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OT: Robert Redford's Last Movie(?): "The Old Man and the Gun"

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Robert Redford made a lot of noise by claiming that his new release, "The Old Man and the Gun" will be his last picture. He has since couched that in "never say never" -- he might find something really good. But let's take him at his word for now.

(Note in passing: Paul Newman always said he was going to do "just one more" -- but was pretty much working up to his death.)

What's funny is how, given that Redford sort of walked away from superstardom in the 80's(he'd go years without doing a movie)...he's actually been in a lot of movies recently, but not very visibly.

He did that one about aged counterculture radicals(with Nick Nolte.) He did that one about two old guys on a nature hike(with Nick Nolte again, in for Newman.) He did that one with Jane Fonda(his Chase/Barefoot in the Park/Electric Horseman pal) about two old people agreeing to sleep together in a bed but only for company, no sex. He did the here-and-gone Disney remake of Pete's Dragon. And he Grabbed for Oscar with that all-star near silent one man show, "All is Lost."

And -- wonderfully -- he played a smiling evil villain in the second Captain America movie -- nonchalantly shooting his cleaning lady for hearing his plot; putting lethal lapel pins on dignitaries and smiling about how the pins could be exploded to kill them all. Evil. But charming.

Which reminds me: Redford confirmed that Hitchcock offered him "Family Plot," but I always wondered: which role? The amiable good guy George Lumley? Or the evil kidnapper Arthur Adamson? He might have been better as Adamson. Alas, he turned the movie down. And waited a few decades before playing a villain(in movies; he'd been villains on TV a lot.)

Redford was definitely one of my Top Three new stars in the 70's(if one starts in late '69 with Butch Cassidy.) He worked a lot, and I liked 'em all: Little Fauss and Big Halsey(where he plays up his shirtless macho appeal, and actually plays a heel, if not a villain); The Hot Rock(a great caper with George Segal as his buddy); The Candidate(a great political docudrama comedy that fits today fine -- the issues didn't change, the voters did); Jeremiah Johnson(a "granola snow Western" that seemed to get re-released to theaters all through the 70's); and his one-two punch of 1973: The Way We Were(a great love story with Streisand) followed two months later by The Sting(an intricate love story with Paul Newman, again.)

Those two 1973 films cemented Redford's superstardom. He survived an immediate prestige flop with The Great Gatsby and then made the Hitchcockian mini-classic "Three Days of the Condor"(after wobbling a bit with The Great Waldo Pepper.)

In 1976, he paired with Hoffman on "All the President' Men" -- and then he began his disappearing act. 1977: he only did about ten high paid minutes(as the highest paid star in an all-star war movie) in A Bridge Too Far. 1978: No movie. 1979: The Electric Horseman(looking great, with his Sundance moustache back.)

He did the prison movie "Brubaker" in 1980(a surprising hit, and Redford attributed it to his star power in the summer of Empire Strikes Back.) And then he took 1981 off. And then he took 1982 off. And then he took 1983 off.

He came back mid-eighties with a flurry of films: The Natural(84), Out of Africa(85) and Legal Eagles (86.) I remember feeling that Redford was back, but different somehow. His face had aged poorly in the sun, he seemed smaller and more frail than the 70's guy. But those three movies kept him viable, and the rest of his career was sort of on, sort of off. In "Havana" in 1990, he was declared "really old looking" and seemed to spend the rest of his career fighting that facial change.

We were talking about Burt Reynolds a few weeks back, with his death following a fine final comeback movie. He became a big star in the 70's too, but Reynolds did an Oscar presentation speech where he made fun of "Bob Redford," saying to the unseen "Bob" -- "Bob, I just want you to know, up there on that mountaintop where you live, that I've done something you've never done: The Hollywood Squares."

Which was true. Burt was sort of showing off his insecurity versus the "prestige" nature of Redford's career, which was entertainment-based, but often had serious political implications(The Candidate, Condor, All the President's Men) and Best Picture work(The Sting.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Redford managed a more thoughtful star career than Burt Reynolds, I guess, but they were certainly both stars in their separate ways.

"Old Man and the Gun" does what "The Last Movie Star" did: uses some clips of young Robert Redford to remind us not only of his old man as a youth, but to remind us of exactly how great looking Young Robert Redford was. However, a series of photographs of Redford(ostensibly from the characters prison terms, but also from Redford's career) remind us: in his youngest years, Redford was NOT that great looking. He had to age a bit into his 30's, get super handsome, pick up that longer, fluffier hair of the 70s , to get that "superstar look" (though, ironically, a man who looked great in long hair ended up with short hair in period pieces like The Sting and Gatsby, though for the 50's based Way We Were, they gave him "long fluffy short blond hair.")

