There were two Richard Widmarks: the amazingly sleazy, completely unforgettable presence from film noir (best when he was a villain) and the fully capable and very talented but not entirely memorable actor from a slew of films after the noir cycle was over. Widmark did do excellent work later in his career, but it is his early roles in noir features that made him an icon that will last forever.
It’s kinda hard to imagine that the scene-stealing Widmark was making his big-screen debut as giggling, sadistic bastard Tommy Udo in Henry Hathaway’s otherwise procedural noir film Kiss of Death (1947). He had, by the way, had a healthy life as a stage actor and, most profitably, as a radio actor in the years before he scored Kiss (having appeared on many of the most popular shows, including — no surprise here — Gangbusters). It must’ve been evident to the cast and crew as they made the film that Widmark’s character was a helluva lot more interesting than that played by the extremely boring Victor Mature; Widmark wound up being nominated for the Oscar, and the film was promoted on his supporting turn. I was introduced to the great scumbag Tommy Udo through Vernon Zimmerman’s unjustly forgotten movie-buff horror film Fade to Black (1980), in which one of the different personas Dennis Christopher assumes is that of Widmark in Kiss. I had yet to fall completely into the filmgoing bug, and seeing the infamous and eternal scene of Udo pushing an old woman down the stairs in her wheelchair was a revelation to me.
Widmark played in a number of noirs, and always distinguished himself, even as he struggled to get out of his bad-guy parts — once he did, he scored terrific roles like the one of the prosecutor in Judgment at Nuremburg, but that kind of prestige “message” film isn’t anywhere nearly as rewatchable as the potboiler noirs he took part in. For instance, Road House (1948), in which he plays crazy club-owner “Jefty” who menaces the hell out of Celeste Holm, Cornel Wilde (another good-looking dull lead), and the great Ida Lupino. Here he does the Udo laugh and flips out entirely at the movie’s end, making him the one reason not to miss the movie. The other half-dozen noirs he did don’t have him playing outright scum like Udo and Jefty, but he still excelled when playing incredibly sleazy con artists. He’s a good guy in Panic in the Streets (1950) and Don’t Bother to Knock (1952), but he’s most interesting as a racist crook in No Way Out (1950) (making fledgling star Sidney Poitier seem all the more heroic) and as yet another underworld tough in The Street With No Name (1948).
He hit the heights of sympathetic sleaziness in Jules Dassin’s Night and the City (1950)(which I’ll post something from by next week, as Dassin’s death at 96 was just announced yesterday), and Sam Fuller’s wonderful Pickup on South Street (1953). In both films, he’s a sleazy crook antihero who isn’t a cutthroat killer like Tommy Udo, but is still hard to warm up to. Fuller particularly took pride in being able to sum Widmark’s character up in a single line of dialogue in Pickup, when he’s told that he’s not helping his country and responds, “Are you wavin’ the flag at me?”
Widmark did indeed keep acting until the 1990s, but it is as sadistic gangster Tommy Udo, or as sleazy operators Harry Fabian (Night and the City) or Skip McCoy (Pickup on South Street) we’ll always remember him.
NOTE: the quality of these clips is pre-cable TV broadcast. Thus, some are darker than others (much darker) and you might have to crank the sound. This is the way we used to watch ’em, though, kids, in the world before restoration. And they still packed a very solid punch….
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Deceased Artiste Anthony Minghella, a true film fan
The news that director Anthony Minghella died last week brought one film and one film only to mind: his brilliantly written big-screen debut Truly Madly Deeply(1990). Minghella of course came out of British television, and had acquired quite a nice resume before making the film, and went on to do a series of big-budget prestige theatrical features that didn’t inspire me to see them, adaptations of period romances like his Oscar pic The English Patient and the Civil War “chick flick” (let’s be honest, that’s what the talented Mr. Minghella wound up making) Cold Mountain. He did a redo of Purple Noon (The Talented Mr. Ripley), which I will get around to some day, but since Truly Madly, he only made one film as a scripter-director that was not taken from a major novel, Breaking and Entering.
But let me get to the point here, and rhapsodize about Truly Madly Deeply. The film received a damning-by-faint-praise label as “the thinking man’s Ghost” because the plots of both films were based around the same premise (woman is visited by the ghost of her dead boyfriend). Putting it plainly, Ghost is a pathetic sentiment-grab (with hokey plot twists and a positively painful cast), whereas Truly Madly is a well-written character study that really does boast a brain and a heart. Its plot is simple: its ghost character, a cranky but charming left-winger (Alan Rickman), comes back to this mortal plane to visit his living girlfriend (Juliet Stevenson, who is perfect in the starring role); she then, in turn, must decide if she'll "continue," so to speak, nursing her love for the spirit of Rickman or move on to a new, seemingly nice and genuine (but I felt way too cutesy) guy. The film presents a beautifully three-dimensional portrait of romantic love (with a whimsical supernatural element informing the whole scenario, of course). It is mostly set indoors and does have the feel of a BBC teleplay, but its writing and acting are incredibly good, so who cares? And when lovers are depicted professing their affection through The Walker Brothers’ gorgeously evocative Spector-esque hit “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” little more need be said.
Of course, there is one aspect of the film that demonstrated Mingehella’s fanboy love of the medium. Rickman’s character is primarily journeying back from the afterlife to love Stevenson once more (and complain, my man!), but he also returns to… watch movies with his pals! Minghella, who scripted and directed, came up with a filmfan’s worst nightmare: an afterlife that doesn’t have movies (or if it does, you can’t have a good old “video night” with friends up there). Thus, Rickman begins to bring his buddies back from the “other side” to check out his video collection… which his girlfriend has not been a perfect caretaker for (for shame!). When I saw the film, I was touched on a number of levels (and had been hoping to see a lot more of this kind of work from Minghella, but alas….). This inclusion of dudes journeying back from Heaven to check out their favorite movies was just too perfect, though, because I and most of my comrades all know we’d pass an astral plane or two to get back to some serious movie-watching.
