Hi,
I think this was Burt Lancaster's best performance. I think this performance made his special as an actor.
It's between this and Atlantic City.
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My Top 100 Favorite Films: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls071561044/
Well, it was absolutely ONR of his best performances, but he gave a number of great performances, for example: "Atlantic City" and "Elmer Gantry," so it's hard to say for certain. But in any case, he is absolutely convincing here as the vicious columnist, turning that brilliant dialog into something visceral. One's skin fairly crawls at the venom he spews forth to bring about his detestable intrigues. Really great!--though Curtis is his equal here. Two tremendous performances in one tremendous film!
Fighting for Truth, Justice, and making it the American way.
Lancaster is one of the best actors of all-time, and SSoS is certainly one of his high points. I'll put in my two cents and say other performances that live up this standard are The Swimmer, Elmer Gantry, Seven Days in May, and Field of Dreams.
For what it's worth, I'll say The Swimmer was his best performance and Seven Days in May was the best movie he was in.
In Mexico senor, these are the years of sadness.
My favorite Lancaster scene in this movie is when Sidney is telling JJ off, refusing to call Kello to set up Dallas. He rages that he wouldn't do it even if he was given a column...you see Lancaster's eyes briefly shift from Sidney to the newspaper on the table, then back to Sidney. Sidney's freezes, realizing he'd just actually named his price, and then you see Lancaster's face so subtlety change from "A-ha!" to "Now I own you".
What a great nuanced moment.
This was Curtis's best performance. As for Burt, I'd say it's The Swimmer.
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