The Silver Screen Oasis

Okay, as Cinemaven and JackFavell have recently pointed out, college professors on film, especially when they are husbands, tend to be...uh...problematical.



Where do you stand on this burning issue?

Can a professor in the movies ever be exciting--or is the inbred anti-intellectualism of American movies prejudiced against the intelligensia--leading to the casting of some of the more dessicated actors on on film in the roles of professors without a clue outside the classroom?

Well, off-hand I can think of one college professor who is also an action/romantic hero -- Robert Langdon in the movies made from Dan Brown's novels Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code.

Second thought brings up professor Indiana Jones and the series of films around him, certainly dashing and romantic, and The Mirror Has Two Faces which features a pair of Columbia University professors. Jeff Bridges' math professor starts out completely unromantic and dull, but learns from popular literature professor Barbara Streisand how to let himself go a bit, and to "hear Puccini in his head."

A certain Professor Wagstaff is full of surprises!

"And since the very day that I commenced it,
I'm against it!"

There was this professor in a 1973 film. The actor reprised the role on TV from 1978 to 1986.

I started law school in 1978, and there were two kinds of law professors at that time: those who emulated Prof. Kingsfield and those who tried not to, but couldn't help themselves.

Not "good" or "bad" or "ewwww", but merely sadistic.

Where do Dr. Julius Kelp (THE NUTTY PROFESSOR *), Prof. Brainard (THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR), Dr. Frankenstein (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN), Prof. Wagstaff (HORSE FEATHERS) and Professor Jennings (ANIMAL HOUSE) fit in? **

* As for another thread, my favorite version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.

** As one who taught at a college at the start of my so-called career(s) and have now resumed that portrayal, I can objectively state that college professors are not necessarily problematical as husbands. There is no need to contact my first spouse for confirmation.

Noting one good and one bad from the same film - Dr. Noah Pretorias (Cary Grant) and Prof. Rodney Elwell (Hume Cronyn) in People Will Talk.

BRILLIANT MOIRA!!!

I think professors are a little squirrelly because they're in their head so much of the time and not their hearts.



But brother when they fall they fall...hard. Good thread Moira!

Sugarpuss O'Shea found a grand group of perfessers.

Best marriage material: Professor Bertram Potts or Professor Magenbruch? Discuss.

I think Professor Van Helsing would have had a wonderful fruitful life with a woman, if only he hadn't been obsessed to chase Dracula around like Jean Valjean:


Edward Van Sloan


Good examples from ev'ryone. ( So we're talking strictly professors, right? Not teachers like Mr. Novak or Mr. Dadier or To Sir With Love? )

I don't pay any attention to this stuff - if an actor/actress did well in this sort of genre (playing a College Professor) I will make a valid comment about it - otherwise I just skip the movie and don't even bother make an attempt to post about it at all because the subject matter is irrelevant to me. That's my 2 cents on this subject matter.

Cine cum laude!

Is that Mr. Chipping in your photo? If not, we must include that adorable intellectual in the discussion. A teacher of young boys, not college. But such a noble gent, and so marvelously played by two of our finest actors.

[u]RedRiver[/u] wrote:Cine cum laude!

Whoa! My favorite best nom-de-plume yet!

Is that Mr. Chipping in your photo? If not, we must include that adorable intellectual in the discussion. A teacher of young boys, not college. But such a noble gent, and so marvelously played by two of our finest actors.

Why yes. Yes it is. It's Robert Donat as Mr. Chips. Or as I refer to him, "that guy that stole the Oscar from Clark Gable!"

That makes Peter O'Toole "The guy whose Oscar was stolen by John Wayne!" Sorry, Duke.

Please note: The Devil Commands (1941), which is airing on TCM right now, features Boris Karloff as a college professor (electrical engineering, I suspect). Good flick, full of understandable dread of what science was cooking up in '41. A line you don't want to hear from Boris in any movie: "I think I may have left some switches on..."

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