Tony Curtis: 1925-2010

A year ago I wrote the following about Tony Curtis who died yesterday:

Tony Curtis: One of the last of the true Hollywood stars

Reading Tony Curtis’ new autobiography ‘American Prince’ last week made me realise that his output was pretty poor considering he was in movies from the late 1940s through to the ‘80s. Curtis admits his career took a nosedive towards the end of the ‘60s to the point where if he didn’t work outside the United States he didn’t work. There are several explanations put forward for this from anti-Semitism to a reaction against his perceived poor treatment of Janet Leigh during their marriage but the most likely, I feel, is that when Tony Curtis needed another strong presence on the screen to help his star to shine brightly. Anything he made before 1957 has pretty much been forgotten with the exception of ‘Winchester ‘73’ (1950) in which he had a very small role and the entertaining but overlong ‘Trapeze’ (1956). Likewise, his output post-1960 was almost uniformly poor – ‘The Boston Strangler’ (1968) providing a rare gem. However, Curtis is one of those stars who has managed to cement a place in the list of Hollywood greats by virtue of a handful of excellent movies made in a short space of time. Between 1957 and 1960, Curtis starred in ‘The Sweet Smell of Success’, ‘The Defiant Ones’, ‘The Vikings’, ‘Some Like it Hot’ and ‘Spartacus’ which, by anyone standards, are five top-drawer movies. Perhaps we can learn from this that Tony Curtis was at his best when playing opposite another strong male lead (Burt Lancaster in ‘Sweet Smell...’, Sidney Poitier in ‘Defiant Ones’, Kirk Douglas in ‘Vikings’, Jack Lemmon in ‘Some Like it Hot’ and Douglas again, along with Laurence Olivier in ‘Spartacus') and when, after the success of these roles, he was expected to carry a film all by himself, his limitations as an actor were exposed and his star power is what carried him through to be remembered with such affection.

I love Tony Curtis. I think he is a great star and when he made a good movie, they were great and he was great in them, but rather like his good friend Frank Sinatra he couldn’t quite get along without someone of equal stature to play off. He needed someone to challenge him for his best to brought out and we can be thankful that for four short years he was regularly challenged as he always rose to the occasion.

Vatican II: This time it's personal.

'The Agony and the Ecstasy' (1965) ****

'The Shoes of the Fisherman' (1968) **

'The Pope Must Die' (1991) *

'Angels and Demons' (2009) ***

'Foul Play' (1978) ****

'Sister Act' (1992) ***

Pope Benedict XVI: A big Farrelly Brothers fan

Pope Benedict XVI visits Britain this week with much controversy surrounding his trip. Not only has there been widespread incredulity over the reported £12 million cost to British tax-payers for the visit, there is also expected to be a number of protests relating to the child sex abuse scandal that the Catholic Church is engulfed in. The current Pope’s reputation has always suffered in comparison to his charismatic predecessor, John Paul II who, though no more progressive on ethical issues relating to contraception, abortion and homosexuality, tried to foster good relationships with other faiths and had what might be called the common touch which he user to great effect on his extensive travels across the world. Benedict seems rather stuffy and awkward in comparison. He seems to have a dreadful habit of saying the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time and tends to fan the flames of dissent when trying to defend and promote Catholicism, which, lest we forget, is the primary responsibility of his role. His handling of the many child sex abuse scandals has been particularly poor with reluctance to fully condemn the actions not only of those responsible for the abuses but also those who helped cover them up, who had knowledge of the crimes but didn’t act and particularly those in high office who merely re-deployed those guilty into different jobs, some even taking roles that had direct contact with children.

This blog is primarily about films – watching them, criticising them, discussing, thinking, reading and talking about them, and most importantly loving them – and it is also supposed to be fun. However, when an organisation that has so much to say about morality fails to deal swiftly and satisfactorily with heinous abuses carried out by the representatives of their church, it stirs even the most laid back of us into some sort of action, even if it’s protest as mild as this one. You will all doubtless be sick of reading about these subjects in by now so all I will say is that the Catholic Church needs to wake up from the slumber it has been in for so long. An organisation run by old men with old ideas who promote doctrine and dogma above the core beliefs the religion was founded on and preach hypocrisy can only fall into an irreversible decline. It may already have entered that state.

* * * * *

Anthonty Quinn as Pope Kiril, the fast-track pontiff.

So, back to movies and in keeping with the papal theme I’ve been looking at some Hollywood Popes. They are pretty rare in comparison to movies about priests but I guess the ratio of Popes to priests is always going to be low. From Spencer Tracy to Paul Bettany via Bing Crosby, Robert Donat and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, plenty of actors have donned a dog collar but very few have got the Ring of the Fisherman on their finger.

The most famous portrayal of a real Pontiff is probably Rex Harrison’s turn as Julius II in the 1965 epic ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’. The film, which was a box-office disaster on release, tells the story of the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Harrison’s irascible warrior-Pope locks horn’s with Charlton Heston’s Michelangelo who paints the ceiling only out of a sense of duty to God. In what is essentially a two-hander, both actors do a rather good job in making the film entertaining as neither character is particularly likeable and they spend much of the film arguing and being generally pig-headed before coming to realise that they are similar in many ways. In their weaker moments, the two men seem racked with self doubt and seem acutely aware of their personal failings whilst their public faces are arrogant, bullish and totally impervious to criticism. In the end we discover that both men are driven by their faith as they believe that their talents (as a leader and artist) are God-given. ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’ is a very interesting and enjoyable movie. It is much shorter than most epics of the period and deserves a better reputation than as a flop that cast granite-jawed Charlton Heston as the effete dwarf Michelangelo. It was directed by the great Carol Reed, who spent half his time making peace between the warring co-stars, and it looks fabulous. Not quite as fabulous as the real Sistine Chapel but still pretty good.

We move next to a far from arrogant, far from bullish and very reluctant Pope – Kiril Lakota in ‘The Shoes of the Fisherman’ (1968). Like ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’, ‘The Shoes of the Fisherman’ is adapted from a best selling book, is an expensively assembled picture designed to be a showpiece for the studio that produced it, and failed to pull in the crowds. This is one of my cinematic guilty pleasures. I know it’s slow and has an overblown sense of its own worthiness but there is something really fascinating about it, not least because it actually has some interesting things to say about the way the Catholic Church is run. Anthony Quinn is a Russian priest (Lakota) who is released from a Siberian prison camp just in time for Pope Pius XIII (John Gielgud is full ‘rent-a-Shakespearean-actor’ mode) to make him a cardinal. Lakota is reluctant enough at this juncture so imagine his surprise when the ham Pope dies and, after a lengthy conclave, he is chosen as the new Bishop of Rome. The rest of the film concerns itself with tackling three points: Church opposition to progressive theology (Kiril is friends with a radical priest and must censure him), the lack of interaction between the laymen and those high up in the Catholic hierarchy (Kiril is told that he cannot go out around Rome at night, but he goes anyway) and whether a wealthy religion can do more to help those in need (the new Pope uses his coronation to vow to use every penny he can raise to help the world’s hungry and poor). Anthony Quinn is probably better in roles that let him express his personality more than this. Here he wanders around with a permanent harrowed look on his face, which is perfectly understandable for a man who has gone from hard labour in the wilderness of Siberia to be head of the Catholic Church in a matter of weeks. However, it does make for a pretty miserable central character and in the hands of a worse actor the movie would have really stunk. Laurence Olivier appears as the Russian premier with an accent straight out of a Vodka advert. Olivier was in that period where he turned up in massive Hollywood productions, normally to play a foreigner, and basically took the piss out of the whole thing before running off to the bank with his enormous pay packet whilst the film’s producers slapped each other on the back for brining their movie some gravitas.

All of that sounds pretty negative but there are some good things about it too, not least the supporting turns from Leo McKern and Vittorio DeSica. The best thing about it is the way the film uses all the rituals, mystery and drama of the conclave as the major set-piece of the movie’s first half. I find all of that pretty exciting and Michael Anderson, the director, stages the whole process very well. Admittedly the final third of the movie seems very dated but it is worth remembering that the book was written at the height of the Cold War.

