Why he wasn't nominated for best supporting actor for this movie I'll never understand. He was so good in this role I completely forgot he was Richard Boone. He wasn't even Paladin, Cicero Grimes, Dr. Konrad Styner, or any other role to which he was famously attached.
I'm going to research who was nominated and won that year.
The 1970 nominees for Best Supporting Actor
John Mills, Ryans Daughter
Richard Castellano, Lovers and Other Strangers
Chief Dan George, Little Big Man
Gene Hackman, I Never Sang for My Father
John Marley, Love Story
The winner was John Mills, an urbane British actor who here played a poor deaf-mute with a lot of facial make-up to change his face. This was a rather typical "affliction" win for the Oscar, but there was irony: the front runner was "discovery" Chief Dan George in the Big Movie "Little Big Man." It took an "affliction" performance to knock the Chief out.
John Marley was in Love Story, a blockbuster that I've never seen, but I'm sure Marley is moving in i as the dying girl's father.
Gene Hackman coulda/shoulda been nominated for Best Actor for I Never Sang for My Father, but they gave that nod to Melvyn Douglas(the father) and supporting for the son(Hackman.) Just one year later, Hackman would win Best Actor for The French Connection and never "support" anyone again.
Overweight and funny Italian-American stage actor Richard Castellano was also a "discovery" and heavily promoted for "Lovers and Other Strangers." Within two years, he would appear with John Marley in The Godfather.
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It would be hard for Richard Boone in The Kremlin Letter to push out anyone in that pack. Mills, George and Hackman had preordained slots. Marley was in a blockbuster that needed nominations to prove its Oscar cred. Only Castellano was really "outta nowhere."
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As for Boone's great work in The Kremlin Letter, alas the film was mainly poorly reviewed(as incoherent), not big box office, and decidedly lurid and mean in content. For all his amiable power in the role, Boone is playing a sadist and a pervert in this film -- the Academy wasn't awarding that much in those days. He's a bad guy even when he's a good guy, here. He commits some atrocious murders.
I suppose the real irony is that of his comparatively few film roles, this is the one where Boone totally "owned the movie."
For all his amiable power in the role, Boone is playing a sadist and a pervert in this film -- the Academy wasn't awarding that much in those days.
True. Then fast forward some years to Javier Bardem's supporting actor win for No Country for Old Men with zero amiability in the character.
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I mean no disrespect to Mr. Bardem's performance, but it lacked the "weird warmth" that Boone brought to Ward. There are more colors to the Boone performance and, quite frankly, more star power.
It took some years for the Academy to start nominating bad guys and psychos for Oscars, and sometimes awarding them:
Laurence Olivier, Marathon Man(nominated)
Piper Laurie, Carrie(nominated)
Kathy Bates, Misery(wins)
Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs (wins)
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men (wins)
Robert DeNiro, Cape Fear(nominated -- for a role done equally well by Robert Mitchum , who was NOT nominated.)
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For Boone to play both evil and endearing is to me the bigger acting feat.
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I'm reminded of the all-time great "evil and endearing" peformance that wasn't even nominated: Anthony Perkins in the original 1960 Psycho. 20 years later, that would have been a slam dunk win.
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Alas, as you said, it was the times his performance was working against regarding the Academy.
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Yes. Another issue: Boone may well have not shaken his reputation as a "TV actor." He was great as Paladin(in a certain way) but that kind of "marked him" with the snobbish Academy.
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I'm reminded that The Kremlin Letter uses the Boone character to suggest that United States intelligence services, with a task of protecting millions of lives in the nuclear Cold War, might both hire and CREATE sadists like Ward to do very dirty work "to win the greater good." Boone's amiability is part of that "good." The way Boone's sadism shifts "to the side of good" in the scene with Max Von Sydow, is at once satisfying(Von Sydow is a sadist, himself) and disturbing.
ecarle, I'm going to borrow your quoting style as the quote function here gets a little strange if you try to separate the quotes across the post.
I mean no disrespect to Mr. Bardem's performance, but it lacked the "weird warmth" that Boone brought to Ward. There are more colors to the Boone performance and, quite frankly, more star power.
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You've coined the perfect alliterative description for Boone's performance with "weird warmth."
It took some years for the Academy to start nominating bad guys and psychos for Oscars, and sometimes awarding them:
Laurence Olivier, Marathon Man(nominated)
Piper Laurie, Carrie(nominated)
Kathy Bates, Misery(wins)
Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs (wins)
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men (wins)
Robert DeNiro, Cape Fear(nominated -- for a role done equally well by Robert Mitchum , who was NOT nominated.)
