The Silver Screen Oasis

charliechaplinfan wrote: Richard Harris has a supporting part

I just saw Shake Hands With the Devil about a month ago after some time and had to laugh at the way that Harris stole every move from Marlon Brando--I thought he almost called Glynis Johns "Blanche" once or twice. In his final scene, I'd bet money that Richard Harris had gone to see Brando in The Young Lions the night before they filmed RH's final moments in the film. Oy! That darn Method was everywhere in the fifties--even dear ol' Ireland.

I liked Richard Harris a bit more later in his career. Much later.

Today I watched "The Horse's Mouth" (1958) directed by Ronald Neame.

I had seen the movie about 30 years ago. I didn't especially like it. I guess I had thought that it was going to be an Ealing-like comedy with Guinness.

So for some reason I decided to give the movie a second try. It didn't really work for me. Maybe it needed a faster pace or a shorter running time, but while this film had funny moments, it wasn't really very funny. In fact, I wished Michael Gough had had more screen time, because it was fun to see him in a comic role as an eccentric sculptor.

Guinness was very good as the strong-willed artist, but this just won't be one of my favorite films.

RedRiver wrote:Lemmon is a very believable actor. He's Everyman, like Henry Fonda. That quality takes the material right to the heart.

So true, I think that's what I really like about him, he's funnier than Henry Fonda though, although I could see Henry Fonda as Daphne, Jack is so deft at comedy. Many years ago we were holidaying in the States and I remember watching an interview with Jack Lemmon, I think it was given to film students, it would be about 2000 and he was really outspoken, a bit of a grumpy old man, his grumpiness was aimed at the modern film world and the actors and actresses, but every word was well considered and he had a very point. He wasn't at all like his comedy persona but a craftsman, I think I began to like him even more, if that were possible.

I agree about Richard Harris, he had come from the Marlon Brando style of copied movie acting.

I actually was surprised at how good Harris was in This Sporting Life, and in fact, it's probably my favorite of the angry young man pictures, just because he seems really genuine. He also has moments in the picture where he plays low key, and very well. I also like him in The Molly McGuires. other than that, I haven't been too interested in him as an actor.

I do have a question though.... do we hate John Carroll or James Craig because they seem to be cut from Gable's cloth? There were tons of actors who were inspired by Brando, but we don't hate them. So I wonder if it's maybe his reputation as a bad boy that we respond to? I've always actually thought he was more of a Richard Burton clone than a Brando one.

There were tons of actors who were inspired by Brando, but we don't hate them

Only the ones who recorded "Macarthur Park."

HA!!!! You got that right.

JackFavell wrote:I actually was surprised at how good Harris was in This Sporting Life, and in fact, it's probably my favorite of the angry young man pictures, just because he seems really genuine. He also has moments in the picture where he plays low key, and very well. I also like him in The Molly McGuires. other than that, I haven't been too interested in him as an actor.

I do have a question though.... do we hate John Carroll or James Craig because they seem to be cut from Gable's cloth? There were tons of actors who were inspired by Brando, but we don't hate them. So I wonder if it's maybe his reputation as a bad boy that we respond to? I've always actually thought he was more of a Richard Burton clone than a Brando one.

His turn as Dumbledore was the best.

Last Friday I went to the Cinema to see "Oblivion" (2013) and I enjoyed it very much and found it an above-average film of its kind. The premise of the story is smart and the development of the plot is well delineated. The sets and art direction are impressive. Tom Cruise is fine and the man seem to have stayed in his thirties; he loooks younger than Brad Pitt who's quite younger than him. Andrea Riesenborough's ("The Devil's Whore") performance is riveting -IMO-; she stands out among the members of the cast. Good.

I don't "hate" Richard Harris. I just think his early film work in Shake Hands With the Devil was highly derivative and amusing. I also enjoyed him in the Robert Mitchum Irish rebel movie, The Night Fighters (1960), Mutiny on the Bounty (during which Harris reportedly came to loath Brando), The Heroes of Telemark where he seethed next to the king of seething, Kirk Douglas. I also liked him in Juggernaut as a bomb expert, though he was wiped off the screen whenever David Hemmings or Anthony Hopkins had their moments.

I got a lot of laughs out of Richard Harris' spot-on imitation of Richard Burton in Cromwell (1970) when I saw it recently on TCM (clearly Harris had a gift for mimicry). I was also bemused with the way that Alec Guinness proved that the movie should have been called Charles I: The Cavalier King whenever he appeared (and quietly stole) every scene.

I liked Harris best in The Field (1990) as the bitter patriarch, and recognized an Irish flintiness in him that he had rarely shown earlier. I also liked him as George Adamson (of Elsa the Lioness fame) in the moving story To Walk With Lions (1999).

I have a hard time with This Sporting Life thanks to the fact that I seem to be allergic to Rachel Roberts, even though I like most of David Storey's "kitchen sink" stories, particularly In Celebration (1974).

There were tons of actors who were inspired by Brando, but we don't hate them

Only the ones who recorded "Macarthur Park."

You referring to Elvis Presley?

I like "MacArthur Park." (It is great fun to play on the piano.) The flipside of the 45 is also an interesting song called "The Yard Went On Forever." I just read that Waylon Jennings did a version. Ewww.

"Spring was never waiting for us, girl, it ran one step ahead as we followed in the dance....."

Sorry.

Today I watched "Castle Keep" (1969) directed by Sydney Pollack.

Where has this movie been all my life?

I had heard about the film and thought it sounded interesting, but it was usually dismissed as "allegorical" or "absurdist."

It is about 8 misfit GIs who end up in a Belgian castle during the Battle of the Bulge. Burt Lancaster plays the commander, and there are good performances by Patrick O'Neal, Peter Falk, and Scott Wilson. (I think Michael Conrad got cheated. He seemed to fade out of the film in the last third of the movie.)

In some ways, "Castle Keep" is as if Woody Allen had made a WWII combat movie. The dialogue is very funny, and there are absurdist/bizarre situations. (And I know why few people have seen the film. The dialogue is very frank about sex. If you aired this on network TV back in the Seventies or Eighties, you would have nothing but combat scenes.) But the film looks great: gorgeous winter photography, wonderful sets. The action is relentless once the German attack gets started. Yes, this film exists in the shadow of "The Dirty Dozen," but it has its own peculiar charm. It works as a think piece as well as a bang-bang movie.

I remember when I was in Moscow in 1995, our guide pointed out the Illuzion Theater and said that Sydney Pollack had made a speech there. One of the women in our group (from California) said "I never thought Sydney Pollack was that big a deal." I suppose he is best remembered for "Tootsie" today, but I think "Castle Keep" is a film that could be rediscovered.