Papal elections are central to the woeful Robbie Coltrane vehicle ‘The Pope Must Die’ (1991) which came off the back of the surprise international success of ‘Nuns on the Run’ (1988). I won’t dwell on this film too much as it’s very poor and extremely unfunny. The plot centres on a simple parish priest being elevated to the papacy by virtue of a mistake in announcing the name of the Mafia’s preferred candidate. Vatican conspiracies also feature heavily, of course, in the literature of Dan Brown and ‘Angels and Demons’ (2009) features the selection of a new Pope as background to the story of violence towards the favoured cardinals. ‘Angels and Demons’ is pretty good despite being totally nonsensical. It’s exciting and that is all you can ask from this type of movie.

On final point: Hollywood Popes all seem to be in danger. All of the films mentioned here involve the death, near-death or murder of a Pope so they are obviously seen as a disposable breed by film-makers. Even the finger-tapping, Gilbert-and-Sullivan-loving Pope visiting San Francisco in the wonderful comedy-thriller ‘Foul Play’ (1978) is the target of assassins, though he seems to enjoy himself as even more than his counter part in ‘Sister Act’ (1992) who was probably praying to the good Lord to end his life before the annoying, timid one let loose.

TMILN's 100 Favourites - 98

98. The Departed (2006)
Dir: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg

A policeman, working undercover in the Boston mafia, discovers there is a mafia mole within the police force and must work quickly to expose him before his own cover is blown.

Hollywood has been littered with remakes over the last decade with everything from TV shows to foreign horror movies to all-time classics getting the once over. The majority have been either forgettable or pointless but some have defied this trend, none more so that ‘The Departed’. Martin Scorsese, who finally won the long-deserved recognition of the Academy voters, moved the action of the Hong Kong action movie ‘Infernal Affairs’ (2002) to Boston and the result is tense, brutal and magnificent. Scorsese is back in the territory to which he is most associated – the crime thriller – and he displays all the assurance that made him the most revered director working in Hollywood today. Despite a running time of two and a half hours not a scene is wasted nor a plot twist unnecessary, and the tension is racked up with rare skill to each of the movies dramatic, often violent, climaxes. Scorsese is ably abetted by the cast with DiCaprio and Nicholson as assured in their performances as I’ve come to expect though it’s the supporting turns of Alec Baldwin and, in particular, Martin Sheen that stand out. Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg could easily have been lost amongst their more accomplished co-stars but both are impressive and hint at greater depths than they are usually employed to show on screen.

TMILN's 100 Favourites - 99

99. Cabaret (1972)
Dir: Bob Fosse
Starring: Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Joel Grey, Helmut Griem, Fritz Wepper

Berlin, 1931: With National Socialism on the rise an English academic starts an unlikely friendship with an American nightclub singer.

Like Holly Golightly, Sally Bowles must be one of Hollywood’s most recognisable female characters. It was the role that suggested that Liza Minnelli could go on to have a career comparable to her late mother Judy Garland. Minnelli won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the care-free, almost reckless Sally who spends her nights entertaining Berliners at the seedy Kit Kat Club and her performance is excellent, and not only when she’s belting out Kander and Ebb’s numerous show-stopping numbers. Michael York shows himself to be a fine actor as the bi-sexual Brian, surely the best role of his career. In fact neither York nor Minnelli were ever to make a movie to match ‘Cabaret’, but then so few films can touch upon a film so brilliantly atmospheric. This is due in no-small part to Joel Grey’s performance as the Kit Kat Club’s creepy, Nazi-baiting MC, a relatively minor role but one that allows Grey to steal the film from his talented co-stars. However, the real star of the show is the director Bob Fosse. A former Broadway dancer turned choreographer, ‘Cabaret’ is surprisingly light on dancing but the perfectly realised combination of sordid pleasure, hedonism, political unrest and fear shows that Fosse was a great talent in more fields than one.

Soooooo 2010

Inception (2010) ****
Up (2009) *****
Shutter Island (2010) ***

"BBC Three are showing 'Anchorman', you say?" Carl Fredicksen feels my pain

Last week, something very strange things happened to me. No, it’s not that after seven weeks away from the keyboard I settled down to type a new entry for the blog. The strange thing was that in the space of three nights I watched three movies, none of which are more than 18 months old. This might not sound unusual but for The Man in Lincoln’s Nose watching three recent releases in succession is akin to spotting Halley’s Comet. My movies in my DVD collection come almost exclusively from before I was born 28years ago and any regular readers will have come to the conclusion that my personal motto is ‘they don’t make ‘em like that anymore’.

They certainly never used to make films quite like Christopher Nolan’s current blockbuster ‘Inception’ (2010), which opened in UK cinemas a couple of weeks ago and has, so far, been the smash hit of a summer dominated by remakes and sequels. If you happen to have been living in some sort of cocoon recently, the plot is about a team of people who can ‘invade’ the dreams of others with a view to finding out the best kept secrets of the victim. They are challenged to carry out the much harder task of planting an idea into the brain of a young businessman whose cold, tyrannical father has died, leaving his son a wildly successful string of businesses. Most say it can’t be done, but troubled Leonardo DiCaprio says it’s definitely possible, especially as he stands to end his exile from his children (he’s on the run as his wife died in suspicious circumstances) if the task is carried out successfully. That is about as much as I can give you without spoiling the many plot elements and twists of this fine thriller. In fact parts of the story are so confusing that you may have to surrender a couple of week s in the immediate aftermath of seeing it to have the sort of internal dialogue that even Raymond Babbitt would have given up on. Nolan was working on the script for over eight years and whilst all that toil still couldn’t deliver a movie without any holes in its plot, we would do well to remember that this is a science fiction movie and it makes enough sense to let us bend our minds in Nolan’s favour.

Where ‘Inception’ really sets itself apart from the rest of the summer’s output is its cast. Every one of the major roles is occupied by actors of real ability as opposed to just a star name. DiCaprio’s boyish good looks are going. He’s only 35 but he’s already starting to look a bit rough around the edges so that in mind it’s a good job he can not only act but also seems impervious to bad decisions when it comes to picking projects. Here he is ably supported by indie flick favourites Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon Levitt, the cast’s standout performer. Brit Tom Hardy looks set to be the next big export to Hollywood whilst Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe are as perfectly believable as one can be playing men whose dreams are being manipulated. Even Marion Cotillard, in a small role, makes the most of what screen time she is afforded. Producers of movies such as ‘The Expendables’ (2010) would do well to remember that it’s very easy to make a summer blockbuster populated by familiar faces, but if none of them can act then you film will be forgotten before it even makes it to DVD. ‘Inception’ will last a lot longer in the mind and given the quality of the entertainment it’s almost a pity that sequels to the movie itself will be cluttering up our screens in the coming summers.

* * * * *

Another movie that producers who care about quality as well as financial success should learn from is the Disney-Pixar phenomenon ‘Up’ (2009). ‘Up’ is about a widowed curmudgeon who attempts to fulfil a life-long dream aided, and sometimes hindered, by a stowaway boy scout, a talking dog, a temperamental, giant bird and thousands of helium balloons. It says something pretty sad about the movie industry that, these days, the majority of characters who make you care about them and evoke genuine emotion within you aren’t played by actors but are computer generated. I don’t think I have spoken to many people, men, women or children, who haven’t admitted to shedding a few tears whilst watching ‘Up’. It’s certainly tugs on your heart strings with quite an old fashioned sense of love, loss and the emptiness that results... and that’s all in the first ten minutes! Maybe this is the problem. Maybe today’s audiences will only allow a film to come with a large slice of sentimentality if it’s animated. They can always pass it off as being ‘aimed at children with a few jokes for the parents thrown in’. That way the old-world, tear-jerking elements can be accepted. This begs the question what is wrong with a bit of sentimentality now and again? Young adults now are encouraged to be cynical of anything that wants to make you get a lump in your throat and that is sad. Cinema shouldn’t just be chewing gum for the eyes. Now and again it should drag you in, strip you down and leave you feeling heartbroken, heart warmed or, as in ‘Up’s case, both together.

Anyway, one mustn’t digress. Suffice to say that anyone from the age of 5 to 105 should check this brilliant movie out at the earliest opportunity. It is an admirable fusion of old and modern Hollywood and, what’s more, it has something very pertinent to say about the danger of hero worship, a lesson well headed on a weekend when one of the nation’s most popular radio stations spoke about nothing but Will Ferrell, a man whose career I am all to happy to see has crashed and burned.