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I've seen all of these but DeNiro's Cape Fear, and times did change because I feel none of these match Boone's Ward. I'm partial to him though, so that might account for some of my opinion.
I'm reminded of the all-time great "evil and endearing" peformance that wasn't even nominated: Anthony Perkins in the original 1960 Psycho. 20 years later, that would have been a slam dunk win.
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True. I have always thought and said that the last scene of Psycho when Perkins starts moving his gaze directly into the camera and we can see the psychopathic evil in him reveal itself as THE creepiest moment in cinema. No action, no movement, no dialogue, just a look in the eyes and a smiling smirk.
This makes me want to analyze and compare Ward and Norman Bates! Another day....
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Boone may well have not shaken his reputation as a "TV actor." He was great as Paladin(in a certain way) but that kind of "marked him" with the snobbish Academy.
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Great point. It's only been in recent years that TV and its actors have received its equal footing with movies as far as critical acclaim and quality are concerned.
ecarle, I'm going to borrow your quoting style as the quote function here gets a little strange if you try to separate the quotes across the post.
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I'm back, with my quoting style, to respond(thankfully)
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I mean no disrespect to Mr. Bardem's performance, but it lacked the "weird warmth" that Boone brought to Ward. There are more colors to the Boone performance and, quite frankly, more star power.
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You've coined the perfect alliterative description for Boone's performance with "weird warmth."
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Hey, thanks. How else can we explain actually sort of LIKING a character as sick and sadistic as Boone's in Kremlin Letter?
Paladin was a straight-on gallant hero part, but Boone retained a lot of that charisma for his later years and roles.
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It took some years for the Academy to start nominating bad guys and psychos for Oscars, and sometimes awarding them:
Laurence Olivier, Marathon Man(nominated)
Piper Laurie, Carrie(nominated)
Kathy Bates, Misery(wins)
Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs (wins)
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men (wins)
Robert DeNiro, Cape Fear(nominated -- for a role done equally well by Robert Mitchum , who was NOT nominated.)
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I've seen all of these but DeNiro's Cape Fear, and times did change because I feel none of these match Boone's Ward. I'm partial to him though, so that might account for some of my opinion.
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Well, me too, for the same reasons. Look, I understand why Richard Boone didn't become a top star like Robert Mitchum or Robert DeNiro. But I like Boone' star QUALITY better. To my taste. (DeNiro plays a bit too dumb and inarticulate a lot of the time.) And he was a major TV star(3rd rated show in the nation) when TV audiences were gigantic and not fragmented.
True. I have always thought and said that the last scene of Psycho when Perkins starts moving his gaze directly into the camera and we can see the psychopathic evil in him reveal itself as THE creepiest moment in cinema. No action, no movement, no dialogue, just a look in the eyes and a smiling smirk.
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Its one of the great shots in cinema history and it seems that the "alchemy" that gives us a classic scene kicked in, big time: how Norman's trembling, troubled face slowly contorts into a satisfied smile..and then a psychopath's leer: the true monster is revealed. The tilting down of the head, the lifting up of his eyes, the darkness in the eyes -- the cinematography, direction and acting all come together.
Anthony Perkins deserved the Oscar for that one scene alone.
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This makes me want to analyze and compare Ward and Norman Bates! Another day....
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A little bit from me: in both cases, the character presents as "amiable" in some way: we like them. But, at the same time, there is something "off" about them, and we're nervous around them. Eventually, their horrific tendencies are revealed: Norman at the end; Ward when we see him kill Bibi Anderson so cruelly yet with initial detachment and friendliness of approach(DURING the killing, HIS psychopathic face emerges.)
There's a movie to see from 1979 that has both Richard Boone and Anthony Perkins in it. Its called Winter Kills. Each man has only a couple of scenes, and they don't share a scene. But those of us who know Ward and Norman think about them all the time...
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Boone may well have not shaken his reputation as a "TV actor." He was great as Paladin(in a certain way) but that kind of "marked him" with the snobbish Academy.
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Great point. It's only been in recent years that TV and its actors have received its equal footing with movies as far as critical acclaim and quality are concerned.
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Yep. Practically interchangeable now.
But in the 60s and 70's, it was a "kiss of death" to be a TV actor trying to be a movie star. Guys like Robert Conrad and Robert Culp couldn't cross the line.
However, guys like James Garner, Steve McQueen, and, to some extent, Richard Boone, were able to move up to movies. They had a certain talent. Garner and Boone had to go back to TV though.
Oscar consideration was always dicey for TV actors. I always felt when James Garner got a Best Actor Oscar nom for "Murphy's Romance"(1985), he had finally broken the curse.