What's funny, watching "The Old Man and the Gun," in which Redford has a decidedly creased and lined face, and rather weak, "bug-out" eyes, is that one is reminded of his acting technique -- the way he tosses off his crisp line readings, and tends to look a little "surprised" in reaction to other people's lines --- and it is all very reminiscent of how young, very handsome Redford acted. The essence is still there -- and he seems to be in better shape in his early 80's than the now late Mr. Reynolds was at that age.

I again saw the trailer for 88-year old Clint Eastwood in the upcoming "The Mule," and I guess I'll throw in that its OK to see Reynolds, Redford, and Eastwood giving us these "late versions" of themselves. These men in their 80s show us how the human body changes by that decade...frail, a bit wobbly on the feet...but all three men were successful and fit stars and probably are having(or had, in Reynolds case) a better 80's than most people(Redford and Eastwood have stayed very rich, which helps, too.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Redford chose wisely with The Old Man and the Gun as his final(maybe) film.

Its about a bank robber. And that's how Redford broke through, of course, with "Butch Cassidy"(after ten years plus working his way up.)

Indeed, "The Old Man and the Gun" opens with a wink to Butch, with his line:

"This story, again, is mostly true." Again...as with Butch, which opened with "Not that it matters, but most of what follows is true."

This one is more modern day than Butch -- but not modern day. We are in the early 80's(shades of the TV show The Americans, which I am catching up with right now.) Redford is playing a "gentleman bank robber" named Forrest Tucker. Which is hilarious. That's the guys real name, and older folks like me remember an actor named Forrest Tucker who did the TV comedy F Troop, the John Wayne Western Chisum, and the cheapo horror movie The Crawling Eye.

Anyway, Redford's Forrest Tucker is a gentleman thief who works with two other old guys -- Danny Glover(underused) and Tom Waits(what's HE been up to?) in his bank jobs, but handles the verbal part himself, with that ol' Redford charm and smile to keep female tellers calm and grateful. (He also calmly chats up a victim bank manager played by that older guy who had to flip a coin with Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men; 11 years later, he looks the same.)

Interesting. In Eastwood's The Mule, hot young actor Bradley Cooper is the cop chasing him. In this Redford film, recent Best Actor winner(but shamed "Me Too" target) Casey Affleck does the chasing. Both films have it figured out: you can give a lead to an old legend, but you need young marquee talent, too. I'm just not sure if the mumbling, weak-ish Affleck fills the bill.

The cop/robber relationship starts funny: Redford quietly robs a bank that Affleck is IN, depositing money. They are about ten feet apart. The investigating cops make fun of how Affleck saw nothing. Much later in the film, the two men meet up for a very surprising confrontation -- before the story actually ends.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Better: a nice, late older people's romance between Redford and another Golden Oldie: Sissy Spacek. Jeez, remember when she played a teenager in Carrie? Well, she's older now, but charming in a nice rural Texas way and well matched with Redford, and we are again reminded that some filmmakers have determined that there is a "Baby Boomer market" out there for seeing romances and action pictures starring people over 60. (Hell, 50 is practically teenage, these days.)

There is also a one-scene cameo for Elisabeth Moss of "Mad Men," (as Redford's estranged daughter) which means in one week , I've seen Moss, Jon Hamm(Bad Times at the El Royale), Christina Hendricks and John Slattery(in Matt Weiner's The Romanoffs) in various productions. Its Mad Men week. All I need now is a Vincent Kartheiser performance, and maybe a glance at Alison Brie in "Glow," and its complete.

A good thing about this character that Redford has chosen to play: an aged gentleman robber he may be playing, bu the character is clearly delineated as a man who ONLY wants to be a robber, NEVER wants to take up a normal way of life, and has spent decades alternating between robbing banks, going to prison, and BREAKING OUT of prison(17 times, since breaking out of reform school as a kid, and we see clips of all the breaks) , with a certain glee in leading cops on car chases as well. He's charming...but he's unrepentant, and The Old Man and the Gun never loses sight of the fact that this is a story about "the criminal kind." There's some healthy tension in watching to see if Redford's romance with Spacek can actually work out. (In a charming scene, he shoplifts a bracelet for Spacek but she takes it back into the store, apologizes for her "forgetful mistake", and makes him pay for it.)