* * * * *

Last, and I’m afraid least, from last week’s viewing was Martin Scorsese’s ‘Shutter Island’ (2010). This is a well made but predictable psychological thriller that marks something of a departure from the director’s usual output. This isn’t a problem as Scorsese has made departures before and come up trumps (‘Raging Bull’ (1980), ‘After Hours’ (1985), 'The Age of innocence' (1993)). Leonardo DiCaprio is again the star but this is more on a level with the disappointing, meandering ‘Gangs of New York’ (2002) then his excellent Scorsese projects ‘The Aviator’ (2004) and ‘The Departed’ (2006). The problem with ‘Shutter Island’ is that it’s been done before, not necessarily better, but definitely often. It also suffers from being more implausible than a movie like ‘Inception’ which isn’t even set in our version of the universe.

It’s very difficult to criticise Scorsese as his films always have something to recommend them. ‘Shutter Island’ is no different in fact it’s perfectly watchable. The problem is more one of reputation. Scorsese, for me and for many others, exists in the absolute top echelon of movie makers. He is probably the only person in that group still living so his less successful efforts are more apparent to me than someone like Hitchcock or Lang whose weaker efforts are ignored by the revivalists. In that respect I have no doubt that in fifty years time the Scorsese revivals will be free of ‘Shutter Island’.

TMILN's 100 Favourites - 100

100. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
Dir: Blake Edwards
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Buddy Ebsen, Patricia Neal, Martin Balsam

A struggling writer and a free-spirited call-girl start an affair but reality seems destined to get in the way.

As iconic roles go there are few to rival Audrey Hepburn’s turn as Holly Golightly in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’. The film would have been a very different experience had Marilyn Monroe been cast as originally planned. Truman Capote, on whose story the movie is based, wanted Monroe but surely she would have been too overt, too ‘Marilyn’ for the film to work in this era of Hollywood. Most of the more salacious aspects of the book were toned down or removed but what remains is an excellent picture with two distinct halves. The first is fairly care free and light as the romance between neighbours begins and we see into Holly’s lifestyle of parties, late nights and the most famous ‘walk of shame’ ever. However, as the story progresses both characters have to face up to the aspects of their lives that they would like to ignore or they thought had been consigned to history’s dustbin. With the regrettable exception of Mickey Rooney as a Japanese pervert, everyone is on good form here, particularly Hepburn who moves from free-spirited to haunted without losing the basic core of the character.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Re-Imagined Detective

Sherlock Holmes (2009) *

Chaplin (1992) *****

Robert Downey, Jr. using his BlackBerry to keep up to date with 'The Man in Lincoln's Nose'... possibly.

I don’t know about you but when I go on holiday the holiday begins as soon as I get to the airport. The sitting around trying not to drink too much, trying aftershaves that I will never buy and getting frisked by a large woman in slacks are all part of the excitement. My joy really increases when I board the plane and we take off as I love flying almost as much as I enjoy long train journeys. However on my recent flight to Istanbul (great city, loved it, go if you get the chance) the soothing ointment of the flight had a rather nasty, irritating, mockney fly in it – Guy Ritchie’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

Released towards the end of last year, the film has been a roaring success. It will doubtless spawn several sequels which will make large amounts at the box office, Ritchie’s stock in America is at an all-time high and it won Robert Downey, Jr. a Golden Globe. However, the film follows what could be called the ‘Virgin’ model. You have a product that you think is pretty good but to ensure that it gets more publicity and a better chance of selling well you pay to use an established brand name. Companies do it with Richard Branson; Ritchie has done it with his film about a bare-knuckle-boxing, all action detective who happens to live in Victorian London. The character bares very little resemblance to Sherlock Holmes as most people know him (via the books, Basil Rathbone’s film series or the television incarnation with Jeremy Brett) but with the Holmes name attached the film was always likely to have a large following. There are Sherlock Holmes fans that went to see what was done to their beloved sleuth, action movie fans who liked the massive set pieces and blood-letting, and sadistic types who were hoping to see an old favourite roughed up by cinema’s Jamie Oliver. What the film amounts to is an eye-catching but ultimately silly, confusing and wearisome picture that, mercifully, will not linger too long in the memory. The plot is so difficult to follow and so full of Guy Ritchie’s usual, unfathomable London-accented tripe that it feels like you are watching and adaptation of Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time’ written by the Mitchell brothers. Defenders of the movie will say that it is a ‘re-imagining’ in the style of how Tim Burton handled ‘Planet of the Apes’ (2001) and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (2009) but Burton at least kept the essence of the originals in his work. Ritchie plainly knew that after a few duds at the box-office he needed a sure fire hit to ensure he would be in a position to continue to make feature films as a career. He hit the jackpot by pretty much doing the opposite of what has been done in the Daniel Craig era James Bond movies – take a serious, somewhat dour series of stories and make them fast-paced and ridiculous. Call me an old fart but I like my Sherlock Victorian, not from the Queen Vic.

* * * * *

Speaking of Tim Burton, Robert Downey, Jr. appears to have aligned his career with Burton’s most famous and frequent collaborator Johnny Depp. Both were considered prodigal talents who were occasionally overshadowed by their dark good looks. They both tried to combat this in their early film careers by not picking obvious heartthrob roles and scored big successes critically doing so in the early 1990s (Depp as ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990), Downey, Jr. in ‘Chaplin’ (1992)). They both had a fairly timid period in the mid-90s, Downey, Jr. due to his drug use and Depp in an attempt to become a more mainstream proposition. Now the two of them seem to alternate between the big summer blockbusters and more interesting, smaller roles. Neither could be considered as more than a supporting player in ‘Tropic Thunder’ (2008) (Downey, Jr.) or ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (Depp) for instance. Neither of them has won the big one yet either but they seem to be there or thereabouts nominations season these days so they can’t be far off a classic ‘it’s their turn’ gesture from the Academy.

For what it’s worth, I think that Downey, Jr. should have won an Oscar for ‘Chaplin’ but he was beaten by just such a sentimental gesture towards Al Pacino. He was a fairly controversial choice to play Britain’s most famous export to Hollywood but his performance was exceptional. Anyone who has read Chaplin’s autobiography will know that he was a man keenly aware of his genius but who worked harder and more obsessively than would be considered normal. Downey, Jr. puts that on the screen. The work ethic, the flickers of self-doubt and the relentless desire for recognition are played perfectly alongside the arrogance, the superficial bragging and political naivety of the real man. For once it was a good thing to be called a proper Charlie.

* * * * *

Don't forget that you can follow me on Twitter @lincolnsnose or twitter.com/lincolnsnose. I will be posting some of my mini-reviews on the blog soon but if you can't wait then from tomorrow use the search #TMILN to find them. Happy tweeting!

More Mini-Reviews on Twitter

Escape to Victory is one of this weeks mini-reviews on twitter.com/lincolnsnose

There are more mini-reviews on The Man in Lincoln's Nose's Twitter feed including:

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1939)

Destry Rides Again (1939)

Die Hard (1988)

Escape to Victory (1981)

Foul Play (1978)

The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

The Hustler (1961)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Ups and Downs of a Handy Man (1975)

Mini-Reviews for Twitter

This week I started to write some mini-reviews of movies for Twitter. If you use Twitter please click the 'Follow Me' link in the top right-hand corner of my blog. If you don't, I will re-print them here next week.

Easy Rider (1969): One of this week's reviews on twitter.com/lincolnsnose

This week's reviewed movies include:

Avatar (2009)
District 9 (2009)
Easy Rider (1969)
Garfield (2004)
The Holiday (2006)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
The Producers (1968)
Remains of the Day (1993)
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Sommarlek (Summer Interlude) (1950)
South Pacific (1958)

Avatar: the new 'Star Wars' or the new 'Titanic'?

Avatar (2009) ***

Titanic (1997) ***

Star Wars (1977) *****

Earlier this month, James Cameron’s ecological epic ‘Avatar’ (2009) got its home cinema release and, predictably for the most hyped movie of the last ten years, the DVD and Blu-Ray sales have been the fastest in history, going against the sharp decline in physical disc sales that has accompanied the age of the download. Whilst this boost will be a temporary one, the more lasting consequence will be how ‘Avatar’s widely publicised ‘immersive experience’ will translate into people’s living rooms. Some movies were made for the big screen and their shortcomings become very obvious on a smaller screen without surround sound. Others can be downsized with their entertainment value and reputation intact. Is ‘Avatar’ another ‘Star Wars’ (1977) or another ‘Titanic’ (1997)?

James Cameron gets to work on the script for the Avatar sequel.

