George Raft

[Ann Harding]

Sorry to drop in suddenly, but there is a joke I MUST share with you. In the April 78 issue of Films in Review, there is a great article about Raft's career. It starts with this joke by George Burns:

George Raft and Gary Cooper once played a scene in front of a cigar store; and it looked like the wooden Indian was overacting.

[JackFavell]

Oh my gosh, he's hilarious! I've never heard of him before, but he did that perfectly. Sometimes when they use old film footage in commercials, it doesn't really work or makes me angry, but Griff seems to really know what he was doing, and he's so serious about the beer that it makes me laugh! I'm looking up his other commercials. Did he do movies too?

Ann harding, that's too too funny! of course, Coop's reputation has risen over the years.

[charliechaplinfan]

Some other commercials, I'm not sure he did movies, he's a TV personality here, the first two are adverts with him

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Some Like it Hot

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The Great Escape

Carlsberg ads

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Ice Cold in Alex

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The Dambusters, they got into trouble for this one but I see the funny side

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And one that you have to be British to appreciate, but was so true of holidays with my Dad who would get up very early to put our towels on sunbeds before the Germans could bag the best ones. My dad was very good at getting up early but not true for many holiday makers, such a triviality but so common on holidays of the past.

[JackFavell]

Am I missing something? Why did they get in trouble for the dambusters one? And were Germans a big tourist group at resorts in England?

That one for Ice Cold in Alex is just superb.

I think I'm a new fan of Griff Rhys-Jones!

[Western Guy]

Jack, I'd like to know from which book Raoul Walsh claimed Raft was a difficult actor to work with. I've heard just the contrary. (I can see John Huston saying that, even though he never directed Raft). Walsh and George worked very well together in "The Bowery". The only problem on that film was there was an ego battle between George and Wallace Beery (inevitably leading to a fistfight on the set). Actually George was very cooperative and even proved himself a good sport when Walsh pulled a joke on him regarding his character's leap from the Brooklyn Bridge. I have a photo in my book of Walsh, George and young Jackie Cooper drinking pop from the studio lunch cart and they all look very happy. Jackie, btw, adored Raft. He said that as cold and aloof as Beery was, that was how warm and friendly George was. Jackie admitted to tagging along after him all during the making of the movie and never being given the "get away, kid, ya bother me" brushoff.

Later, in "They Drive by Night", George and Walsh worked together without incident (excepting the near-fatal truck incident). The only really bad experience came with "Manpower" when Raft and Eddie G. came to blows. Raft, of course, did turn down the role of Roy Earle in Walsh's "High Sierra" but that was only because Raft had become adamant of playing no more gangsters or criminals who die at the end. Maybe this ruffled Walsh's feathers a bit - but "Duke Mantee" Bogart was much better suited to playing a grassroots bandit than "Guino Rinaldo" Raft.

Ann, yes that is a great story told by George Burns at a Friar's Roast dinner for George. Raft may not have been a great actor but he had a commanding presence - again, particularly when guided by a strong director, like Hawks, Hathaway, Walsh or Lloyd Bacon.

[charliechaplinfan]

They got into trouble with the right one brigade who thought it was disrespectful to the Second World War heros, I don't if anything I might send people searching for the historical reference. I think it was a cinema release only and was pulled very quickly.

The holiday resort would have been a typical Spanish/Canary Island resorts which Germans and Brits flock to in equal measure and there is always a battle fought with towels for the best sun loungers. Towels are used to reserve them but the canny Germans used to set their alarms and take their towels out before any Brit would think of surfacing. I added it because it shows the humour of the beer commercials. I'm very fond of the Monroe commerical, I saw the commerical before I ever saw Some Like It Hot so I didn't realise that Marilyn was talking to Tony. Very clever though, I wish he'd made more, I love the segment with Raft.

I was puzzled by the fact that Walsh would have found him difficult to work with, perhaps it's just Hollywood folklore. Stone which directors apart from Archie Mayo did he dislike? Archie Mayo was the one who screamed at him wasn't he? Do you know, were their many directors who directed by screaming? It doesn't seem the best approach to take with temperamental performers.

[JackFavell]

I should have clarified, Walsh himself I think never said anything bad about Raft, that I know of.

In the recent Walsh book by Marilyn Ann Moss she really goes out of her way to talk about how Raft made trouble on every picture, and that Walsh kept trying to avoid working with him again. I took it with a grain of salt, like everything else in the book, because to me anyway, Moss has not proven her points by backing up with actual info. She may have found it, but none of it is actually in the book.

