluent Boomers who grew up more in the middle class (and their children), Bill Clinton was the prize, and women's empowerment, along with the globalization of everything and things like Bob Dylan winning the Nobel prize for literature! But the labor unions are largely gone, manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, and poverty is rampant among the working and non-working poor, which, due to who controls what, gave us not a second FDR but Donald Trump for president.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But the labor unions are largely gone, manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, and poverty is rampant among the working and non-working poor, which, due to who controls what, gave us not a second FDR but Donald Trump for president.

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You and I have lived long enough, telegonus, not only to have read some history of before our time, but to have lived some history IN our time.

It is not a happy time in America "for real" for everybody. It all seems rather inevitable to me...the breakdown in the kind of movies that are made and music that is made is part of it. And yes, I guess we each (OK, only I) become "fuddy duddy" in our older age, but things WERE cheaper to buy some decades ago, certain jobs WERE more plentiful.

All that said...people keep making babies, the future is still believed in, life is great for those with the brains or money to make it so...

...that's life.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

Yes, this is the most over the hill high school class ever, what with Poitier, plus VIc Morrow and Paul Mazurzky. But their performances are so perfectly in sync that we can easily suspend disbelief. And casting 20s and even 30s as teens was fairly standard at the time.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Yes, this is the most over the hill high school class ever, what with Poitier, plus VIc Morrow and Paul Mazurzky.

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Ha.

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But their performances are so perfectly in sync that we can easily suspend disbelief.

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I think so. Casting kids who LOOKED like kids would have reduced the menace to Glenn Ford and his wife(though maybe kids would have been spookier, I dunno.)

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And casting 20s and even 30s as teens was fairly standard at the time

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Yep. Just like casting Jessie Royce Landis as the mother of Cary Grant when they were a few years apart.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As to Ford's top grossing pictures, he had a lot of solid moneymakers that didn't make waves, did rake in huge profits: The Fastest Gun Alive (I think that's the right title) was a huge success in '56. Also, from the same year, and needless to say, Teahouse Of The August Moon, from the Broadway play, and with Marlon Brando, no less.

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I think Brando and Ford got along on that movie. Brando in his autobio wrote about how character actor Louis Calhern died during the making of the film(he was Cary Grant's boss in Notorious) and during the funeral, something went very wrong that was FUNNY and, to avoid showing their laughter, Brando and Ford enacted CRYING to cover up their laughter, trying not to look at each other. I've been THERE. At a funeral. With friends. (Calhern was replaced with Paul Ford.)

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A lot of Ford's success came from his being tied to both MGM and Columbia,

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There's a reason right there why Hitchcock likely didn't work with Ford. Columbia is the only studio Hitchcock DIDN'T work for in his career(to my knowledge), and he only worked with MGM once, on a special deal (North by Northwest, which, I guess, could have starred Glenn Ford in a pinch.)

--- plus his loyalty to both, his working with and within the system as a good team player. He maybe produced an indie production here and there but overall he was a good company man, was rewarded with good scripts and, especially, projects that were right for him.

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Yep. Glenn Ford is in the original "Ransom" -- remade much more violently with Mel Gibson in the 90's. And he made an "epic Western" called Cimarron. And he is rather charming as a 30s gangster with a heart of gold in Capra's Pocketful of Miracles(with Peter Falk and Mickey Shaugnessy as funny henchmen.) And I like in "Experiment in Terror," Ford's FBI man helps the terrified Lee Remick all through the film without ever going for her romantically(a boyfriend is established, but barely seen and cast with a bit player.

.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Yeah, and the Glenn Ford type is pretty much gone, although in their modest way guys like Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner kept it afloat, with Tom Hanks along for the ride (sort of), though he was called the new Jimmy Stewart when he hit big as a serious star some twenty-five years ago.

It didn't quite happen that way for Hanks, but he's about as good as we've got at that level, as given the diffusion of the media these days a superstar at that level appearing in "just movies" really isn't possible. It seems only fitting that Hanks should have been chosen by Clint to play Sully, as it was when Billy Wilder chose Jimmy for Lindy. Hanks had a bigger success due to his being the right age for the part. I do have a sneaking fondness for The Spirit Of St. Louis, though.