"The Old Man and the Gun" is a good movie, but not a great one. Still, Redford is billed first. His poor old "Hot Rock" co-star George Segal is on a sitcom in support nowadays. Redford is still a star.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

BTW: I would still put more Oscar hopes on the more self-reflective final film of Burt Reynolds -- The Last Movie Star -- than on this one. Redford's consolation prize, I assume, will be to live longer into his eighties than Reynolds did.

And maybe make another movie at 88, like Eastwood has.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

And that's how Redford broke through, of course, with "Butch Cassidy"(after ten years plus working his way up.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Maybe BC&TSK breaks Redford through to *super*-stardom, but Barefoot In The Park was a square but beloved, ultra-profitable hit in 1967: he's an "it" guy, A-list star after that I'd say.

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Well, I'm edging into agreement, that's for sure, but I think maybe this is a case of using the psychiatrist's famous (and somewhat mocked) line from Psycho:

"Yes...and no!"

The Redford career in the late 50s and 60's was rather a slog upwards, inch by inch. You can find him on The Twilight Zone, and in an Alfred Hitchcock Hour or two(the great first one of that series, with Gig Young as his sacrificial older brother in a deadly poker game; and one where he's a flat out bullying killer). And then certain movie roles (This Property Is Condemned, Inside Daisy Clover) with Natalie Wood where he wasn't quite more than "supporting ingénue." (This was, after all, the era in which studios usually made their young men toil in the fields before being granted stardom, though Warren Beatty broke young.) Movies like "War Hunt" and "Situation Serious, But Not Hopeless" ...simply weren't big deals. And again, it took some time for his looks to kick in past callow and bit plump faced in youth.

In 1965, Redford was good as an escaped (innocent) convict in "The Chase," but Marlon Brando nonchalantly ruled that one, along with Jane Fonda(a star before Redford, though -- I was amazed to see -- she took second billing to Redford in Barefoot in the Park.)

I'm leading up to the idea here that while Barefoot in the Park was a hit, and Fonda was second-billed, somehow she ruled it with her sex appeal, and Neil Simon rather took over the whole project(along with Neal Hefti, one score before The Odd Couple, creating that very romantic soft jazz effect.) Redford still seemed like "the straight man" in rather hermetically sealed Broadway movie.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

When "Butch Cassidy" was being cast, Paul Newman was always in the project, but finding that second star meant a true quest through the A list: Steve McQueen(very close, would have been perfect, but he walked over billing), Marlon Brando(a popular name, but not a popular actor with the studios), Warren Beatty(who famously dithered over taking the part, as he often did, til nobody cared.) I've heard that James Coburn and Robert Wagner were also considered, but Coburn was "established second tier" and Wagner(a Newman buddy) was by now a "TV series star"(To Catch a Thief) -- the kiss of death.

Given how buttoned-down Redford played the lawyer newlywed in Barefoot, I think he was seen as miscasting for Sundance, but he heard he was under consideration, and he actively sought the role. (Joanne Woodward had suggested him to her husband, Paul Newman, that started it.)

I think that Redford WAS "hot goods" after Barefoot in the Park, and he was very, very careful about what to do next. He turned down the husband in "Rosemary's Baby," bailed on an arty Western called "Blue"(Terrence Stamp did it and it failed), and seems to have been rejected for The Graduate as "too easy to get women" than the role required.

In short, Redford knew he was hot, but was being very careful on what to do next after "Barefoot in the Park." He tried hard for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, grew the hair out and grew the famous moustache, and the cool lowdown cowboy hat and the great smile, and was suddenly "macho cool."

There was a Life Magazine photograph of Redford as the Sundance Kid that covered the whole front page -- and the issue evidently sold out fast and/or had the cover ripped off it by crazy women, young and old. THAT did it -- a superstardom that, frankly, I don't think "Barefoot in the Park" had yet conferred.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Rather like Jack Nicholson after hitting with Easy Rider, it seemed that Redford somewhat "stumbled around" with his superstardom after Butch. For Nicholson, he followed Easy Rider with Five Easy Pieces(Oscar-nommed, but very arty and anti-social), Carnal Knowledge(he's a misogynist monster); The King of Marvin Gardens(more art), before finally hitting popular stardom with the one-two-three of The Last Detail, Chinatown, and Cuckoo's Nest(interesting -- he's more famous for Chinatown, but he won his Oscar for Cuckoo's Nest.)

Redford struggled after Butch with Downhill Racer and Little Fauss and Big Halsey(he's ice-cold in the first, a heel in the second), Tell Them Willie Boy is Here(a dull topical Western) and then some more entertaining films that seemed to not catch fire at the box office -- The Hot Rock, Jeremiah Johnson, The Candidate.

