James Mason

[charliechaplinfan]

I want to share members opinions on this very English of actors. The wonderful voice that he had, one of the best, if not the best in the movies, was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire in 1909 an area known for it's broad accent. He studied at Cambridge to be an architect however changed career and joined a stock company, in 1933 he got his first job in films but was fired after a few days, he remained in theatre until gaining exposure in quota quickies. Throughout the forties he starred in many British films, the most memorable for me is The Seventh Veil. He went to Hollywood at the end of the forties, his roles became more glamourous than the ones he'd had in Britain although a tendency to accept most work given to him resulted in a couple of failures. He worked steadily until his death in 1984.

Of his performances my favorites are The Seventh Veil, Caught, The Reckless Moment, A Star is Born and Lolita with many of his movies that I still need to watch.

He is excellent at portraying a tortured person, be it tortured by his own desire or weaknesses or by outside forces. He implied hidden and sometimes dangerous depths beneath a gentleman's exterior.

He voiced the wonderful Hollywood series, the cherry on the top of the most scrumptious cake. He was instrumental in saving Buster Keaton's films, Keaton had long thought that his best work had been destroyed but Mason found them in the attic of his home which was the Italianate villa built by Keaton, he realised their value and handed them to the people best able to restore them.

He was a life long pacifist and his none involvement in WWII resulted in a split for some years from his family. When reading about him he seems as meloncholy as some of his characters. He left behind some wonderful performances yet isn't quite in that top rung of stars.

[JackFavell]

My favorite James Mason film is Odd Man Out, directed by Carol Reed, though I just love him in The Reckless Moment. He is not my favorite actor, partly because he was able to plum the depths of degradation so well. His portrayals of Humbert Humbert and that ghastly man in the Pumpkin Eater cement his place for me as an actor of great talent who could portray truly awful human beings forced through their own torment into slimy actions. You couldn't pay me enough money to trade places with any James Mason character.

[charliechaplinfan]

I just watched The Odd Man Out, a very good movie, not quite enough Mason for my liking. I know exactly what you mean about trading places with a Mason character, although I still have many to watch I can't think of any I completely warm too apart from the doctor in Caught, he's very nice in Caught, the kind of man you'd love your daughter to take up with.

A Star is Born, I love Fredric March in this role and I love James Mason in this role, Norman Maine was made for both of them and although I feel Fredric March is more suited to the part, I see Norman as a Gilbert type character and for me Fredric is more the matinee idol, James Mason is such a good actor that he makes the role his own with Judy Garland, the fact we notice him when Judy is on the screen is testament to how good he was as an actor.

[Professional Tourist]

James Mason is one of my all-time favorite actors. Besides Lolita, A Star is Born, and Caught I love him in Julius Caesar and in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, which is probably my favorite Mason performance. I had the privilege of seeing him perform in live theater, on Broadway in Brian Friel's play Faith Healer in 1979. I too very much appreciate the sound of his speaking voice and have long enjoyed his spoken-word recordings, such as these Robert Browning verses.

[pvitari]

The fact that James Mason, a suave, sophisticated Englishman, could take a role for which he was manifestly miscast, i.e., the American small-town ex-high-school football hero-turned-middled-aged teacher/family man/unwitting drug addict, in Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life, and be utterly, absolutely compelling and riveting, and make you forget absolutely how miscast he was -- well, James Mason can do no wrong in my book. :)

He broke my heart in Odd Man Out.

Wasn't there talk of Van Johnson taking that role in Bigger Than Life? That would have been very interesting too. ;)

[MissGoddess]

Wow, I did not know about his part in resurrecting interest in Keaton's film, nor
of his pacifist stance. Fascinating.

I agree with you about The Seventh Veil and The Reckless Moment. He was also
quite good in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. All of these are tortured men,
but with underlying goodness. They all had a rotten time finding the right girl,
ha. But when they did, they sacrificed beautifully for them, at least in the latter
two films. He could portray pain and self sacrifice very touchingly, and of course
being a suave, sinister villain was a walk in the park for him. The best scenes
in North by Northwest are in my opinion, his trade-offs with Cary Grant. Both men
have a slightly off kilter quality underneath their smoothness and it is rather fascinating
seeing them guardedly test one another. It adds an undercurrent to an otherwise
straightforward adventure movie.

