R.I.P. Paul Newman

[inglis]

Hi,

Very sad but not unexpected news....
The photo of him in a wheelchair looking debillitated from cancer alerted me to the 'all is not well here' mood and sure enough it wasn't long before we now have this news....

A good looking guy, who was that Hollywood rarity - a great star and a fine actor.
Also, a humanitarian we all could emulate....

My favourite film of his is: "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!" with Joanne Woodward and Joan Collins....
Hilarious!!!

My condolences to Joanne Woodward and their family & friends.

R.I.P. Mr. Newman.

Larry

Very nicely said Larry .I could not say it better .My favorite was Exodus.The line in which Peter Lawford said he could spot a Jew a mile away and then Newman ,could you look in my eye Ithink there is a cinder or something like that. I don't know the the exact dialogue in that scene but it was very witty and very well done .Ienjoyed him in his many movies . What a body of work that we all can enjoy from this great man.

[charliechaplinfan]

He's had great coverage from our press. His acting, racing and humanitarian work obviously touched a lot of people.

I have a very early memory of Paul Newman and that is when I watched Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid with my parents when I was about 6. I liked the ending because I could pretend that they escaped, well you can when you're six. Even when I was six I could tell how handsome both men were. There was something about the teaming of Newman and Redford that really worked well.

[moira finnie]

From TCM

In Honor of Paul Newman, who died on September 26, TCM will air a tribute to the actor on Sunday, October 12th, replacing the current scheduled programming with the following movies:

Sunday, October 12 Program for TCM
6:00 AM The Rack
8:00 AM Until They Sail
10:00 AM Torn Curtain
12:15 PM Exodus
3:45 PM Sweet Bird of Youth
6:00 PM Hud
8:00 PM Somebody Up There Likes Me
10:00 PM Cool Hand Luke
12:15 AM Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
2:15 AM Rachel, Rachel
4:00 AM The Outrage

A great lineup, though I wish they could've tracked down Slap Shot (1977) on very short notice!

[Mr. Arkadin]

A great lineup, though I wish they could've tracked down Slap Shot (1977) on very short notice!

We can try to address that:

[youtube][/youtube]

[youtube][/youtube]

[youtube][/youtube]

[srowley75]

From TCM

In Honor of Paul Newman, who died on September 26, TCM will air a tribute to the actor on Sunday, October 12th, replacing the current scheduled programming with the following movies:

Sunday, October 12 Program for TCM
6:00 AM The Rack
8:00 AM Until They Sail
10:00 AM Torn Curtain
12:15 PM Exodus
3:45 PM Sweet Bird of Youth
6:00 PM Hud
8:00 PM Somebody Up There Likes Me
10:00 PM Cool Hand Luke
12:15 AM Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
2:15 AM Rachel, Rachel
4:00 AM The Outrage

A great lineup, though I wish they could've tracked down Slap Shot (1977) on very short notice!

I'm excited to finally see Rachel, Rachel on the schedule. If for no other reason, TCM deserves kudos for digging that one out of wherever Warners had socked it away. Here's hoping it's shown in OAR. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen The Helen Morgan Story or The Silver Chalice scheduled as well. Not too excited about seeing Torn Curtain. Another I'd have liked to have seen from Warners is Harper .

And here's hoping that the folks over at Fox (FMC) are planning a similiar tribute. Newman made so many good films at Fox: Butch Cassidy, Hombre, The Long Hot Summer, The Verdict, The Hustler.

[MikeBSG]

I'm another person who'd like to see "Harper" again. It has been decades since I've seen that one.

By chance, I just got "Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" from Netflix this week. I think that was the first Paul Newman film I ever saw.

"The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" are terrific. I also liked "Absence of Malice" "The Color of Money," "Blaze," and "Mr. and Mrs. Brooks" very much of the Newman films I saw when they came to the theaters.

As for his earlier films, I love the pool scenes in "The Hustler." (Not the rest of the film.) And "Cool Hand Luke" is terrific.

[bryce]

No The Verdict? I realize it's latter day Newman but his interplay with Jack Warden and James Mason - all three battling it out for the role of a decade - is almost better than anything he'd ever done before. Plus, he made a likeable character out of a scummy lawyer - no easy task. The bias for his early to middle works definitely shows in those choices, but c'est la vie. There's a great DVD edition of "The Verdict," and I plan on enjoying it here soon.

My real introduction (not films like "Cool Hand Luke" I had watched growing up) to Paul Newman came in my high school freshman year journalism course. We were doing a week on ethics in journalism and we watched Citizen Kane, All the President's Men and Absence of Malice. The latter isn't a particularly good movie, Sally Field ruins nearly every scene she is in and Paul Newman doesn't appear to be particularly inspired (this shown by the fact that Wilford Brimley upstages him and everyone else in a near-cameo appearance), but it was the film that put Paul Newman on my map. Soon after I reconnected "modern era" Newman (I am not a fan of "Slap Shot") with "classic era" Newman and there my love was born.

In a way it is a tragedy that many out there, my age and just slightly older especially, only recognize him by name as the "salad dressing guy." Sure, tell them he was "Cool Hand Luke" and you get knowing nods, but throw "Paul Newman" out there and people get that deer in the headlights look about them. Yet there's nothing to scoff at as being remembered "only" as the guy who has raised over $250m for charity and education, and who setup a company that will continue to give long after his death.

A wonderful actor and a great human being - a point proven by all those who were closest to him making it well known how much they cherished having him in their lives.

