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James Mason and Robert Preston in Child's Play (1972) -- NOT the One About the Killer Doll

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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NOTE: "Child's Play" is noted here at moviechat and at imdb as a 1973 release. But I recall it as a 1972 release and it has been listed that way, too. I'll pick 1972.

Came 1988 the movie title "Child's Play" became the sole domain of stories attendant to a "psycho killer doll" named Chucky, who, "on topic" enough, I suppose, killed numerous victims with a knife and ended up joining Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy Krueger and...Mrs. Bates? in the pantheon of scary movie monsters. (Note in passing: I always see Mrs. Bates, not Norman Bates, as the "monster" in Psycho, truly terrifying when she attacks.)

As with those other shockers, Child's Play got its share of sequels (including "Bride of Chucky") , AND a remake.

But I am old enough to remember an EARLIER "Child's Play" from 1972 that had nothing to do with a killer doll. And I was alive and old enough in 1972 (dates me, yes?) to be aware of THAT Child's Play. The Chucky movie stole the title.

It is a backwards nod to my teenage movie fandom that I really wanted to see "Child's Play" back in 1972 -- the one NOT about the killer doll -- because of its two stars: James Mason and Robert Preston.

Even in 1972,Mason and Preston weren't very starry stars to be headlining a Hollywood film, but they were, perhaps, something MORE: two actors with extremely powerful VOICES, and great charisma. In the universe of Child's Play(not the one about the doll), James Mason is the pathetic, put-upon "good guy" whereas Preston is the flashy , flamboyant "bad guy" -- and the playout on those grounds alone is fascinating. It was fascinating to watch Preston as "the bad guy" -- one realizes that his "bad guy con man" in The Music Man was NEVER unlikeable, even before his redemption at the end. We just LIKE Robert Preston, with his over-energetic salesman's cheeriness and zest for being alive.

I did some checking. After hitting it big in movies in 1962 as The Music Man(a childhood favorite and still my second favorite film of 1962), Robert Preston did only two more movies(the serious "All the Way Home" and the goofy "Island of Love" with Walter Matthau) before becoming a stage star -- mainly on Broadway but also in Los Angeles. It took until 1972 for Robert Preston to come back to movies. One of them was great, a real favorite of mine: Sam Peckinpah's out-of-character gentle rodeo Western "Junior Bonner" (Preston played macho Steve McQueen's macho and beloved dad) and..."Child's Play."

And it took me 49 years to see Child's Play(not the one about the doll) and...eh, its not much. But it is fascinating in its own ways.

For instance, it was directed by Sidney Lumet, right BEFORE his run of Serpico(1973), Orient Express(1974 -- with Tony Perkins and Martin Balsam), Dog Day Afternoon(1975), and Network(1976). Quite a damn run -- and Child's Play doesn't really belong with them, even as it comes right before them.

I guess Lumet did the film because a very powerful and famous Broadway producer -- David Merrick -- was behind it, and "Child's Play" had been much honored as a Broadway play and back then, it was pretty inevitable that hit Broadway plays had to come to the screen.

Indeed, the movie that "Child's Play" brushes up against in the Hitchcock canon is really "Frenzy" which also came out in 1972 . for this reason: the screenwriter of Frenzy, Anthony Shaffer had had HiS big Broadway hit in "Sleuth" and THAT movie came out in 1972 with heavyweights Oliver and Caine in the leads.

But I daresay: Child's Play and, to a lesser extent, Sleuth, may have been "big deal thrillers" on the stage, but they aren't very satisfying movie thrillers In contrast, Frenzy WAS an involving movie thriller.

My research on Child's Play finally gave me the answer to something I read years ago: that producer David Merrick had fired Marlon Brando from a movie "simply so he could fire Marlon Brando"(I think Pauline Kael got that story from someone she knew.) Now I learn: Brando was fired from "Child's Play." Didn't hurt too bad: The Godfather came out the same year.

So "Marlon Brando and James Mason" in Child's Play become the less prestigious "Robert Preston and James Mason" in Child's Play but...again....they were two actors I loved to listen to.

James Mason made a lot of movies, but one I remember well is Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" of 1959, where Mason was the villain confronting hero Cary Grant.

James Mason is 13 years down the road from North by Northwest in "Child's Play," and it is kind of sad: compared to the smooth, trim, skintight-faced man of the HItchocck thriller, Mason here looks old, saggy-skinned, disheveled, and very tired. Evidently right after making NXNW at age 50, Mason suffered a massive heart attack. He lived on, but reduced, and by Child's Play...VERY reduced.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

But the great voice was still there. And Mason's CHARACTER in Child's Play is meant to be tired, burned out, sad, and pathetic. The dramatic crux of Child's Play is pretty simple: at the Catholic boys' school at which they both teach, James Mason is the taskmaster who is hated by the students and Robert Preston is the virile "everybody's pal" who is loved by the students. And the more that the pathetic and paranoid Mason tries to openly battle the charismatic Preston..the more paranoid and pathetic he looks. To the students. To the priests who employ him.

There's a bit of Richard Blaney and Bob Rusk from Frenzy in Child's Play. In Frenzy, Blaney is the born loser and Rusk is "everybody's pal," but they aren't enemies, in fact, Rusk is one of BLANEY'S pals. Still, Robert Preston in Child's Play has some of that Rusk quality: we see through him even as others don't.

There are "thriller" aspects to Child's Play. Preston's cheery Mr. Chips seems to have sinister intentions behind his smiles. And the boys are ganging up on certain boy victims and hurting them -- one loses an eye. Is Preston commandeering the boys as his cult members? To maim and kill? WHY? Is he a psycho, or something more supernatural?

I can't particularly say. One reason that "Child's Play"(the one without the doll) has disappeared into the black hole of film is that it is ultimately not very satisfying. Not much REALLY happens. The "psycho or satan?" question isn't really answered -- so that the film can stay "deep." Much of the dialogue is poetic, profound and pretentious...the stage roots are showing. (I'm reminded that after Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple hit big, almost every Neil Simon play ended up a movie -- and a lot of them didn't deserve to BE movies.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I suppose the biggest draw to me, personally to 1972's Childs Play was always "Mason and Preston together." Not the kind of casting that Hollywood banked on in 1972...but what a great chance for two great actors to share the screen and to bounce their great voices off of each other. (As a matter of comparison, on stage, Mason's role was given to Fritz Weaver and Preston's to Pat Hingle...good actors with even less star power than Mason or Preston.)

I suppose the biggest oddity of seeing this "Child's Play" was waiting all these years to see it -- more to the point, to have it AVAILABLE (via Amazon Prime) to view.

I saw these 1972 movies IN 1972: The Godfather, Frenzy, What's Up Doc, Deliverance, The Heartbreak Kid, The Poseidon Adventure, Junior Bonner, The Getaway. I think I saw 1972's Cabaret it 1973. It was a long time ago.

What a long wait to add Child's Play to the list...