[u]charliechaplinfan[/u] wrote:I will speak up for British males, particularly Cary Grant because if one man was going to challenge Charles Boyer...
Thank you Alison for taking the bait...I mean, for speaking up for British males. I was actually talking about on a more personal basis (British vs. French), but we'll just leave it at movies.
It was one of Cary's later films and although he's very good, especially at the end when he realises (isn't that a lesson in screen acting and both men acquit themselves well) I have to hand that competition to Charles Boyer but is partly influenced because I thought Cary got too thin.
I would have never thought of it on my own, but Boyer really
is a worthy challenger to Cary Grant. I know what you mean about being too thin. As much as we want to focus on an actor's thespian abilities, there's no denying that the External is an important factor. It's all subjective.
Now look at Cary in the mid thirties to early fifties and there's no one to match him in the impact of his looks apart from Errol Flynn. The one thing Cary hasn't got is the English accent, which is another thing Errol Flynn has got going for him even though he's not English.
No doubt no doubt, Errol Flynn in his heyday was drop-dead gorgeous. But the actor whose looks are, for me, The Ideal...is TYRONE POWER.
The visual impact of Tyrone Power on a gigantic screen must have been overwhelming for women back in the late 30's and 40's. Was he genetically created in a test tube? His looks stun me into absolute silence. I saw Alice Faye interviewed very late in her career and asked about making movies with Tyrone Power. I never forgot she said:
"Kissing him was like dying and going to heaven." << ((
Sigh! )) >> One may argue about his range as an actor. Okay. Maybe. Yeah. For some, his beauty might negate his talent. But...I don't care...I don't care...I don't care...I don't care...I don't care! ("Nightmare Alley"). A film buff cannot live on bread alone!
In terms of longevity and maintaining his A-list credentials there's not a man to match Cary, in personal terms I'm not sure he was a contented man. Charles Boyer had personal and professional contentment until tragedy over took him.
I agree with you on that especially the consistent longevity. A sad end for Boyer...and maybe even kind of tragically romantic. Funny, I have no basis in fact to say this...but I do think Cary Grant was the epitome of the Male Movie Star re: scripts, leading ladies, dashing good looks; I daresay in their secret, private, solitary moments...
ALL the guys wished they were Cary Grant.
...Except Clark Gable.
Who do I think is the best actor in my list? In general Charles Boyer but I don't think he could do the completely silly, I mean I don't see him bouncing around in a negligee or sitting with old ladies concentrating whilst knitting. Cary Grant's acting talent is that he makes it look so easy when in fact it can't be.
Yeah, I don't quite see Boyer in a negligee...but I liked him in "Cluny Brown" and I liked this moment in "History Is Made At Night" when he gives Leo Carillo a slightly back-handed compliment on his sauce, walks out of frame, walks back in frame, clucks his tongue and then walks back out. I loved that moment. These two (Boyer & Grant) are like Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck for me in terms of the war in my pointed little noggin' about "Who-Is-Better." Missy and Bette can both stride into a room like a panther, they can both be at home in a nightclub or at home by a fire. They can unload a revolver into any man without batting an eye. But I don't see Bette jumping on a horse and riding away lickety split. Or doing a burlesque strip tease.
Peversely being English I like French actors, Boyer heads the list but I'm partial too to Jean Louis Trintignant, Maurice Chevalier, Alain Delon amongst quite a few others. None of them has an accent quite as seductive as Boyer's.
We probably didn't hear Trintignant or Delon do much in English as we did with Boyer. (Delon was gorgeous!)
I like how excluse our Boyer club is, enough to be able to talk about him to our hearts content but he's our secret. I don't actually know how Jean Arthur didn't get carried away.
Ha!! I'm (
re)-discovering actors that you guys have been so totally into from the start. I'm playing catch-up. Guess I've got to check out the "Magnificent Lie" too.
Now tell me...what's the secret handshake?