Speaking of actors, iconic and otherwise, isn't Harrison Ford up there as one of the top box-office champions of all-time? He's appeared in more blockbusters than almost anyone else over the past forty years, though the same could be said for Charlton Heston for the period prior to Star Wars. Ford strikes me as a bigger star, though, as he seems to have,--inexplicably to me--a fair sized fanbase. Heston's box-office was more "spotty", and there was never such a thing as a Charlton Heston picture, while HARRISON Ford has had a few. Air Force One comes to mind. Heston rode the "Biblical wave" and then, a decade after, fittingly enough, the disaster one, while H. Ford is a superstar for Boomers and those younger, has that New Agey ubermensch plucked from the pages of Joseph Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces vibe. Heston was a movie star who got lucky.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

For some reason, in the wake of the success of Teahouse, Ford became the go-to guy for the at the time very popular sub-genre (and probably influenced by Mister Roberts), the military or "service" comedy, of which he appeared in a fair number, among them Don't Go Near The Water, Imitation General and Cry For Happy.

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The "service comedy" is rather a fascination of mine. My father was in the military and I recall the family going to any and all of these films -- even the cheapo movie versions of "McHale's Navy." Mister Roberts is probably the class act of them all(Fonda! Cagney! Lemmon! Powell!), but I think Operation Petticoat with Grant and Curtis is the suavest.

And here's the thing: whereas many movies -- and pretty much ALL movies from 1970 on -- portrayed war as a horrifying creator of death and dismemberment -- these "service comedies" seemed to create among American military men a kind of "warm nostalgia for their youth." They were romantic comedies set stateside or on a "safe island base," they were zany ("Operation Mad Ball"), they were funny(lets add the TV Sgt Bilko here), and they were largely about "guys in groups without gals"(a non-gay fantasy of non-responsibility.)

And nobody got killed.

And Glenn Ford fit 'em like a glove.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

Yup. Those service comedies (with or without the "quotes") ran their course, appealed most, I'm guessing, to veterans, and by extension their wives and children. I believe that even Tony Curtis and Sal Mineo appeared in one, as a vehicle (no, I don't mean Operation Petticoat). Jack Lemmon also had Operation Mad Ball, which I've only seen the opening of. Ernie Kovacs was in it, and it was maybe his first feature film.

Those kinds of films ran their course and began to fade after 1960. Then an interesting thing happened: service sitcoms began to pop up on television! Leaving aside the Runyonesque Sgt. Bilko, which was earlier, there was Hennessy (sp?), which ran from 1959-62; and it was followed by McHale's Navy, which had a longer run, was really a show for kids. Then Andy Griffith's Gomer Pyle went into the Marines, and that show was a bigger hit than the others, though the WWII vibe military comedies all seemed to have back then was gone.

A few years aft came MASH, set in the Korean War, clearly a critique of war in general and of the one in Vietnam in particular, it proved bigger than even Gomer Pyle. That was also the most "adult" of the service coms on the tube, and the most serious. After that, the innocence of "boys having fun in the service" was over.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

He did nicely revive his villainy in The Bedford Incident.

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Where his submarine captain dresses down ship's doctor -- Martin Balsam! -- as being "not a very good doctor, right? Reduced to working on a sub?" Nasty scene. Poor Marty (but he survives.)

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In 1970, Widmark was a VERY evil villain in a little-known movie called "The Moonshine War" where he was a dentist-gangster(you heard me right) in prohibition with a psycho henchman and a perverse streak. Pitted against moonshiner...Alan Alda.

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What a juicy good guy/bad guy star Widmark might have made if he'd been born fifteen or twenty years later, arrived in films circa 1970, along with the likes of Pacino, Caan, De Niro, Hackman and the rest!

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Yes. Probably just too scary for fifties films without modification. He even did a Doris Day romantic comedy(Tunnel of Love.)

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Glenn Ford had a near generic success, was rather a name player in name only. Did he have fan clubs? Did women swoon at the sight of him and men want to be just like him? Unlikely. He worked in the middle range,

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Its possible that Ford got roles Stewart, Fonda and Grant turned down, but he seemed to be a "top choice" a lot of the time. He was amiable -- probably meant to be a new Stewart or Fonda, if not a new Grant.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Ford is oddly matched in a comedy Western of 1958 with..Shirley MacLaine. (I can't remember the name.) They are a romantic couple but she's so young and "kooky" that its like a barely legal niece flirting with her uncle.