[charliechaplinfan]

I finally go around to reading the Sunday paper and their tribute to him. I do know him for his films although I've not seen as many as I'd like and for his salad dressing, what I didn't realise was the scale of this ma's charity. A real modern philanthropist. What a prince among actors, the world is worse off without people like him.

[moira finnie]

There hasn't been much mention of Newman's work as two different reprobates in the recent HBO mini-series, Empire Falls or another upstate NY area story, in the movie Nobody's Fool, also based on a Richard Russo book. Two other late career turns that I've enjoyed are in Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (a beautifully acted character study by Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward as--suprise!--a longtime married couple in the midwest) and his work as the Stage Manager in the PBS edition of Our Town a few years ago.

Bryce, I wholeheartedly agree about Absence of Malice and Sally Field. I loved Brimley's showy role and wondered if Melinda Dillon's role had been severely edited when I saw that one. I do think that the issues about the press responsibility for the effect of their work on society is all too relevant.

While I have mixed feelings about The Verdict, I do admire the film for the many shots of the Boston area, the Caravaggio-like darkness of the movie, and Newman's summation speech. For me, the best acting in that movie was actually by Jack Warden and James Mason.

To each his own, I guess.

[bryce]

For me, the best acting in that movie was actually by Jack Warden and James Mason.

I completely agree! That's what I was trying to say above with my part about "battling it out" - I'm a huge Jack Warden fan and have always loved the attitude he brings to a flick and think that Newman as his "foil" (in many, many, many different ways) is one of the reasons the film is so memorable.

[MikeBSG]

James Mason was my favorite part of "The Verdict." I think Warden's character called Mason's "the prince of darkness," and that was no exaggeration.

The film as a whole didn't really work for me.

[myrnaloyisdope]

I'm afraid you have Paul mixed up with William Holden for Network. You might be thinking of The Verdict in which he played a lawyer who became terribly involved in his case. Also, you could mean Absence of Malice where, again he is entangled through no fault of his own but in both movies he was all the things you said.

Well now I feel dumb, totally meant The Verdict. Those Lumet films. Have no idea where my head was, so I will say I was in such a deep depression of Paul Newman's passing that I wasn't sure what I was writing.

Thanks for correcting my foolish mistake.

Anyway, as I said before, it's a complete blessing that we so much of this man's great work to remember him by. And what better way to remember an artist than by his work.

God Bless You Paul.

[charliechaplinfan]

I finally got to see Somebody Up There Likes Me I hoped they would play it when he died but the networks hardly honoured him. So I rented it and no doubt one day I'll have to buy it. I'm not a huge boxing fan but I've liked both Rocky and Raging Bull. I think this one stands up very well against the other two. Paul Newman is very believeable as Rocky Graziano, he plays both the deliquent Rocky and the family man and makes it a believeable transition. I colud see both Marlon Brando or James Dean tackling the part but that doesn't mean to say I think they would be any better. I think in some ways Paul Newman is a bit more vulnerable without being childlike (I'm thinking here more James Dean than Brando).

I'm not all that fimiliar with boxing and the fight scenes at the end last longer and are more gruesome than I thought. I realise that it must take a tremendous amount of cheroegraphy to achieve those scenes.

I'd love to see some more early Paul Newman films especially The Long Hot Summer.

[mrsl]

Charliefan:

In the beginning, Paul and Joanne did a lot of work together. For a fun comparison, you might want to get copies of The Long Hot Summer, and From the Terrace. In the first one, they're both basically Southern riff-raff. Even though she's well off and from a rich family, she's still a witch (change the first letter), but in the latter, he's a lawyer, and she's again a rich _itch. But my favorite early Paul Newman is The Young Philadelphians and Until They Sail. Put any two or three of these together and you'll have a nice evening ahead.

Anne

[jdb1]

I finally got to see Somebody Up There Likes Me I hoped they would play it when he died but the networks hardly honoured him. So I rented it and no doubt one day I'll have to buy it. I'm not a huge boxing fan but I've liked both Rocky and Raging Bull. I think this one stands up very well against the other two. Paul Newman is very believeable as Rocky Graziano, he plays both the deliquent Rocky and the family man and makes it a believeable transition. I colud see both Marlon Brando or James Dean tackling the part but that doesn't mean to say I think they would be any better. I think in some ways Paul Newman is a bit more vulnerable without being childlike (I'm thinking here more James Dean than Brando).

I'm not all that fimiliar with boxing and the fight scenes at the end last longer and are more gruesome than I thought. I realise that it must take a tremendous amount of cheroegraphy to achieve those scenes.

I'd love to see some more early Paul Newman films especially The Long Hot Summer.

Alison, SUTLM is my favorite Newman performance. Although he was, of course, so much better looking and well-spoken than Rocky Graziano, Newman captures the Graziano "ethic" so very well. I was a big fan of Graziano's when I was a kid. He was a regular on television, especially on variety shows as a sort of good-natured stooge for the stars, and he did a lot of commercials as well. I can see Brando in the role (although he was too tall), but I'm not sure about Dean -- maybe not "tough" enough.

Graziano's later persona is the polar opposite of the man depicted in the movie. It's hard to reconcile the two: the violent, unlawful aggressor, versus the sweet and humorous pussycat. I think Newman gives those both to us, and helps to create a portrait of a real human being, far from heroic, but strong, determined, and willing to change for the better. By the way, Graziano and his wife lived in Brooklyn, on Ocean Parkway (one of the 'better' streets of middle class Brooklyn), in a nice, but modest house.