james coburn
is great in this. nice early supporting role.
shareHe was hilarious, although I found the characterization somewhat uneven. He seems normal enough in most of the movie, but drifts in and out of nutty fanaticism. At times, he seems as crazy as Sterling Hayden in Dr. Strangelove.
"Now let's have an intelligent conversation. I'll talk and you listen."
totally agree with theManinOil.
i mean c'mon he calls Garner his best friend and the next thing you know he's shooting at him..
His having "another of his Annapolis moments" further helps accentuate the main point of how crazed the Gung Ho person can be.
share[deleted]
You're right about the performance being uneven, at least if you mean what I think you mean--how he seems understated and wonderful at times, and almost manic and theatrical at others. I guess I'd excuse that the same way I think you have to look at a lot of older films, simply in the fact that over the long arc of film history, acting has gone from overtly theatrical (when most filmmakers still thought of a movie as essentially a filmed play) to a mode more suited for film itself, and in '64 you still had a lot of vestiges of the old style and many jumps outside the bounds of subtlety and underplay.
Anyhow...I really loved Coburn in this film. When he was used well, he was just so good. And Garner and Douglas are something else again, as is Julie Andrews. The antiwar monologue delivered by Garner's character when he's talking to Andrews' mother in the back garden is worth the price of admission, and ought to be read in Congress once a month to this day. When I look at most screenplays these days and then run across a film like this one on the odd night, it just makes me cringe for the state of filmmaking today--or more accurately, for the state of the film audience, most of which seems to be satisfied with wall-to-wall CGI and scripts that sound like they were written by 14-year-old fanboys (or the better ones do, anyhow).
You are clueless. You are way off your interpretation.
Coburn's performance is brilliant, spot on, multi-layered, and a veritable lesson in acting comedy for the screen.
That you see it as "uneven" tells me you are either too unsophisticated to appreciate it's brilliance, or you are too young. Windom is also brilliant, as is, Douglas.
In fact, the entire cast is brilliant. But the best writing, the most interesting and funny role is that of Coburn's, who steals the film. Hands down.
Yeah. Because anybody who disagrees with you has to be clueless, unsophisticated, or young. I am exactly none of those things. If you have to address the person rather than the argument -- which you do, by simply declaring your position and attacking the person -- then I guess you'd want to know, maybe, that I taught English at three large state universities for several years, was in a film program at one of the prominent schools in that field between the coasts, was first assistant with an international film symposium at a different university, have attended Sundance, have written for publication for 30 years, have published film reviews, and am young only in my own head.
So...try again. If what you meant to say was "I disagree, I think Coburn's performance was brilliant, etc.," then do so. But speculating about the personal background of the person who disagrees with you as a way of corroborating your own argument is just internet-twittish.
i thought it was a very good perf.
The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.-James Madison
You seem to be incapable of recognizing the difference between Coburn's performance, his character, and the writing of it. You may say, "the writing is uneven for the character," or, "the character is uneven."
But to say that Coburn is uneven because of the changes his character undergoes is childish, immature, and simplistic.
Coburn is brilliant because he made those vacillations in his characters actions thoroughly believable and funny, the essence of comedic acting.
Try again.
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