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with the key to his stardom, aside from the good fortune of being teamed with Rita Hayworth in a few films,


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I expect Gilda "made him" -- and The Blackboard Jungle(some years later) gave him a rocket boost of heroism.

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being that air of the modern man about him. I found Ford, like Holden, a hard sell in anything not contemporary. Neither seemed at home on the range. Both seemed more at home with a cocktail in hand more than a six-shooter.

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Interesting. I agree on Holden(who looks like a businessman in The Wild Bunch), but not so much on Ford. Maybe because Ford made so MANY Westerns in the sixties(and not very good ones) and ended up playing a modern day sheriff in "Cade's County" on TV.

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Yet Ford enjoyed a good thirty years in films as a bankable star, with roughly sixteen years in the A list (from Gilda through Experiment In Terror), allowing for several years at, early on, the B+ level, later, the "fading A lister". Still, a good run.

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Absolutely. The right man at the right time. And I just remembered: "The Gazebo" from 1959 or 1960, where Ford played an NYC playwright working on a film for ...Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock becomes an unseen character on the phone late in the film. Ford is asking "Hitch" some advice on how to bury a body in a suburban backyard -- which Ford REALLY has to do. Its perhaps Hitchcock's only "performance' in someone else's movie, and he isn't seen OR heard.

And one more: in 1978, Glenn Ford had the small role of "Superman's earth father" in that movie Ford had a very memorable scene in which, after running just a hundred yards with his teenager, he grabs his arm, mumbles sadly "Oh, no" -- and dies of a heart attack on the spot. A very affecting scene.

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[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

I think that Widmark's best period,--and he'd hate to hear this were he still among the living--was at Fox, from Kiss Of Death, after which he signed a seven year contract, through, well, I'm not sure what his final film for Fox was, maybe Garden Of Evil, maybe Hell And High Water.

In those years he was often more or less the stand alone real star of a film or teamed with an older (or in the case of Gene Tierney more veteran) star or an up and comer: Down To The Sea In Ships, Slattery's Hurriacne, Panic In The Streets, Night And The City, Halls Of Montezuma, The Frogmen, Don't Bother To Knock (co-starring Marilyn, Widmark was top billed and at the time a bigger name, which would change in a matter of months), and then Take The High Ground, Pickup On South Street.

Richard Widmark was a true solo star then, and the main attraction in most of the films Fox assigned him. Whether it was luck or design he did seem to slip into co-starring mode after going indie, and while the quality of his films rose in the "pleasing the critics" sense (The Cobweb, Tunnel Of Love) his letting go of his action star side probably hurt him. By the time he made The Alamo and Two Rode Together he probably needed bigger co-stars like John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart.

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[–] Gubbio (3893) 7 years ago

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[–] Gubbio (3893) 7 years ago

QUOTE:.....and then goes on to pad the first half of the picture for a reason that can’t be revealed without giving away the twist."
________________

I've never understood the notion that the first half of the movie is "padded, filler, or drags."

Without knowing "the twist," we're manipulated to believe that the story is about a nice girl who steals $40,000. We like her. We bond with her. We wonder what's going to happen to her.

Then, she takes a shower, and our world (in the movie) no longer makes sense. Hitch has played us like a violin!


PLOT HOLES ???

QUOTE:(Why, in ten years, hasn’t someone from the town seen the old woman walking past the window of the house? Why does the girl’s sister insist, on such brief acquaintance that the private detective has not merely run off?)
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To the first point: Who would care? Whose business would it be if Norman had a woman there? If he did, should the nosey neighbors have come, banging on his door, demanding an explanation? Ridiculous.

To the second point: Lila had a "gut" reaction that Arbo was a good guy and really wanted to help. These feelings really can't be subjected to scrutiny. They just "are."

This critic needed to suspend disbelief a little more. Movies seldom completely adhere to real life situations and reactions.

I've never understood why anyone listens to critics -- or why they even have a job!


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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

QUOTE:.....and then goes on to pad the first half of the picture for a reason that can’t be revealed without giving away the twist."
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I've never understood the notion that the first half of the movie is "padded, filler, or drags."

Without knowing "the twist," we're manipulated to believe that the story is about a nice girl who steals $40,000. We like her. We bond with her. We wonder what's going to happen to her.

Then, she takes a shower, and our world (in the movie) no longer makes sense. Hitch has played us like a violin!