Stevenson’s character quizzes Rickman about this at one point, asking why he only brings men back from the other side for his post-mortem video nights, and if I remember correctly he doesn’t have a response. We all know the answer, though, don’t we? As much as women can truly, madly, deeply fall in love with a pop phenomenon, more guys per capita can keep that fixation up for the rest of their lives (I can point to no more moving phenom than seeing our Funhouse hero Uncle Forry Ackerman meet up with his old buds Rays Bradbury and Harryhausen to discuss science fiction and the Mighty Kong — never ever were three seniors as young at heart as this inspirational trio of octagenarians). Minghella tapped into something really beautiful about cinemaddiction in Truly Madly…, in addition to all his other conclusions about the eternal power of love, and the need to every so often move on. I salute him for his connection to the fanboy experience, and for the choices thrown out by his back-from-beyond cinephiles (Chaplin, Woody, Rafelson, Herzog, not bad; I’m not a David Lean fan myself, but guys do indeed watch romances, yes they do — esp. if they’re in black and white). I present the clips below with a few stray video-rolls — but that is entirely appropriate.
I can honestly say that Minghella’s depiction of the afterlife was scarier to me than Our Town. Sitting on a chair on a hill (I know, I know, they’re in their graves, symbolically) being bored out of your gourd is one thing, but an afterlife without movies? That truly is a horrifying prospect. I do trust that Anthony was only teasing us movie buffs, presenting a very smart and witty comment on male fandom. If not, I hope he’s prepping a bunch of lads to come back down and commandeer someone’s video collection. I’m up for it. I say Five Easy Pieces first, then Fitzcarraldo, whaddya think?
But let me get to the point here, and rhapsodize about Truly Madly Deeply. The film received a damning-by-faint-praise label as “the thinking man’s Ghost” because the plots of both films were based around the same premise (woman is visited by the ghost of her dead boyfriend). Putting it plainly, Ghost is a pathetic sentiment-grab (with hokey plot twists and a positively painful cast), whereas Truly Madly is a well-written character study that really does boast a brain and a heart. Its plot is simple: its ghost character, a cranky but charming left-winger (Alan Rickman), comes back to this mortal plane to visit his living girlfriend (Juliet Stevenson, who is perfect in the starring role); she then, in turn, must decide if she'll "continue," so to speak, nursing her love for the spirit of Rickman or move on to a new, seemingly nice and genuine (but I felt way too cutesy) guy. The film presents a beautifully three-dimensional portrait of romantic love (with a whimsical supernatural element informing the whole scenario, of course). It is mostly set indoors and does have the feel of a BBC teleplay, but its writing and acting are incredibly good, so who cares? And when lovers are depicted professing their affection through The Walker Brothers’ gorgeously evocative Spector-esque hit “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” little more need be said.
Of course, there is one aspect of the film that demonstrated Mingehella’s fanboy love of the medium. Rickman’s character is primarily journeying back from the afterlife to love Stevenson once more (and complain, my man!), but he also returns to… watch movies with his pals! Minghella, who scripted and directed, came up with a filmfan’s worst nightmare: an afterlife that doesn’t have movies (or if it does, you can’t have a good old “video night” with friends up there). Thus, Rickman begins to bring his buddies back from the “other side” to check out his video collection… which his girlfriend has not been a perfect caretaker for (for shame!). When I saw the film, I was touched on a number of levels (and had been hoping to see a lot more of this kind of work from Minghella, but alas….). This inclusion of dudes journeying back from Heaven to check out their favorite movies was just too perfect, though, because I and most of my comrades all know we’d pass an astral plane or two to get back to some serious movie-watching.
Stevenson’s character quizzes Rickman about this at one point, asking why he only brings men back from the other side for his post-mortem video nights, and if I remember correctly he doesn’t have a response. We all know the answer, though, don’t we? As much as women can truly, madly, deeply fall in love with a pop phenomenon, more guys per capita can keep that fixation up for the rest of their lives (I can point to no more moving phenom than seeing our Funhouse hero Uncle Forry Ackerman meet up with his old buds Rays Bradbury and Harryhausen to discuss science fiction and the Mighty Kong — never ever were three seniors as young at heart as this inspirational trio of octagenarians). Minghella tapped into something really beautiful about cinemaddiction in Truly Madly…, in addition to all his other conclusions about the eternal power of love, and the need to every so often move on. I salute him for his connection to the fanboy experience, and for the choices thrown out by his back-from-beyond cinephiles (Chaplin, Woody, Rafelson, Herzog, not bad; I’m not a David Lean fan myself, but guys do indeed watch romances, yes they do — esp. if they’re in black and white). I present the clips below with a few stray video-rolls — but that is entirely appropriate.
I can honestly say that Minghella’s depiction of the afterlife was scarier to me than Our Town. Sitting on a chair on a hill (I know, I know, they’re in their graves, symbolically) being bored out of your gourd is one thing, but an afterlife without movies? That truly is a horrifying prospect. I do trust that Anthony was only teasing us movie buffs, presenting a very smart and witty comment on male fandom. If not, I hope he’s prepping a bunch of lads to come back down and commandeer someone’s video collection. I’m up for it. I say Five Easy Pieces first, then Fitzcarraldo, whaddya think?
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