The presence in the queues outside the DVD stores of blue-painted people would appear to hint that science-fiction fans have room in their locker for fanaticism over another movie (and by 2014 its sequel). The almost religious fervour that surrounds 'Star Trek' in all its incarnations, ‘Star Wars’ and fantasy movies such as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) is a thing of ridicule for most of us but it is also the reason these films make so much money and hang around forever in the multiplexes. There is a famous story that George Lucas knew he would at the very least break even with ‘Star Wars’ as the title alone would attract every sci-fi fan in America into the cinemas. Will ‘Avatar’ inspire the same lasting devotion as Lucas’ movies? Unfortunately for James Cameron even with HD technology and bigger TV screens, ‘Avatar’s multiple messages (treatment of the planet, western powers invading countries with no idea of their indigenous culture, the plight of the native American) are so sober, almost po-faced, that it doesn’t have the same sense of fun as ‘Star Wars’ and its deficiencies in not being rip-roaring entertainment are exposed on the small screen where the films technical brilliance is diminished.

Remember ‘Titanic’? It was huge. It was everywhere. It made money by the boat load and had people queuing around the block for repeat viewings when it hit cinemas back in 1997. The sheer scale of the movie had to be admired as a brilliant technical achievement – the sort of spectacle made for a giant cinema screen. If you missed it at the multiplex then you missed the experience of seeing the film as it was intended to be viewed. The effects weren’t as impressive when seen on a television and by dulling the film’s big impact moments you noticed that the script wasn’t very impressive and some of the performances were dreadful – Billy Zane in particular was bad without being bad enough to be funny. ‘Avatar’ looks certain to follow the same pattern. I would watch it again if it was re-released in the cinema in, say five years time, but I would find it difficult to whip up any enthusiasm for a small screen repeat.

‘Titanic’ obviously wasn’t the first film made with a view to big-screen spectacle. Since D.W. Griffith got his hands on a camera numerous film-makers have undertaken projects that were specifically designed to use the grand scale of a cinema screen. Where Cameron went wrong with both ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar’ is that you get the feeling that he believed on both occasions that he was making the greatest movie ever made when he should have been happy to make first class, escapist entertainment, like ‘The Terminator’ (1984) or ‘Aliens’ (1986), that he made his name with in the 1980s. The effects were impressive but they weren’t too big for the home video market whilst the nature of the plot and the movie allowed any script issues to go almost unnoticed. When you went to see ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ (1991) you knew it had nothing to say about the world and it was happy to be a first rate action/ sci-fi movie. ‘True Lies’ (1994) had its tongue firmly in its cheek just like the Bond movies it was clearly influenced by, and was all the better for it in the same way that the humourless Daniel Craig Bond movies seem incredibly dull in comparison to Connery’s or Moore’s. ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar’ both follow on from many of the huge historical epics of the 1950s and 60s – huge production, superb technical achievements, perfect for the big screen but when you watch them on television the dull stretches become much more apparent. How many of us have sat through the perennial Easter showing of ‘Ben Hur’ (1959) more than once? How about ‘The Ten Commandments’ (1956) or ‘The English Patient’ (1996)? What Cameron needs to remember is that big doesn’t necessarily mean great. For every ‘Gone with the Wind’ (1939) there is a ‘Heaven’s Gate’ (1980) and for every Lord of the Rings there is a ‘Hawaii’ (1966).

For condensed news and mini reviews of movies mentioned here, click the 'Follow me' button inthe top right corner of the screen and follow the Man in Lincolns Nose on Twitter.

Follow Me on Twitter

The Man in Lincoln's Nose is now on Twitter. Follow me at http://twitter.com/lincolnsnose for movie news, mini-reviews and general prattle.

Hollywood’s Forgotten Stars: Part 4

In the last of a series of four pieces I will be looking back on five more of Hollywood’s forgotten stars. This week it’s the actors numbered 5 - 1 in my countdown. Can you guess who will come out on top? I hope you enjoy it. As always your comments are more than welcome.

Are these men Hollywood's five most criminally forgotten actors?

N.B.: This list is not intended to be definitive. It is merely intended to highlight the talent of ten largely forgotten actors who played a significant role in Hollywood history, be it as a great box-office star, an Oscar winner, a pioneer or an unfulfilled talent that shone all too briefly. In deciding on my order, I have rated the actors on both their contribution to cinema and how little I perceive them to be remembered by the general public. The biggest star will not necessarily come out on top.

5 – Glenn Ford
In ‘Superman Returns’ (2006), after our hero returns from Krypton to visit his mother, there is a photograph of dear, departed Pa on the mantel piece. The photo is of Glenn Ford, a nod to his role as Jonathon Kent in ‘Superman’ (1978) but also a tribute to a great star and underrated actor who has been largely forgotten. Ford’s career spanned over fifty years, beginning in the late 1930s in a few largely undistinguished roles. The Second World War delayed his crack at stardom but when he was paired with Rita Hayworth in ‘Gilda’ (1946), their on-screen chemistry ensured that Ford became a very hot property. He starred with Hayworth in a further four movies but none of them recaptured ‘Gilda’s spark. Ford specialised in three types of role; weary anti-hero (‘The Secret of Convict Lake’ (1951), ‘The Big Heat’ (1953), ‘The Blackboard Jungle’ (1955)), heroic yet understated cowboy or soldier (‘The Fastest Gun Alive’ (1956), ‘3:10 to Yuma’ (1957), ‘Torpedo Run’ (1958)) and ordinary ‘Joe’ in awkward situation (‘Teahouse of the August Moon’ (1956), ‘Ransom’ (1956), ‘The Gazebo’ (1959)). Usually, though, the film makers would use Ford’s inherent likeability and an extreme situation to get the audience on-side. This is what made Ford a huge star throughout the 1950s and early 60s. Never conventionally good-looking, he was able to move into character parts smoothly but it may be that ‘ordinary guy’ charm that has allowed Ford to be overlooked whilst contemporaries like Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart remain hugely recognisable.
Watch Glenn Ford in: There are a lot to choose from but ‘The Blackboard Jungle’ just has the edge performance-wise over ‘The Big Heat’. It’s the now-clichéd story of a seemingly mild-mannered teacher taking a job in a rough inner-city school but this is the original and the best.

4 – Van Johnson
Having red hair has often been a problem for men in the pursuit of movie superstardom. Those who have made it were not normally seen as ginger on screen. Stan Laurel only appeared in colour once in a government information film; with a few exceptions, Spencer Tracy had gone white by the time he made the majority of his colour movies; Danny Kaye and Robert Redford both went blond; and, believe it or not, Harpo Marx’s hair was actually a wig! Van Johnson was the exception. He was unashamedly red and freckly in an era when that look was shunned for men on screen unless you were either 8 years old or you were the hero’s comedy side kick who dies in scene three. Johnson was a dancer on Broadway when MGM came calling. However it wasn’t his twinkle toes they wanted. It was the boy-next-door looks that MGM desired as they were casting plenty of war pictures and wanted all-American guys to play the parts of servicemen. After a couple of supporting parts Johnson got his big break with the second lead in ‘A Guy Named Joe’ (1943) alongside Tracy. More WWII dramas followed but Johnson’s biggest success of this era was ‘The Thrill of Romance’ (1945), a musical which marked the first of four pairings with Esther Williams. The movies success meant that Johnson topped the box-office chart for 1945. From supporting player to Hollywood’s most bankable star in less than three years, Johnson is an example of how the studio system worked. Stage stars, models or extras were spotted and then carefully groomed for stardom in a few well chosen support parts before being given the big launch in films with the studio’s big names. Johnson’s success continued through the 40s with the same mixture of war and musical pictures – 1949 being a particularly good year for both with ‘Battleground’ following ‘In the Good Old Summertime’. Never nominated for an Academy Award despite working in an era where stardom virtually guaranteed recognition, Johnson’s finest performance came in 1954 in the ensemble piece ‘The Caine Mutiny’. More challenging work followed such as his role as the blind man embroiled in a kidnap plot in ’23 Paces to Baker Street’ (1956). His career stalled in the 60s as his marriage break-up descended into a bitter divorce and never picked up again after just one big screen appearance between 1960 and 1967 but Johnson continued to work until the late 1980s. As an example of what the studio system could do and as a beacon for red headed actors everywhere Van Johnson deserves far more recognition then he is afforded.
Watch Van Johnson in: ‘The Caine Mutiny’ may be primarily remembered for Humphrey Bogart’s last great role but Johnson is a stand out in a powerful cast.

