Rod Steiger OWNS This Movie

Rod Steiger OWNS this movie. It only really comes alive when he appears in all his glowering, flamboyant hammery. Everybody else is pretty mopey and starry eyed or grim.

Steiger had been around in movies since at least 1954 and his famous taxicab scene with Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. A Method Actor like Brando, Steiger(by his own admission) simply didn't have pretty boy looks , and he had a weight problem that only got worse(he used it to advantage to play the bullying cop in In the Heat of the Night.)

But in Doctor Zhivago, whenever Steiger appears, his "power" seems to take over the movie, push everybody else away. He even manages to look a bit handsome what with the beard and the laser-focus eyes and the hint of pain behind his power.

This becomes even more manifest when, after leaving the movie for about an hour, he surprisingly turns up in the third act(his face covered in snow in one scene) and AGAIN the movie has an interesting character in it.

Hollywood took notice...for a little bit. The same year as Doctor Z, Steiger came thisclose to Oscar with The Pawnbroker(Lee Marvin's drunk clowning in Cat Ballou beat him.)

Within two years, Steiger had his 1967 role in "In the Heat of the Night" and his Oscar in 1968. An attempt was made to make him a leading man , and movies like Waterloo(as Napoleon) and No Way to Treat a Lady(as a master of disguise psycho strangler) gave him good parts.

But it didn't last -- "I just couldn't attract the ladies" Steiger said. He finished his years as he began -- a good character actor with a lotta ham and a great voice.

Still, there he is in Doctor Zhivago, pretty much taking over the whole movie -- he should really have been the main face on the poster, the movie is pretty much his.