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I would tend to agree. Look, I've made my statement for film history that Hitchcock made a trailer that said "come see my new movie with a woman getting killed in the shower at a motel"...but evidently millions did NOT see that trailer and the movie "worked like a charm" in pulling them in Marion's direction and stunning them with that shower shocker.

And this(which is true, I think about a lot of movies where the action heats up at the 30 minute point): once the shower murder occurs and all the suspense, murder and near misses kicks in, we pretty much FORGET how long that opening stretch was before "something shocking happens". Honestly, I have found this to occur a lot in movies of this nature: Alien, Deliverance and Frenzy also come to mind. Its as if the first 30 minutes feel like 5 minutes in retrospect.






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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

PLOT HOLES ???

QUOTE:(Why, in ten years, hasn’t someone from the town seen the old woman walking past the window of the house? Why does the girl’s sister insist, on such brief acquaintance that the private detective has not merely run off?)
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To the first point: Who would care? Whose business would it be if Norman had a woman there? If he did, should the nosey neighbors have come, banging on his door, demanding an explanation? Ridiculous.

To the second point: Lila had a "gut" reaction that Arbo was a good guy and really wanted to help. These feelings really can't be subjected to scrutiny. They just "are."

This critic needed to suspend disbelief a little more. Movies seldom completely adhere to real life situations and reactions.

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Great answers to Kauffman's rather foolish questions.

I suppose, back in 1960, a critic like Kauffman didn't have to face "instant rebuttal" to his thoughts as we have here on the internet decades later. He could toss off these personal theories and -- well, just forget about them.

The Arbogast one seems ridiculous. Yes, Lila only met him face to face once; but that later phone call meant EVERYTHING: Marion was here, she stopped at the Bates Motel, I need to speak to the mother. Even if Arbo were lying through his teeth(a weird surmise, btw)...Lila would HAVE to follow up.

The one about seeing Mother in the window just makes no sense. When WOULD they see her? How COULD they see her? Why would they care if they could?

Here's a pretty good question someone once put to me: how come Sam Loomis had no memory of the Bates murder-suicide near his tiny town of Fairvale? The script had a line for Sheriff Chambers: "This happened while you were away for some years, Sam." Aha. Hitchcock evidently didn't want to open THAT can of worms. And it wasn't a plot point.



I've never understood why anyone listens to critics -- or why they even have a job!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I've never understood why anyone listens to critics -- or why they even have a job!

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Modernly, they don't, so much. I've read that many critics have been let go from small town papers and the like, and some big city papers import national wire service critics. Critics complain about internet discussion of movies (they're the "experts") but I'm not so sure a lot of them are. A lot of our GOOD critics today are on the internet as posters -- they are intelligent people who go to movies...but have "day jobs." Now there are uninformed posts out here, too -- but its people talking from the heart.

I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place here -- speaking sympathetically to telegonus' liking of Stanley Kauffman while agreeing with you(in this circumstance) that the man had no ability to "read" Hitchcock movies, and no liking for them, anyway.

For me, its always gone like this: I read film critics for two reasons: (1) Good writing -- the best are people who could have written novels or essays or movies; and (2) I just like to hear opinions. I thought Pauline Kael was a great writer, but I didn't agree with her all the time, and some of her "readings" of some movies just seemed plain wrong.

In reading some other Stanley Kauffman reviews (in a book) and some by a 60's critic named Dwight MacDonald, what was clear about both men is that they had no use for "Hollywood." They weren't going to review Doris Day movies or John Wayne movies(unless John Ford or Howard Hawks directed them) or Elvis Presley movies, or even Jerry Lewis movies. They were going to review "non-censored" foreign films and "important" American films. Hitchcock was a problem for them -- they WANTED him to stay down with Elvis. But these French critics kept saying he was great.




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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Hitchcock -- possibly with Kauffman in mind -- offered an observation from his knowledge of twisted psychological profiles: some critics, Hitch said, WANTED to be hated by their readers and the general public for their contrarian opinions --- Hitchcock felt these critics were masochists at heart, and showboaters who liked to attract a crowd.

I recently got a book on Bill Murray, and his hatred of critics goes over to downright cruelty(Murray has supposedly softened, but was notoriously tempermental for years.) Murray's quote: some years ago, he was invited to an event of the New York Film Critics(one of the groups.) Mean Murray said: all the critics looked physically deformed in some way, as if they had each drunk some poison that ruined their faces and bodies.