3 – Joseph Cotton
When your most prominent movie roles were opposite Orson Welles it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that very little of the limelight was afforded to you. Joseph Cotton would have been unlikely to complain as without roles in ‘Citizen Kane’ (1941) and ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ (1942) he would never have been a Hollywood name. However, purely in terms of acting ability Cotton was easily the equal of Welles as proved by a string of excellent dramatic performances throughout the 1940s. Starting with his appearance as Jedidiah Leland, Kane’s right hand man, Cotton then made ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ and the wartime thriller ‘Journey into Fear’ (1943) with Welles. All three are excellent movies in their own right with ‘Journey into Fear’ surely ranking as one of the great forgotten thrillers. He was stunning as Uncle Charlie in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ (1943) and then supported Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in the remake of ‘Gaslight’ (1944). This was followed by a sympathetic role in another underrated movie ‘Love Letters’ (1945) as a soldier desperate to find some answers after the murder of his friend. Before the decade was out, Cotton had added a classic western (‘Duel in the Sun’ (1946)) and a classic fantasy (‘Portrait of Jeannie’ (1948)) to his CV and he then returned to thrillers with the seminal ‘The Third Man’ (1949). Cotton was the lead but, again, he was overshadowed by Welles as Harry Lime who doesn’t even appear until the movie is half gone. As a decade of work, Cotton’s output was consistently excellent, yet his great performances have fallen foul to either being forgotten or to the presence of a co-star who went on to bigger things. Is that a reflection on Cotton and indicates that maybe he wasn’t that good? Watch the films and see for yourself.
Watch Joseph Cotton in: A straight choice here between ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ and ‘The Third Man’ with Cotton’s performance in the Hitchcock thriller winning out. He is just so damn menacing. You will never invite your relatives to stay again.

2 – Paul Muni
During the 1940s, the cracks in Hollywood’s studio system were starting to show more than ever. One man’s contract dispute was another man’s big break. In 1941 Paul Muni was one of Warner Brothers’ biggest names with four Academy Award nominations (and one win) under his belt. He had made his name with highly popular and critically acclaimed crime dramas before undertaking a series of historical biopics that usually required him to hide his distinctive features beneath make-up and false beards. Given his status and popularity, the studio assigned him to the gangster picture ‘High Sierra’ (1941). Muni wasn’t having it though and, after effectively being put on suspension, the role went to up-and-coming Humphrey Bogart. Muni made fewer and fewer films from that point on and, from being fairly prolific in the 1930s, ended his life with just twenty-five screen credits to his name. A successful stage career brought him to Hollywood’s attention. In the early days of sound, actors with stage experience were sought after as they were used to speaking lines and being understood. His first movie ‘The Valiant’ (1929) was a death-row drama that set the tone for much of Muni’s early output. It was bleak, realistic and, for it’s time, dealt brutally with its themes. His next two movies, after a return to the stage, were ‘Scarface’ and ‘I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang’ (both 1932). More than any James Cagney picture of the period, these were the best examples of Warners’ gangster/crime output. ‘…Chain Gang’ in particular is a terrific piece of movie-making with Muni’s performance at its core. After another couple of dramas in a similar vein, Muni was cast in the title role in ‘The Story of Louis Pasteur’ (1936). This was quite a departure from Muni’s previous films but when he was awarded the Oscar for his performance it ensured that similar roles came his way, most notably in ‘The Life of Emile Zola’ (1937). After leaving Warners, Muni’s roles became far less frequent but that meant that he only picked quality such as ‘Angel on My Shoulder’ (1946) and his last role in ‘The Last Angry Man’ (1959).
Watch Paul Muni in: To convince you that Paul Muni didn’t need heavy accents, false beards or hours of make-up to electrify the screen watch ‘I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang’. Mercifully, they chose to remake ‘Scarface’ and not try to take this on as you cannot improve on perfection.

1 – Fredric March
Due to the era that most of the twenty stars I have written about in these posts worked in, I have again and again referred to Hollywood’s ‘studio system’. Put simply, Hollywood movies in the early sound era through to the 1950s were predominantly made by a handful of powerful studios (MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., Columbia, Universal etc.) that signed up actors, directors, writers and whoever else they needed on long, virtually unbreakable contracts with a regular weekly wage. The omnipotent heads of the studio would then assign the talent on the books to whatever picture they saw fit. In return, the stars got the most efficient publicity machines ever created behind them to enhance and, when misdemeanour required, protect their image. For most actors the system worked well, but for a number it was a stifling environment that meant typecasting. Rebellion was biting the hand that fed you and could mean professional suicide if you were anything less than a huge star. My number one male star, Fredric March, was even rarer. He was almost unique in that he was a hugely successful actor, with the critics as well as the public, despite never signing a long-term studio contract. The sheer force of his star quality and the consistent excellence of his performances was all the publicity March needed to have the studio executives clamoring for this relative rebel to star in their prestige productions.

March, like Paul Muni, came to Hollywood in 1929 when established stage actors were in great demand as silent movies took their bow and exited. He had some minor success with his first few films but came to prominence playing Tony Cavendish in ‘The Royal Family of Broadway’ (1930), a play based on the legendary Barrymore family (grandparents and great-grandparents of Drew). The performance garnered an Oscar nomination for March and he went one better the following year with the definitive screen portrayal of ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ (1931). Urbane as Jekyll, terrifying as Hyde, March was superb in the dual role and this helped him, as well as his refusal to sign up to a single studio, to avoid being pigeon holed. March was excellent in the melodrama ‘Smilin’ Through’ (1932) and the war movie ‘The Eagle and the Hawk’ (1933) but also showed he could handle comedy with ‘Design for Living’ (1933). His next truly great performance was as Death in ‘Death Takes a Holiday’ (1934), a movie inadvisably remade over sixty years later as ‘Meet Joe Black’ (1998) (Brad Pitt taking on a role played my Fredric March is the cinematic equivalent of The Cheeky Girls covering Ella Fitzgerald). Before the 1930s were out, March had starred in a series of movies based on great novels such as ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Anna Karenina’ (both 1935) as well as pulling out a truly heart-breaking performance as Norman Maine in the original ‘A Star is Born’ (1937). The war years brought still more variety in March’s choice of movies but ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ (1946) brought March his best role of the decade and a second Academy Award. The film’s plot concerns three men trying to piece their lives back together after returning to America after WW2 and March is the cast’s stand-out performer. He concentrated more on stage work in the ensuing years but when he did appear on the big screen he had lost none of his power. ‘Death of a Salesman’ (1951), ‘Executive Suite’ (1954) and ‘The Desperate Hours’ (1955) all contain brilliant, layered performances but if there was one last film performance for the ages left in Fredric March he delivered it in 1960’s ‘Inherit the Wind’. Based on the real-life 'Scopes Monkey Trial' of 1925, March plays a famous and fiercely Christian prosecuting lawyer in the trial of a school teacher who slipped Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution into the syllabus. His scenes with defence attorney Spencer Tracy are a tribute to two titanic talents of Hollywood’s golden age. March continued working until his death in 1975 but like so many whose careers were predominantly in black and white movies he seems destined to remain a star on in the minds of a the minority. For March more than anyone that is a tragedy.
Watch Fredric March in: More than any of the nineteen other actors I have written about, this is an impossible choice so I am going to cheat and go for ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ for early March, ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ for the middle of his career and ‘Inherit the Wind’ for March the elder.

Hollywood’s Forgotten Stars: Part 3

Here in the third of a series of four pieces I will be looking back on twenty of Hollywood’s forgotten stars. We have done the actresses with Norma Shearer coming out as number one, so this week it’s all about men and the actors numbered 10 - 6 in my countdown. I hope you enjoy it. As always your comments are more than welcome.

Five forgotten male stars from the 1920s through to the 70s

N.B.: This list is not intended to be definitive. It is merely intended to highlight the talent of ten largely forgotten actors who played a significant role in Hollywood history, be it as a great box-office star, an Oscar winner, a pioneer or an unfulfilled talent that shone all too briefly. In deciding on my order, I have rated the actors on both their contribution to cinema and how little I perceive them to be remembered by the general public. The biggest star will not necessarily come out on top.