It was The Reckless Moment that first awakened me to Mason's capacity to show
vulnerability and susceptibility to love. It's a wonderful performance and he makes
Joan Bennett's anguish at the end all the more powerful and understandable. The
guy gets under your skin.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'd never thought of searching out his recorded material, PT, thanks for the tip about the Browning poetry.

I think I need to watch Bigger than Life, I can't imagine him as that type of character anymore than I could imagine him in the lead role in Lolita, the fact he plays the role of Humbert and keeps some of the audeince's sympathy is remarkable.

I liked Odd Man Out but couldn't sympathise at all with his character. He was a cold blooded murderer and member of a terrorist organisation, he deserved what was coming to him. He played him with feeling, a man with a mission but I just couldn't connect with his mission although I had great sympathy for his girl. I couldn't fault the direction of Carol Reed. I think the Irish troubles are better explored by John Ford in the Informer and David Lean in Ryan's Daughter.

I love Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, what a beautiful movie to watch, the cinematography is amazing and James Mason is well cast as the enigmatic Dutchman.

[klondike]

Just as did Orson Welles with the The Stranger, I believe Ray accomplished with James Mason in Bigger than Life a particularly insidious sort of Noir tension by staging the disintegration of his super-self-controlled main character in a comfortable, reassuring all-American exurban neighborhood, where, in either example, men of academic achievement have settled down to rest on their well-deserved laurels. But their individual demons, in Welle's case, a cat-&-mouse Geneva Convention investigator closing in, for Mason, a burgeoning dependence on 50's wonder-drug, cortisone, are incessant in their consumption of these men's personal checkerboards.
Mason in particular is riveting, as he seeks to hide the drug's control of his emotional spectrum, at the same time his subconcious mind is being permeated with fixations about Biblical retribution . . . one could almost label it a bravura performance, except that Mason, doubtless with Ray's tight-woven direction, manages to always keep the scope of Mason's internal war small, and the increasing compulsion to disguise his mind evolves as a fast study in anal-compulsive neuroses.

[charliechaplinfan]

I have those two films recorded but haven't watched them yet, I'll make sure I watch them back to back and report back.

James Mason is an actor my hubby rates as good, which is a compliment believe me.

[JackFavell]

I agree about Odd Man Out and The Informer - but I don't think that OMO or The Informer are actually about the Irish "troubles" at all, and for that reason I find them both fascinating.

[charliechaplinfan]

Perhaps it's our geography and the fact that here in the North West of England most of us have Irish heritage, me included. I do think the 'troubles' only provide the background to the stories of all three films, the stories being about the people of Ireland. It did surprise me that a film like Odd Man Out was made, I suppose the 'troubles' of Ireland have waxed and waned in British history and perhaps when the film was made the troubles weren't at the forefront.

In all these films, even The Quiet Man, the IRA and the Loyalists are never named and I think that must have added to keeping both the British and Irish markets open for these films.

[klondike]

I know how you feel, and what you mean, Alison.
Although our local twin communities of Bellows Falls & North Walpole are still about 65% blue collar, and most adults socialize by drinking in bars & pubs while assertively discussing politics, religion & sports, the well-known topic that is deliberately avoided are the "two sides" in Ireland, doubtless having to do with the 40% or so of local natives who are third or fourth generation immigrated from Eire.
The boniface of my favorite beer joint, "PK's", does have his walls largely covered with Seinn Fein memorabilia, but very seldom are they commented on.

[charliechaplinfan]

There's a certain romanticism attached to Sinn Fein the reality being that some members practice violence and killing. A while ago I was watching a documentary on Gene Kelly, he'd left money to the IRA when he died, his children were shocked and tried to talk him out of it but he just didn't see them as a terrorist organisation, he must have supported the free Ireland without realising the violence sometimes practiced in it's name.

[charliechaplinfan]

Klondike, I watched The Stranger, I'll watch Bigger than Life soon to compare. I wrote The Stranger up on the What Films Have You Seen Lately thread.

[Professional Tourist]

I saw Bigger than Life when it was available on Hulu a year or two ago. The first time I watched it I didn't care for it at all. The second time I was able to enjoy the performances, especially James Mason and Barbara Rush, but I have big problems with the story and with the characters as written, especially with the wife who is made to be a total doormat, even more so than would be typical for the 1950s. Barbara Rush looks like she has aged about ten years since her appearance in Magnificent Obsession just two years earlier, too. I wouldn't recommend that anyone go out of their way to see Bigger than Life, but Mason is good.