Mean.

And off point. Of course, actors certainly use critical raves to get Oscars...

...as for me, I gotta love critics for one reason alone:

In 1972, they saved my man Hitchcock from an inglorious, failed last few years of alleged senility and decline. They all raved about Frenzy. From memory: Newsweek(the biggest rave), Time, The New York Times, the LA Times, The New Yorker(by Penelope Gilliatt, not by Kael); Rolling Stone. Those periodicals ALL mattered back then. Also, Roger Ebert, Judith Crist, and even Rex Reed(who hated Topaz.) And Gene Siskel(who didn't much matter then.)

I even recall the second-string NYT critic at that time -- Roger Greenspun -- writing this review for a minor summer 1972 George Peppard movie, The Groundstar Conspiracy: "This movie is a surprising success, and much the best movie I've seen all summer except for Hitchcock's Frenzy."

I read some of those reviews at home(we took the magazines) and some at libraries over the years.

Stanley Kauffman wrote something simple about Frenzy -- after all the raves came in. It went like this: "Hitchcock finally has a good script -- and lo and behold, its the director who has come back." But Hitchcock WORKED on that script, and directed the visual stuff (I mean, how do you "write" the rape murder and the potato truck scene?) Kauffman -- aware that he was now under attack and that Vertigo was now considered a masterpiece, conceded that Frenzy was well made and well acted, but...he still wasn't a fan.

And I recall him liking Family Plot a little bit, with a smart lead sentence: "Hitchcock seems to have gotten a second wind in the seventies. First Frenzy and now Family Plot." He was lukewarm to Family Plot, praised it a little and closed with..."the rest, I leave to Hitchcock's crazed worshipers."

Ha.

Critics: love 'em. hate 'em. Use 'em.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In 1972, they saved my man Hitchcock from an inglorious, failed last few years of alleged senility and decline. They all raved about Frenzy. From memory: Newsweek(the biggest rave), Time, The New York Times, the LA Times, The New Yorker(by Penelope Gilliatt, not by Kael); Rolling Stone. Those periodicals ALL mattered back then. Also, Roger Ebert, Judith Crist, and even Rex Reed(who hated Topaz.) And Gene Siskel(who didn't much matter then.)

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I return to note that if one does NOT like or respect film critics very much, that pack of Frenzy raves may not hold much water -- but, "you go with what you got."

I DO think there was a bit of a "lemmings following the leader" feel to the reviews. And the critics responded to seeing Hitchcock "back to basics" -- a wrong man, a psycho killer -- when Marnie, Torn Curtain, and Topaz had been different types of stories for him.

There is also the point that -- especially in the 70's -- film critics seemed to rather "get off on" movies with bleak, ugly, downbeat aspects to them: Midnight Cowboy, Straw Dogs, Clockwork Orange, Deliverance, Chinatown...right on up through Raging Bull and Blue Velvet. Frenzy fit like a glove with those types of films -- and audiences didn't make Frenzy THAT much of a hit -- it was far better liked by the critics. Audiences made BIGGER Hitchcock hits out of Rebecca and Suspicion and Rear Window and To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest....

Still, I basked in all those critics praising my man as "back" and I do like Frenzy -- as much for its non-violent parts (like the first scene between Blaney and Rusk; I find it sharply designed for visuals, and entertainingly acted) as any of the horror.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 7 years ago

One quick thought about Kauffmann (and others) missing the boat on Psycho. Movies that are at all revolutionary are always going to be a test for people who have to be-in-print immediately. Some of the time a critic's going to be on the wavelength of the new thing (maybe even have been waiting for something just like that!) but sooner or later whatever is new about it won't be something a given critic feels any affinity for.... and then, possibly to his or her horror, their non-plussed or even hostile response is forever on the record. The revolution happened, and they didn't get it. It happens to everyone. Check out Roger Ebert's overwhelmed, ultra-negative original response to Blue Velvet some time.