But I contend that it was 1973 -- The Way We Were and The Sting -- that took Redford over the top and fully established him as a Number One or so star. He was gorgeous in the first film, interesting in the next, and they both smacked of intelligence. (Redford was rather the thoughtful alternative to Clint and Burt and even Jack.)

But I buried the lede. "Barefoot in the Park" told us that Redford COULD be a superstar. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid MADE him one.

PS. Funny: Paul Newman spent many, many months assuming he would play the Sundance Kid. Especially when Jack Lemmon was considered as Butch. Even before Redford came aboard, director George Roy Hill told Newman, "You're not playing Sundance...you're playing Butch."

Made all the sense in the world. Redford was a new , young, cool cat. Newman was an experienced mugger and wise guy.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

He came back mid-eighties with a flurry of films: The Natural(84), Out of Africa(85) and Legal Eagles (86.) I remember feeling that Redford was back, but different somehow. His face had aged poorly in the sun, he seemed smaller and more frail than the 70's guy. But those three movies kept him viable, and the rest of his career was sort of on, sort of off.

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I checked his imdb credits and I was right: Redford took a lot of the 80's off: no movies in 1981, 1982 and 1983. No movies in 1987, 1988, and 1989. That "flurry" of films in 84/85/86 seemed to be a deliberate attempt to get his rhythm going again...and then he dropped out again. As I recall, there were rumors that he made those films to help pay for a divorce; but Redford still elected to take most of the 80's off(Brubaker in 1980 was his only other 80's film.)

Redford wasn't alone in taking some years off in the 80's.

Al Pacino did. Scarface may be cult now, but it wasn't a hit then(too much chainsaw gore.) And that left Pacino with Crusing, Author, Author, and a movie about the American Revolution as his early 80's output. So he took a few years off, and returned with a one-two punch in 1989 and 1990: Sea of Love(he was sexy and action-packed as a cop); The Godfather III(an event, even if a disappointing one.) Then he did it again in 1992, scoring Oscar noms for Scent of a Woman(Best Actor; he won) and Glengarry Glen Ross(Best Supporting Actor, he lost.) And then, in 1993, Big Al reunited with Brian "Scarface" DePalma for my favorite movie of 1993, the cinematic, stylish, and very sad Puerto Rican gangster tale: "Carlito's Way." Pacino was re-launched in the 90's as a bigger star than he had been in the 80's...and with a new, hammy over the top presentation(we love it.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Bill Murray hit big with Ghostbusters in the summer of 1984 and released his payoff prestige picture The Razor's Edge at the end of 1984. He then took off 1985, 1986, 1987, and almost all of 1988 before he returned in Scrooged at the end of 1988. That's almost four years. Oh, in 1986 he did a hilarious cameo with Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors(in a role originated in the 1960 cheapie by Jack Nicholson), and he hosted a 1987 SNL that had a hilarious bit where he played a pot-bellied Hercules("I have found that if you do not continue your exercise regiment, your muscle turns to fat.") But those were teasers. Bill Murray took a chunk of the 80's off.

In the eighties, Warren Beatty made only two films(the highly regarded Reds and the poorly regarded Ishtar.) Did Dustin Hoffman do much more?(Tootsie -- big hit; Ishtar...uh uh.) I think maybe Hoffman did Family Business in 1989, with Sean Connery as his dad(!) and Matthew Broderick as his son(understandable.)

So you can see, for some reason, a serious contingent of 60's/70's stars hid out during the 80's, re-stoked their star power for comebacks. John Travolta would wait all the way until 1994 to do this.

And oh: Burt Reynolds watched his career collapse in the 80's, and Eastwood almost followed suit(in 1988, the big booming Die Hard bested Eastwood's cheapjack Dirty Harry 5; nothing he made from 1988 through 1991 really hit at all.) But came 1992 and Unforgiven....all was forgiven. Eastwood returned to stardom.

PS. During Bill Murray's 80's hiatus from filmmaking, Columbia chief David Puttnam(a prestige filmmaker coming off of "Chariots of Fire") in a public speech chided Murray for not coming to work more at Columbia in the 80's. Puttnam found it ungrateful after Ghostbusters made Murray so rich. "He took, but he didn't give back."Murray reportedly helped Puttnam get fired...

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Movie star careers rather fascinate me. So many 70's stars lost their mojo and never got it back -- Voight, Segal, Gould, Dreyfuss(for awhile.) A tougher breed weathered the storm and kept their superstardom intact: Pacino, DeNiro, Redford, Murray.