As I said in the previous post, there is NOTHING in the book, no real hard evidence to prove this dislike of Raft. I believe she looked at many studio memos in order to write her version of events in Walsh's life, but again, we have only her word for some of the conclusions she jumped to.... I am not really a fan of the way she wrote the book, assuming certain things about what happened on Walsh's pictures (how people felt in other words) from studio memos. She was quite unflattering about Errol Flynn as well. There is very little hard fact in her book, just a lot of assumption on her part, and she doesn't quote the memos enough and other information sources but paraphrases a lot. I disliked the book quite a bit, but it has gotten good reviews. I apologize if anyone out there enjoyed it, but there was too little info, too much concentration on movie synopsis.

[Western Guy]

Outside of Archie Mayo, I don't think Raft had particular problems with any director he worked with. He pretty much put the difficult Fritz Lang in his place before shooting began on "You and Me". Problems were predicted when Raft was to play opposite Coop in "Souls at Sea" under Hathaway's direction, but the story goes that George's agent spoke with Hathaway prior to production and no problems were forthcoming.

The only notable problem that Raft encountered with a studio executive came when he hauled off and belted producer Benjamin Glazer during the filming of "Bolero".

But Raft's reputation as a "knuckle-duster" still made some directors wary to work with him during those early to mid-years of his career.

[Western Guy]

That's what I figured, Jack, since Raoul once was interviewed on television and never spoke badly of George. I'd take that author's comments with about as much seriousness as what Darwin Porter reports in his Bogart biography. Heck, according to him, everyone in Hollywood was gay and everyone pimped for everyone else.

Journalism at its finest.

[JackFavell]

I wouldn't say Moss is that bad, Western Guy!

She seems to be an honest writer, one who does research, but she just seems lackluster about Walsh (I have since listened to an interview with her in which she says she's a big fan... very odd, because in the book she does not really show it). She basically makes character judgments about Walsh and those he worked with, which does bother me, reading into them traits and thoughts they may or may not have had. In the interview, she said she wanted to find out what in Walsh's autobiography was true and what was not true, but she didn't want to base her book on the autobiography or make it a pure rebuttal of the autobiography. I understand that, but that's basically what her book is, a film by film rebuttal. The book ends up being more about her and what she's interested in, than about Walsh.

Her judgments of Flynn and Raft seem dead wrong to me (like her judgments of some of the films), since Walsh was always the fellow who got along with everyone, except maybe Miriam Cooper. It is also possible that in the studio communications, Walsh would tend to flatter the studio bosses, and that while working with the actors he would side with them. He was a go-between, and so basing a book solely on studio memos may not reveal an accurate picture of what was going on, or of Walsh's real opinion of someone. I don't know if he actually said, "I don't want to work with Raft", I highly doubt it. She concludes that Raft became too difficult and that he didn't want him for High Sierra, but again, there is no PROOF, she may have seen it in writing, but it ain't put that way in her book. She simply concludes it.

It seems to me that Raft and Walsh should have worked well together, both tough guys with a sweet center. Raft was certainly no more trouble than Flynn on the set. Walsh certainly wouldn't have let a few dust-ups deter him if he liked a man.

Apparently, she is making a documentary about Walsh.

[Western Guy]

Okay Jack, haven't read her stuff so decidedly unfair of me to compare Moss with that paragon of journalistic integrity Darwin Porter (or even Charles Higham, for that matter). Man, I wish I could write fiction as well as those two.

But I contend Moss is waaaayy off target when she gives her version of what transpired between Raft and "High Sierra". Walsh apparently desperately wanted George for the role and at Jack Warner's urging even went over to Raft's home where the director spent a couple of hours trying to convince George to take the part. At the end of the meeting, Raft was still adamnant about not playing yet another gangster who dies at the end and even told Walsh to tell J.L. to "shove it." Nice way to endear yourself to your boss, btw.

There also has been speculation that Bogart may have (deviously) talked Raft out of playing Earle, reminding George that he was too big a star to play a criminal who dies and doesn't get the girl at the end. If true, the reverse happened when Raft edged Bogie out of the Robinson part in "Manpower" (which proved to be a good thing, IMO. Can't for the life of me see Bogie in that role).

Yeah, it does seem that Walsh was an easy director for actors to work with - unlike Hathaway or John Farrow. Never heard any actor speak ill of him. Pretty much the same with Hawks.

[JackFavell]

I prefer your version, Western Guy! I should also say that I am going from memory on what Moss had to say. I really should double check.

[Western Guy]

Well Jack, I should add that besides reading about these events in various bios on Bogie, Raft and even Warner Brothers, I heard the story directly from Mack Gray's nephew. Mack, as you may know, was George's closest companion during Raft's Hollywood heyday and was pretty much privy to everything.

[JackFavell]

That's great, WG, so much gets said and then is re-written as fact now, I tend to want sources mentioned. It's like news reports saying that studies have proved something scientific, then not listing where the studies were done, what the criteria was, how many people were involved, or if there was a control group.

[Western Guy]

Yes, getting to speak with people who knew or worked with Raft (and sadly there aren't that many left now) was a real coup and I'm grateful to all of them.