10 – John Cazale
No discussion of forgotten talent would be complete without a nod to John Cazale, although the recent surge of interest in his career meant he was by no means an automatic inclusion on my list. Cazale was more of a supporting actor but his early death at 42 from cancer denied him the chance to build on a quite incredible six years of film work. He would have been battling Pacino and De Niro for roles during the 1980s had illness not taken him shortly after completing his work on ‘The Deer Hunter’ (1978). Cazale only made five films but all of them are considered classics and all were nominated for a ‘Best Picture’ Academy Award. His performances as Fredo in ‘The Godfather’ (1972) and ‘The Godfather Part 2’ (1974) showed the depth of emotion that Cazale could bring to a character, even if they weren’t the main focus of the movie. He simply stole the show from Pacino in ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975) despite originally being considered totally unsuitable for the role by the director Sidney Lumet. The cult of Cazale has grown in recent years through books, magazine articles and a documentary film on his life and ironically, whilst he won’t ever become an icon like James Dean, his early death added to the quality of his screen appearances may yet ensure his name remains better remembered than many of the bigger stars on this list.
Watch John Cazale in: Cazale made an impact no matter how small the part but it is his turn as bank robber Sal in ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ that gives a really tantalising glimpse of how good he could be.

9 – Charley Chase
The world of silent comedy was a crowded one. The public liked to see people being kicked up the bum, Model T Fords falling apart and fat dowagers fall into ridiculously deep puddles to such an extent that studios (lots and lots and lots of long forgotten studios like Vim, King Bee, Mutual, etc.) churned them out at a phenomenal rate. This also meant that there were literally hundreds of actors who made these movies, entertained the masses and were promptly forgotten (ever heard of Max Davidson, Louise Fazenda or Ford Sterling?). In the 21st century we are pretty much left with five people who have any sort of reputation: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and that is a real shame. I could have gone for the Chaplin-esque (in ego as well as style) Larry Semon or the sad-faced Keaton-a-like Harry Langdon but the one who deserves more recognition is Charley Chase because the situation comedy in its present form started with him. Chase was more like Harold Lloyd in appearance – nothing outrageous, no silly costumes or the like – but there wasn’t the reliance on physical humour that most of his contemporaries had though as ‘Never the Dames Shall Meet’ (1927) showed he could pratfall with the best of them. He was the king of the comedy of embarrassment which is a type of comedy that has rarely as been as popular as it is today. Ricky Gervais, Mitchell and Webb, and Larry David are all currently flying the flag for a style of comedy that is reliant on putting people in excruciatingly unsuitable situations that will end in their humiliation. Chase was a natural at this; most famously when discovering a naked Viola Richard in the back of his car in ‘Limousine Love’ (1928) and so as most silent comedy is written off as crude slapstick and endless custard pie fights it is odd that one of the least physical of the accomplished silent clowns has been forgotten.
Watch Charley Chase in: The Chase performance that has lasted longest in the public eye is his supporting role in Laurel and Hardy’s ‘Sons of the Desert’ (1933) but the best short he made as the star is ‘Mighty Like a Moose’ (1926), a comedy about plastic surgery fifty-odd years before Jordan was even born.

8 – Clifton Webb
As career boosts go, Clifton Webb being chosen by Otto Preminger to take a part in the film noir ‘Laura’ (1944) must be one of the strangest. Webb was not only in his mid-fifties, he was also a Broadway musical comedy star with virtually no silver screen experience. He was dancer and singer who had worked on shows written by every great ‘Tin Pan Alley’ composer you would care to mention so it was understandable that Daryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, was perturbed by Preminger’s decision to cast Webb as the elegant, evil Waldo Lydecker. As unlikely as the casting was it was truly inspired as Webb gave a fantastically hiss-worthy performance in possibly the greatest example of the genre. The film was a big hit and Webb had an instant following amongst the public. Fox signed him up and cast him in similar roles in ‘The Dark Corner’ and ‘The Razor’s Edge’ (both 1946) and both were successes at the box office. Webb’s brand of classy malevolence only really had a parallel in the great George Sanders but, unlike Sanders, Webb showed that sharp-tongued characters had a place in comedy and as the main attraction, not just a supporting player , when he was cast as male nanny extraordinaire Lynn Belvedere in ‘Sitting Pretty’ (1948). Belvedere was Mary Poppins mixed with Noel Coward and whilst Robert Young and Maureen O’Hara were billed as the stars, this was a one-man show. Webb reprised the role in two less successful (and less accomplished) sequels but Webb’s output during the 1950s continued to be, at the very least, interesting. ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ (1952), ‘Titanic’ (1953) and ‘Three Coins in the Fountain’ (1954) continued this most unlikely of star careers before a series of forgettable ensemble romances brought Webb’s Hollywood career to a close. He did have time to make the British war movie ‘The Man Who Never Was’ (1956) during this period and it is a fascinating curiosity, made cheaply but strangely brilliantly. Webb died in 1966 after never recovering from the death of his elderly mother (Webb himself was 71 when she died). He had left a legacy that was as curious, entertaining and unexpected as it is forgotten.
Watch Clifton Webb in: ‘Laura’ is truly brilliant but Lynn Belvedere is Clifton Webb’s most masterful creation. As such ‘Sitting Pretty’ comes highly recommended.

7 – Tyrone Power
Romantic lead, swashbuckling hero, sleazy womaniser, grizzled cowboy, musical star - Tyrone Power did it all. Unusually for a star of the studio era, Power didn’t seem to suffer from typecasting and portrayed a wide variety of characters during his career which was cut short by a heart attack he suffered whilst filming ‘Solomon and Sheba’ (1958). Power’s early successes included the pioneering disaster movie ‘In Old Chicago’ (1937), the lively musical ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ (1938) and the superb western ‘Jesse James’ (1939). His most famous role was in 1940 when he donned the black mask for ‘The Mark of Zorro’. His fencing ability, honed especially for the role, has gone down in Hollywood history after his co-star Basil Rathbone said “he could fence Errol Flynn into a cocked hat”. Despite a couple more swashbucklers like ‘The Black Swan’ (1942), Power changed direction again in the mid-1940s with forays into film noir. ‘The Razor’s Edge’ (1946) with Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb was a particular success but Power was already limiting his screen appearances so that he could spend time acting in the theatre. His popularity never again reached its peak of 1939 and 1940 but this allowed the versatile actor to play the character parts he always felt his good looks had stopped him from being considered for. The last film he completed before his death, ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ (1957), was a perfect example of this as Power had to hold his own when sharing a screen with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton, two of the screens most memorable personalities. The performance is one of Power’s best but the immortality afforded to his co-stars has never materialised despite being one of the studio systems most popular stars.
Watch Tyrone Power in: It has to be ‘The Mark of Zorro’ - with the exception of ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ (1938) it is probably the best example of its kind.

6 - Robert Donat
Robert Donat’s chronic ill health meant that he only appeared in twenty films in a twenty-six year career that ended with his death at 53 (which, amazingly, meant he reached an older age than Cazale, Chase and Power who all died in their forties). To begin with he was the urbane alternative to Errol Flynn in movies like ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ (1934), ‘The 39 Steps’ (1935) and ‘Knight Without Armour’ (1937) and his style of acting was very much like that of David Niven (whose career undoubtedly benefited from Donat’s misfortune). With ‘The Citadel’ (1938) he made the move into straight drama which made more of his acting talent than his ailing physical prowess. In the following year when ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips’ (1939) was released he won the Academy Award for best actor, sensationally beating Clark Gable for ‘Gone With the Wind’ (1939). The film was Donat’s last for three years as ill-health and his desire to do more work on the stage reduced his movie credits to about one a year in an era where the big stars studio contracts demanded much more. None of his 1940s output was particularly memorable, though 1948’s ‘The Winslow Boy’ was an excellent courtroom drama. As his health further declined in the 1950s, Donat concentrated more than ever on his theatre work. He made only four films in eight years, dying before the release of ‘The Inn of the Sixth Happiness’ in 1958. As long as ‘The 39 Steps’ is revived for film, TV and theatre productions, Donat will never quite vanish from the wider public consciousness but his current reputation doesn’t match what he put on the screen – great performances and great entertainment.
Watch Robert Donat in: His late release ‘Lease of Life’ (1955) was a contender but this is really a straight choice between ‘The 39 Steps’ and ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’, the latter of which I will go for due to Donat’s tear-jerking brilliance in the lead role. Anyone who doesn’t well up just isn’t human.