And Redford's done it with a mottled face.

Which reminds me: back in Redford's 70's heyday I said to my mother, "he's kind of like Cary Grant." She retorted: "He keeps his face out in the sun, he's going to be Spencer Tracy." She thought he already looked like Spencer Tracy even in the late 70's. Well...she was right.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

the one-two-three of The Last Detail, Chinatown, and Cuckoo's Nest(interesting -- he's more famous for Chinatown, but he won his Oscar for Cuckoo's Nest.)

Forman's Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus are two of the most accomplished, near-perfect films of their respective decades. Both were highly celebrated and enormously commercially successful in their times. Neither is forgotten now exactly, but they're little discussed. I guess it's the plight too of worthies like Schindlers List and 12 Years A Slave. Their control and middle-browness and thematic transparency makes them ultra-impactful on first or second viewing but perhaps their un-elusiveness doesn't give them as much rewatchability or enjoyability in parts as your Godfathers and Chinatown and Annie Hall and...

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Forman's Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus are two of the most accomplished, near-perfect films of their respective decades.

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Agreed on both.

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Both were highly celebrated and enormously commercially successful in their times.

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Yes, I recall that "Cuckoo's Nest" was a "mini-Exorcist," playing in its flagship Westwood theater(near UCLA) for weeks with lines around the block; it took me forever to get to see it.

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Neither is forgotten now exactly, but they're little discussed.

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I expect than Amadeus is at once a bit too art-prestigious...and lacks stars (however justified, is not F. Murray Abraham one of the more obscure Best Actor winners? Just a year after he was hanged from a helicopter in Scarface, yet.)

Cuckoo's Nest, weirdly, seems to have been swamped by the overt classicism of Chinatown(and its historic incest angle) and the grand flamboyance of Nicholson's "entertainment roles"(Prizzi's Honor, The Witches of Eastwick, A Few Good Men..even Wolf.)

SPOILERS for Cuckoo's Nest. I will say this: once I finally DID get into Cuckoo's Nest, it was an audience participation movie par excellance. With every small victory against the bureaucratic Nurse Ratched, the audience cheered. And when things went south for Fake Mad Jack against her, the audience was in dread. When there is an open window ready and waiting for Jack to escape the horrors of the asylum....a few audience members yelled "Get out of there! Go!" (alas, all these years later, I realize they may have been paid studio shills, but maybe not, and in any event , I bought their yells at the time.) The film ends "70's downer style," but not: Jack dies, but The Indian makes his escape. My audience went nuts. I miss those days, when audiences went nuts.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Interesting: 1975 ended the "Golden Era" of two competing stars: Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino. Each man climaxed that year (Dog Day Afternoon; Cuckoo's Nest) after some very important, Oscar-nommed films and roles(Godfathers I and II, Serpico, Scarecrow for Pacino; everything from Easy Rider through Cuckoo's Nest less The Fortune for Jack.)

And then each man struggled. The Missouri Breaks and Goin' South for Nicholson. Bobby Deerfield and...what? for Pacino (And Justice for All had him yelling at the end, but not with the humorous style of his later manifestations.)

And yet, each came back. The 80's weren't quite so bad for Nicholson, but The Shining was met with some disdain for Jack's hammery. In 1981, his paunch didn't suit the sex of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," and in 1982, "The Border" tacked an 80's happy ending on a 70's downer film. Nicholson seemed to be floundering, but not: he took supporting roles in Reds and Terms of Endearment and saved his career for stardom.

Movie stars. How overpaid they seem, how less-than-brilliant I think they are, personally. And yet in whatever era, the ones who make it to the top and THEN hold on do hold a fascination for me:

Men:

Bogart, Grant, Stewart, Tracy, Fonda.

Holden, Mitchum, Douglas the Senior

Newman, McQueen, Connery.

Redford, Nicholson, Eastwood.

Hanks, Cruise, Denzel.

....but are they hanging on quite so well today? Do we HAVE movie stars?

In some ways, I still say yes.

Case in point. Johnny Depp has been declared over and received the requisite gossip column burial. And yet: when I saw a recent trailer for 'Fantastic Beasts," all the OTHER actors seemed quite mundane, but when Depp shows up(barely. at the end), I FELT it: oh, there's a REAL movie star. Why discard him? (Plus, he's "broke" but he owns many houses. How broke is that, really? House poor, I think we call it.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

DiCaprio and Pitt are still big -- that's one reason Once Upon a Time in Hollywood looms large -- but are they quite as big as the stars before them? Something seems missing, not quite starry enough.

I may be wrong.