The Silver Screen Oasis

We share the first name but unfortunately that is all.

Joel McCrea is finally going to be the Star of the Month on TCM in May, 2012!! You can see more and varied comments about this bit of earth-rattling wonderful news over on the TCM message board.

I am over the moon with happiness!!!!!

I also think Joel McCrea was great. So honest, and genuine, with a quiet sense of humor. Also, as a bonus, tall and ruggedly handsome! I can't believe TCM never made him a star of the month before.

A good McCrea Western that I haven't seen mentioned yet is Gunsight Ridge (1957)... There is a nice wry, sly, McCrea moment in it when McCrea's character is trying to obtain lodgings from an Irish landlady. She says she hasn't any, and turns him away, but when leaving he wishes "honor to the house", with just the hint of a brogue. This, and finding out his name is Ryan, convinces her to find a vacancy.

It would be hard for me to pick a favorite Joel McCrea character, but Joe Carter in The More the Merrier and Steve Judd from Ride the High Country are up there at an even tie.

Mary-Kate:

I like "Gunsight Ridge." It's not great but I like to watch it. I recall that scene you mentioned and am reminded that he uses that charm several times. There is a similar instance where he "charms" one of the ranch owners into confirming how many head of cattle he owns just before finding out how much he'll have to pay in taxes on them.

It would be hard for me to pick a favorite Joel McCrea character

I'll go with Josiah Dozian Gray (STARS IN MY CROWN) and Tom Jeffers (THE PALM BEACH STORY).

ChiO wrote:

It would be hard for me to pick a favorite Joel McCrea character

I'll go with Josiah Dozian Gray (STARS IN MY CROWN) and Tom Jeffers (THE PALM BEACH STORY).

and Joe Carter, The More the Merrier.

I love the four roles mentioned already - Ride the High Country, Stars in My Crown, Palm Beach Story and The More the Merrier, but I also love him in Foreign Correspondent. It's hard to name the movies I like him in best, because he is always so good, and it's HIM you watch, like he's not even acting - he's just very pleasing and natural to watch, no matter what the movie. Those are probably his best films, but HE'S always good.

movieman1957 wrote:Mary-Kate:
I like "Gunsight Ridge." It's not great but I like to watch it. I recall that scene you mentioned and am reminded that he uses that charm several times. There is a similar instance where he "charms" one of the ranch owners into confirming how many head of cattle he owns just before finding out how much he'll have to pay in taxes on them.

Oh, I remember that now! He was full of blarney in that one, wasn't he?

JackFavell wrote:I love the four roles mentioned already - Ride the High Country, Stars in My Crown, Palm Beach Story and The More the Merrier, but I also love him in Foreign Correspondent. It's hard to name the movies I like him in best, because he is always so good, and it's HIM you watch, like he's not even acting - he's just very pleasing and natural to watch, no matter what the movie. Those are probably his best films, but HE'S always good.

In Foreign Correspondent, he and George Sanders are such a fun contrast to each other. Forthright Joel wants to "have a showdown" with the spies, but George has to explain that they're not in a cowboy picture (or something like that. )

I agree, Jack. I can't understand people who might label him as "wooden", or "stoic". He's restrained, but very responsive. Interestingly, he credited Louis Wolheim with helping him develop his non "acting" style: "He taught me more in 10 weeks than I had learned in four years of college. He used to tell me how mentally lazy I was. 'You've got to think, not act,' he'd say. 'Your face is expressive enough. When you think, I can read your thoughts. So, if you want to show you are mad, don't scowl: just think mad and you'll look mad.'"

JackFavell wrote:I love the four roles mentioned already - Ride the High Country, Stars in My Crown, Palm Beach Story and The More the Merrier, but I also love him in Foreign Correspondent. It's hard to name the movies I like him in best, because he is always so good, and it's HIM you watch, like he's not even acting - he's just very pleasing and natural to watch, no matter what the movie. Those are probably his best films, but HE'S always good.

(slaps head) well, d'uh. I just watched Foreign Correspondent for the 32nd time, because of Joel McCrea. I do think he is entirely watchable, and as he got older....ZOWIE what a man!!

I love Joel McCrea in so many things, but most of all I love him in Sullivan's Travels, but I might be prejudiced, because I love *everything* about that movie. (I wish I could write more about it but it's late and I'm tired and have a cold and my mind is a great big blank.)

A nice looking family...

“I had a teenage crush on Joel McCrea — I read about him in all the movie magazines. When we did Three Blind Mice he was so nice, so kind. My second daughter was six weeks old. His wife, Frances Dee, told him that I should always have a chair to sit in — that she once worked on a picture when her son was six weeks old, and she knew how tiring it could be."
Pauline Moore

"I don't know if he was born to the West, but Joel lived it. He worked the ranch land, and I think he knew what it was about. He was a wonderful actor, gentle and real. There really was no acting with him. He used himself, which was just damn well good enough."
James Mitchell

"He wasn't just a Western star, he was a wonderful actor and a very sexy man... Here was this big, true sort of underestimated manliness, a real gentle giant. You just fell in love with him. He was a decent man, a truly decent man, and I think that's uncommon."
Gloria Talbott

"Of all the actors I saw ride a horse, Ben Johnson is the best. I'd have to rate Joel McCrea second, followed by Audie Murphy, Dale Robertson and James Caan."
Casey Tibbs

"Whether the story was based on fact of fiction was hardly important. What was important was the struggle between virtue and evil. I am proud to have been a Western actor, would be proud to act again in any good Western, as long as it represents what the Westerns of old represented: Americana."
Joel McCrea

Those quotes are wonderful, Mari-Catrin! Taken individually, they are lovely, but when you put them all together like that, they really show a full portrait of McCrea. Thanks for posting them.

My pleasure.

JackFavell wrote:...when you put them all together like that, they really show a full portrait of McCrea.

I hadn't thought of that, but you're right!