Hollywood’s Forgotten Stars: Part 2

Here in the second of a series of four pieces I will be looking back on twenty of Hollywood’s forgotten stars. This week it’s the actresses numbered 5 - 1 in my countdown. I hope you enjoy it. As always your comments are more than welcome.

A dancer, a southern belle, a girl next door, a bag of nerves and a Queen

N.B.: This list is not intended to be definitive. It is merely intended to highlight the talent of ten largely forgotten actresses who played a significant role in Hollywood history, be it as a great box-office star, an Oscar winner, a pioneer or an unfulfilled talent that shone all too briefly. In deciding on my order, I have rated the actresses on both their contribution to cinema and how little I perceive them to be remembered by the general public. The biggest star will not necessarily come out on top.

5 – Eleanor Powell
Imagine a world where Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were still as celebrated but no-one remembered Judy Garland. Or one where Clark Gable and Cary Grant were still regarded as great stars but Greta Garbo’s name was only familiar to a small, hardcore group of fans. It wouldn’t seem quite fair, would it? However, when we think of the great dancers of the screen we think of Fred Astaire in his top hat and tails or Gene Kelly splashing about in puddles and we forget the fleet footed brilliance of Eleanor Powell. Powell is best known for the ‘Broadway Melody’ series of films made between 1936 and 1940. They were typical early musicals – a love story set to the backdrop of a young hopeful getting their chance in a big show. There wasn’t much in the way of plot but there was always simply brilliant dancing from Powell. Her tap skills and the music of the great Cole Porter (who scored three of Powell’s movies) was a marriage made in heaven, almost certainly seen to best advantage in the ‘Begin the Beguine’ number from ‘The Broadway Melody of 1940’ (1940) with Powell and Astaire tapping up a storm. Unfortunately for Powell her career in the 1940s began to be that of a guest performer who was included for one or two sequences that were nothing to do with the main plot of the film. For fans of great tap dancing these brief cameos were worth the price of admission alone.
Watch Eleanor Powell in: As with many performers whose careers featured predominantly black-and-white movies, Powell’s films can be hard to get hold of and we are therefore reliant on compilation movies like ‘That’s Entertainment’ to see her in action. However, I have managed to see ‘Rosalie’ (1936) and if you watch it you may forget Astaire and Kelly ever existed… for 90 minutes at least.

4 – Lee Remick
Sometimes perky, sometimes sultry, sometimes perky and sultry, Lee Remick was the most talented of the numerous forgotten cinematic sex symbols of an era dominated by Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Her career got off to a fine start with roles in ‘A Face in the Crowd’ (1957), ‘The Long Hot Summer’ (1958) and ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ (1959) all of which helped to define her as a sexually forward but frustrated southern girl. However, Remick was not present purely for the purposes of decoration. These were great roles for a relatively unknown actress to launch her movie career with and her acting ability was much in evidence in all three roles as well as her physical appeal. She was cast as the bank teller blackmailed into robbery in Blake Edwards’ ‘Experiment in Terror’ (1962) which marked her first departure to a different type of role. The emotional vulnerability was still there but her looks were not as significant in shaping the character. Remick excelled in ‘Experiment in Terror’ and her next film ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ (1962), again directed by Edwards, and then tried her hand at comedy in films like ‘The Wheeler Dealers’ (1963) and ‘The Hallelujah Trail’ (1965). Remick continued to choose interesting roles well into the 1970s but she never again recaptured the sort of magic we saw in her early years. However, for her to be remembered primarily as Damien’s adoptive mother in ‘The Omen’ (1976) is a terrible injustice to a lively, beautiful and skilled actress.
Watch Lee Remick in: Normally I would take any opportunity to recommend ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ but Remick is just one of a tremendous ensemble cast in that. Her performance opposite Jack Lemmon as a couple battling alcoholism in ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ is probably Remick’s finest career appearance anyway.

3 – Teresa Wright
Teresa Wright’s film career started with a bang. She was nominated for an Oscar for each of her first three movies (the only actor ever to achieve that feat), winning once for ‘Mrs Miniver’ (1942). Her fourth movie ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ (1943) is one of the best of all Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers and her sixth film ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ (1946) was a multi-award winner and the sixth biggest box-office hit of the 1940s (and if you discount the all-conquering Disney studio of that era it was the biggest film of 1946 and the second most successful of the decade). After that almost anything would be considered a disappointment but Wright continued to make very good films like ‘Pursued’ (1947), ‘The Men’ (1950) and ‘The Actress’ (1953). Like so many stars of the era, her disillusionment with the studio system had a deep effect on her career but, as well as this, her popularity began to fade towards the end of the 40s. It was almost as if Wright was undone by her unprecedented early success and as she got older audiences didn’t accept her as anything but ‘the girl next door’. Her roles were far more layered than that and those ‘girls next door’ always had many more facets to their character than the lazy pigeon-hole normally allows. No-one since Wright has played those roles in anything like her style or with her ability.
Watch Teresa Wright in: ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ is a tense and unnerving thriller where Wright plays a girl who idolises her Uncle Charlie until she suspects he is hiding a terrible secret. Absolute magic.

2 – Jean Arthur
Once described as the quintessential comedic leading lady, Jean Arthur had a dazzling screen career despite suffering from such terrible nerves that she was violently sick before takes and left a number of stage plays early in their run due to stage fright. Those nerves actually contributed to what is felt to be Arthur’s trademark, her high pitched, slightly shaky voice. After a number of supporting roles in serials and B-features she scored her break opposite Edward G. Robinson in ‘The Whole Town’s Talking’ (1935). Over the next nine years she made a series of films of a quality that was almost certainly unmatched by any other star working at that time. She was the great Frank Capra’s favourite actress and worked with him on ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’ (1936), ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ (1938) and ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ (1939), three of the director’s most acclaimed and best-loved works. She was also a favourite of George Stevens’ and he directed her in two further classics ‘The Talk of the Town’ (1942) and ‘The More the Merrier’ (1943). All of these movies were made at Columbia Studios along with here other notable films (‘The Plainsman’ (1936), ‘Easy Living’ (1937), ‘Only Angels Have Wings’ (1939) and ‘The Devil and Miss Jones’ (1941)). When her contract expired she ran through the lot shouting “I’m free!” and then retired, only appearing on the big screen again twice in Billy Wilder’s ‘A Foreign Affair’ (1948) and Stevens’ ‘Shane’ (1953). Easily one of the greatest stars of the so-called ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’, the only thing more remarkable that Arthur battling her crippling nerves to make so many top-drawer films is the sad fact that her name is now so little known.
Watch Jean Arthur in: With so many great performances to choose from it seems almost silly to single out one but I will go for ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’. It’s one of the greatest comedies ever filmed and alongside Gary Cooper she shines.

1 – Norma Shearer
In compiling this list I tried to consider as many actresses as I could and then measure their contribution to the history of cinema, their star power, their ability to act and how little they are recognised or known today. I will not deny that some of the choices have had a more personal touch to them but, as I state at the top, a list of this kind can never be definitive. Many came close to inclusion – Joan Fontaine, Luise Rainer, Kathryn Grayson – but no matter whom you thought deserved inclusion, I don’t think many will argue with my number one choice once they know why I think Norma Shearer is the biggest forgotten star in Hollywood history.

During the 1930s, Norma Shearer was the female equivalent of Clark Gable. Clark was ‘King’, Norma was ‘Queen’. She made movies for the biggest studio, MGM, and she was their biggest female star. Yes, she was married to Irving Thalberg (MGM's legendary ‘boy-wonder’ Vice-President) but no matter how she became a star there were few bigger than Shearer. She started in ‘girl next door’ roles in silent movies though her dual role in ‘Lady of the Night’ (1925) showed her versatility. From the beginning of her career she scored 19 successive box office smashes before she made ‘The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg’ (1927) for Ernst Lubitsch. Even though the film lost money, it was one of MGM’s ‘marquee’ pictures of the year – in other words a film that was made primarily for artistic and critical praise, not for financial gain. When talkies came in Shearer’s clear, medium pitched voice ensured her continued popularity whilst others fell by the wayside due to unsuitably high or foreign accented voices. Shearer, though, didn’t stop at reinventing herself as a talking star. She employed a photographer to take a set of sexy studio portraits in an effort to shed her good girl image. It worked and Shearer scored her biggest successes yet in a series of racy romantic comedies including ‘The Divorcee’ (1930) for which she won an Academy Award. For the rest of the 1930s Shearer continued to alternate between highly successful box-office hits (‘Strange Interlude’ (1932), ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street’ (1934)) with prestigious productions (‘Romeo and Juliet’ (1936), ‘Marie Antoinette’ (1938)). Shearer retired from the screen in 1942 and her career was always plagued by suggestions that her relationship with Thalberg was the only reason for her prominence. However, she was already MGM’s biggest star before she started dating him and her popularity continued after his early death in 1936. And besides any one who has seen Shearer in action, be it silent or sound, can feel that appeal radiating from the screen that only certain stars had. Shearer was a golden presence in a golden age and whilst time seems to have forgotten her, it hasn’t diminished her lustre.
Watch Norma Shearer in: Like so many silent movies, a lot of Shearer’s output pre-1929 is lost so maybe it isn’t fair to judge. From the sound era you can’t go wrong with her role as Elizabeth Barrett Browning in ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street'.

