Richard Gaines = horrible (over)actor !!
He kinda ruined it for me, his line delivery & tone of voice are awful .. he took me straight out of the movie !!
shareI thought he was wonderful as the pompous, clueless Mr. Norton. He was the perfect foil to Robinson's incisive, no-nonsense Keyes.
"The night was sultry."
Maybe, but his acting was horrible .. same goes for Byron Barr aka Nino Zachetti.
shareYou must be really young.
I'm old enough to remember when people acted like that.
Well, okay, maybe it was a little over-the-top but Barr was just doing the snarling young man who was the precursor to the 1950s angry young man. I think they all got that from watching too many Cagney movies ("Ya dirty copper!") in their formative years.
"The night was sultry."
For the record, i'm non-American and in my mid-30's .. but anyway, i get your point about how they were acting for that particular time in history, i can dig that .. another random example that just came to mind is It's a Wonderful Life (1946) --> typical over-acting for that time in history by James Stewart there.
shareYes, Jimmy Stewart's anguished George Bailey is almost laughable unless you can put the movie into an historical context--and keep it there.
I just thought of maybe the ultimate example of what we think of now as overacting: Mildred Pierce. Joan Crawford as Mildred, bravely soldiering on to provide for her ingrate daughter, the viperish Veda; Zachary Scott as the parasitic cad, Monte; Jack Carson as the breezily opportunistic salesman, Wally; Eve Arden as the wisecracking, perennial spinster, Ida. They chew up so much scenery that by the end of the movie, you're surprised they aren't [over]acting on a bare set. Bruce Bennett, who acts normal, seems strangely out of place.
I think before ironic and being hip took over so much of pop culture that what we now think of as overacting was just thought of as the sincere, if intense, expression of feeling. The Rat Pack, beatniks, etc. all fostered the notion that too much display of genuine emotion (other than anger--as in "Angry Young Man") just wasn't cool or hip.
"I have had singing."