A final more specific thought: deep down I'm a little surprised that people with a real breadth of film knowledge and high-art tastes like Kauffmann couldn't find more to enjoy and praise in Psycho. The Shower scene *is* the kind of breakthrough that they should have been able to understand and get off providing some perspective on. Kauffman knew Eisenstein and Gance and other experimenters from the '20s and *should* I'd have thought been able to warmly greet the Shower scene as a return to that sort of aggressive editing and camera placement. Similarly, you'd expect a high-art guy to admire Herrmann's cutting-edge score. *Some* admiration of this sort is there in Kauffmann's review but it's wrapped up in so much disdain for Hitchcock's assumed low-browness that it barely registers. (Now I think about it, Spielberg's often inspired somewhat similar reviews over the years.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

One quick thought about Kauffmann (and others) missing the boat on Psycho. Movies that are at all revolutionary are always going to be a test for people who have to be-in-print immediately. Some of the time a critic's going to be on the wavelength of the new thing (maybe even have been waiting for something just like that!) but sooner or later whatever is new about it won't be something a given critic feels any affinity for.... and then, possibly to his or her horror, their non-plussed or even hostile response is forever on the record. The revolution happened, and they didn't get it.

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This famously happened with the Newsweek critic on Bonnie and Clyde. Joe Morgernstern, I think. After seeing the movie again, he requested the space to write ANOTHER review, fessing up that "he missed the revolution" the first time, and apologizing. And Bonnie and Clyde was RELEASED a second time, with the better secondary reviews driving it. (Pauline Kael's rave replacing Bosley Crowther's pan.

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It happens to everyone. Check out Roger Ebert's overwhelmed, ultra-negative original response to Blue Velvet some time.

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Yep. I think poor Roger missed the boat more than a few times. Its a lesser film, but Wait Until Dark got an unfair "no stars" review by young Roger. Hell, Alan Arkin deserved two stars just for him.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I have sometimes thought about the pressure a critic must have, seeing a film for the first time and reporting out to the world with NO OTHER OPINIONS to help him or her.

A Washington Post critic named Gary Arnold waited til he saw all the raves on Frenzy to write a pan of it: "They're saying Frenzy is a comeback....no its not." That seemed kinda cowardly to me. If he had written such a bad review early on...different.

I was no critic, but I saw two films at "sneak previews" before reviews came out: Blazing Saddles and Taxi Driver. I thought the first was terrible and had no idea WHAT to think about the second(had I seen greatness, or something like porn?). Soon the reviews (and box office) told the tales. I was shocked that Blazing Saddles became such a hit. I suddenly saw Taxi Driver as a classic.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

A final more specific thought: deep down I'm a little surprised that people with a real breadth of film knowledge and high-art tastes like Kauffmann couldn't find more to enjoy and praise in Psycho. The Shower scene *is* the kind of breakthrough that they should have been able to understand and get off providing some perspective on. Kauffman knew Eisenstein and Gance and other experimenters from the '20s and *should* I'd have thought been able to warmly greet the Shower scene as a return to that sort of aggressive editing and camera placement.

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I call this "critical malpractice." Psycho hater Dwight MacDonald practiced it, too. It was as if these guys spent so much time disgusted by Psycho(for its violence) and mocking it(for being "just another one of his TV shows") that they couldn't SEE the great montage work in front of them(which I don't think any other 1960 film had in this intensity.)

What you can see in the Kauffman review, and I KNOW is in the MacDonald review, is a grudging acceptance that "Hitchcock is very skilled as a director" or something like that, with regard to technical expertise. But neither Kauffman nor MacDonald -- nor an LA Times critic who called "Psycho" "a misuse of Hitchocck's great cinematic talent" could see their way clear to praise.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Similarly, you'd expect a high-art guy to admire Herrmann's cutting-edge score.

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Practically no critic took note of the depth, width, and breadth of that score -- it makes you scream, sure, but it also "infects your mood" from start to finish. Its powerful stuff. Think of the opening "descent" music over Phoenix, or the final "three notes of madness" that end the film. Or the creepy climbing music for Lila's ascent up the hill . Or the way the tightly strung humming strings create a "wall of sound" as Arbogast mounts the stairs...

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*Some* admiration of this sort is there in Kauffmann's review but it's wrapped up in so much disdain for Hitchcock's assumed low-browness that it barely registers.

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(Now I think about it, Spielberg's often inspired somewhat similar reviews over the years.)

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I think at least when Spielberg's hits started coming, everybody figured out how important John Williams scores were to them, from Jaws(scares) to Close Encounters(wonder) to ET(sobbing tears). In some ways, Williams seemed the GREATER talent than Spielberg, actually. Herrmann never quite wrested Hitchcock's prominence away.

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