Hollywood’s Forgotten Stars: Part 1

Here in the first of a series of four pieces I will be looking back on twenty of Hollywood’s forgotten stars. This week it’s the actresses numbered 10 – 6 in my countdown. I hope you enjoy it. As always your comments are more than welcome.

Five actresses, five stars - but how many do you recognise?

N.B.: This list is not intended to be definitive. It is merely intended to highlight the talent of ten largely forgotten actresses who played a significant role in Hollywood history, be it as a great box-office star, an Oscar winner, a pioneer or an unfulfilled talent that shone all too briefly. In deciding on my order, I have rated the actresses on both their contribution to cinema and how little I perceive them to be remembered by the general public. The biggest star will not necessarily come out on top.

10 – Betty Hutton
If you were to look up the word ‘energetic’ in the dictionary you may well come across a picture of Betty Hutton. Her performances were delivered with total gusto and her obvious enthusiasm is a delight to watch on screen. Her major breakthrough came as the wonderfully named Trudy Kockenlocker in Preston Sturges’ ‘The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek’ (1944) but she hit her peak in movies like ‘The Perils of Pauline’ (1947) and ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ (1950). These roles allowed Hutton to show off her boisterous personality with tomboy personas but the studios knew she was also pretty enough to carry of the romantic sub-plots that sometimes came with on-screen adventure, most notably in ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ (1952). Her screen career was cut short due to contract disagreements and a reputation for being difficult to work with. Be that as it may, Betty Hutton’s sheer strength of personality should have made her a well remembered and much-loved star but the unavailability of her movies, certainly in the UK, seems to have ensured she will continue to be over looked.
Watch Betty Hutton in: It has to be ‘Annie Get Your Gun’. A whirlwind of a performance in a film that seems to have been largely forgotten despite the wealth of talent involved.

9 – Greer Garson
One of the most successful British exports to Hollywood during the Second World War, Greer Garson’s movie career started in a classic (‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’ (1939)) and carried on in the same vain through the 1940s in well received films with Garson playing strong female characters. As is so often the case for Brits in Hollywood, she was MGM’s star of choice for any role that required a touch of gravitas and her record-equalling run of five consecutive ‘Best Actress’ nominations at the Academy Awards demonstrates that Garson was only given prime material by her studio. She won the Oscar for the rousing ‘Mrs. Miniver’ (1942) playing the head of an English family that have to face up to the various trials of life on the home front during the Second World War. The film was a seriously important piece of propaganda that played no small part in raising support for American intervention in the war. Garson received seven Academy Award nominations in all and she is almost certainly the best remembered of my ten. However, her phenomenal screen appearances during those golden years of MGM in the early 1940s still don’t seem to add up to the sum of her reputation today.
Watch Greer Garson in: Despite not being one of her seven Oscar nominations, it is the portrayal of Jane Austen’s greatest heroine Elizabeth Bennett opposite Laurence Olivier’s Mr. Darcy in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1940) that shows Garson in her best light. It also makes you realise what a seriously inept actress Keira Knightly is.

8 – Thelma Todd
A beautiful, blonde-haired actress, best known for allying her looks with excellent comedy timing, becomes a star in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Her talent sees her appear alongside some of the biggest stars of the decade before her life is cut tragically short by her untimely death whilst still in her 20s. All of this is true of Jean Harlow. It is also true of Thelma Todd. At the Hal Roach Studios, she starred opposite the studios biggest names Laurel & Hardy as well as making a series of short films teamed with another long-forgotten actress ZaSu Pitts. She made the odd foray into more serious movies including the 1931 version of ‘The Maltese Falcon’ but her most famous roles came opposite The Marx Brothers in ‘Monkey Business’ (1931) and ‘Horse Feathers’ (1932). In 1936, aged just 29, Todd died in suspicious circumstances, found in her car in a closed garage with the engine running. Some say accident, some say suicide and some say murder. Whatever the truth, Todd’s fans will always be wondering if that really big break was just around the corner or if it would have always remained just out of reach.
Watch Thelma Todd in: ‘Horse Feathers’ is the better movie but ‘Monkey Business’ is a better showcase for Todd’s talent. She’s feisty, funny and ends up being fought over in a barn. How many actresses can say that?

7 – Rosalind Russell
Ask most people who played Gypsy Rose Lee’s mother in the film of the musical ‘Gypsy’ (1962) and they will probably say “Ethel Merman” (or look at you blankly for a few seconds before moving the conversation on to the latest Guy Ritchie movie). Merman played the role on Broadway but the film starred the wonderful Rosalind Russell. This perfectly illustrates Russell’s problem – she always seemed to exist in the shadows of other actresses. No-one would have expected that to happen to Russell’s career in 1939 after she stole the show from virtually every well known actress on MGM’s books in ‘The Women’, the film that established Russell as a comedienne. She followed this up with ‘His Girl Friday’ (1940) where she played Hildy Johnson to Cary Grant’s Walter Burns in Howard Hawks’ reworking of ‘The Front Page’. This is Russell’s best remembered role - fast talking, sassy but ultimately married to the job. Her career during the 1940s was certainly successful. She had a string of box-office hits and three Oscar nominations before the decade was out. However, when stars of that era are discussed these days her name is more often than not missing from the conversation. Overshadowed by Katherine Hepburn, Irene Dunne and Merman who played similar types of characters to Russell at various stages of her career, she seems destined to be remembered as ‘the woman who played Hildy Johnson’ and little else. For someone like Rosalind Russell that is a crying shame.
Watch Rosalind Russell in: Her best roles were behind her when Russell played Patrick Dennis’ ‘Auntie Mame’ in 1958 but she pulled out all the stops for one of the finest performances by an actress ever seen on screen.

6 – Paulette Goddard
Was it her difficult relationship with the press? Was it suspicions over the validity of her marriage to Charlie Chaplin? Or was it just that she simply wasn’t the right actress for the part? Whatever it was, Paulette Goddard would have been a household name forever if she had been cast ahead of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in ‘Gone with the Wind’ (1939). How close was she to getting the part? She was, by all accounts, one of four actresses in with a genuine chance of the role. Movie history could have been so different but as it is Goddard, an actress who mixed terrific talent and exceptional beauty, will be best known for her personal and professional association with Chaplin. He spotted her at a Hollywood party and decided that she would be perfect for the ‘gamine’ role in ‘Modern Times’ (1936) and perfect she was. Her career took off from there. Like Rosalind Russell (see above), she was one of the stand-outs of the very strong cast of ‘The Women’. She was the ideal foil for Bob Hope in ‘The Cat and the Canary’ (1939), and in ‘The Great Dictator’ (1940, again opposite Chaplin) her performance was perfectly judged. Before her career petered out in the late 1940s she made ‘So Proudly We Hail’ (1943), ‘Kitty’ (1945) and ‘The Diary of a Chambermaid’ (1946) all of which displayed Goddard’s talent, one that should have brought her greater fame, a lasting legacy and, perhaps, should have landed her that most iconic of female roles.
Watch Paulette Goddard in: I am sorely tempted to go for ‘Modern Times’ as it is rare that one of Charlie Chaplin’s co-stars gives as memorable a performance as he does but I have decided that to see Goddard in all her glory the uninitiated should plump for the ‘Pygmalion’-like romantic drama ‘Kitty’.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed this first part and it may propmt you to check out one or two of the movies mentioned. Next week I will countdown the actresses from 5-1. Anyone who guesses the number one gets a chocolate biscuit.