MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > OT: Kirk Douglas RIP...at 103

OT: Kirk Douglas RIP...at 103

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
27 replies | jump to latest

I know that Olivia DeHavilland is still with us over 100 but Kirk was sort of the "last man standing" from the "late Golden Era" of MALE movie stars. And he managed to make a few public appearances after 100.

Its a career that started in the late forties, "solidified" in the fifties, and peaked in the early 60's. In this regard, Douglas rather "beat" late starters like Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis, perhaps tied with Gregory Peck in years of service.

In retrospect, Douglas should have had too mean, narrow and harsh a face for a movie star, but he made up for it in macho, menace, and sex appeal. And -- like all great stars -- he had great voice that could be imitated(best by Frank Gorshin.) SOME of that voice came down in his softer looking, more pleasant son Michael. (Who nonetheless borrowed some of his father's fierceness for later roles, including the sex star ones.)

He often played a good guy who was kind of scary, and he went ahead and played a few heels(Champion, Ace in the Hole, Detective Story) and at least one flat out villain(the master of disguise murderer in John Huston's Hitchcockian "The List of Adrian Messenger.)

Rather like Hitchcock, Douglas peaked during that 50's/60s cusp. Its where you find Shootout at the OK Corral(Douglas comes in second to Val Kilmer as the best Doc Holliday), where you find Kubrick's Paths of Glory(with Kirk's ultra-raging "You can GO TO HELL before I ever apologize to you!!!") where you find The Vikings(with Janet Leigh), where you find Douglas, Lancaster and Olivier in The Devil's Disciple...and where you find Spartacus...that Big One from the Psycho year of 1960, filmed on the same lot(Universal) as Psycho, with one shared star(John Gavin.) Rumor has it that if you shifted the camera to the right of the Psycho house in 1959/1960, you'd see the Spartacus slave training facility about 300 yards away. And Little Michael Douglas said that as a kid, he wandered off the Spartacus set to go watch Hitchcock's editors cut the shower scene(there...on topic.)

In 1962, Douglas made the film he called his favorite: the modern-day chase Western, Lonely are the Brave. Its also Michael Douglas favorite of his dad's films, and co-star Walter Matthau ranked it his own favorite of HIS films. (Matthau's billed as support, but he is the second star of the movie -- the laconic New Mexican sheriff tracking jail escapee Douglas over a mountain range to Mexico.) And its my favorite of Kirk's films -- right ahead of Spartacus, also written by Dalton Trumbo.

Lonely are the Brave is a 1962 Universal film that rather looks and feels like 1960 Psycho at times -- the sets, the b/w cinematography, the backlot ,the sound effects, etc. And Douglas rodentoid features had filled out to a certain handsomeness by then -- his physical peak.

I rather liked Kirk Douglas as John Wayne's co-star in the almost back-to-back In Harm's Way(Otto Preminger's 1965 WWII Navy tale that's really about expert bureaucratic infighting) and The War Wagon(a 1967 buddy Western with a comic streak). Kirk's intense fury seemed to cool out into a certain maturity with the Duke holding him in check.

And Douglas holds his own with his pal Lancaster and Fredric March in the political thriller Seven Days in May of 1964(co-starring Martin Balsam, who calls in information from a phone booth and gets killed in the next scene. Sound familiar?)

As the 60's bled into the 70's, Douglas hung on. I think the last time you can see him really being the STAR of a movie is in Brian DePalma's 1978 The Fury, but by then Kirk's features had aged and winnowed. He looked scary wihout the sex appeal.

Also from 1960 I also like the "adult" tale of adultery in the LA suburbs, "Strangers When We Meet" , with Ernie Kovacs and Walter Matthau providing adroit support to a hopeless love affair between the married Kirk and the married Kim Novak. This movie gives us a look at "contemporary" 1960 in a way that Spartacus the same year could not.

Hey..that's a lot of movies. Kirk Douglas WAS a great star. And maybe a great actor, too --for what its worth, film critic Stanley Kauffman felt that only Douglas was in reach of Marlon Brando's brilliance in the 50's.

And at 103...he beat 'em all. The guys, that is.

RIP, Kirk. And I do believe that I'll take a gander at Lonely are the Brave this week.

PS. You'd think that Kirk Douglas would be on the list of actors who should NOT have been in a Hitchcock movie, but his rather crazed multiple murderer in The List of Adrian Messenger suggests that maybe...he could have at least been a flamboyant Hitchcock heavy. Bruno Anthony, maybe? Its worth a fanciful thought.

[–] telegonus (736) 5 years ago

Thanks, EC. You certainly nailed the arc of Kirk Douglas's career. He was a rare case of a superstar who was never regarded as a box-office champion, as he never made the list of the top ten moneymaker stars of any given year (back in the day that was the definition of a superstar; a bit odd considering that Glenn Ford made it to the top several years in a row and Richard Widmark didn't). Yet Douglas was easily a career superstar. I'd say he'd achieved that distinguished (and unofficial, to the best of my knowledge) status by the early Sixties, as you suggested. That was his peak; and as you noted, he began his ascent in the later Fifties. One could say that, arguably, his rise began with Lust For Life. There have always been paradoxes and ironies to the man's career, starting with his first movie, The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers, playing a rich boy weakling, two things he was not, and in the former case he surely wasn't born to wealth or even working class respectability (as his career progressed he achieved considerable wealth, of course).

Also odd about Douglas: he started out not as a star or even a "star of the future" with one lucky break (like his friend and frequent co-star, Burt Lancaster) but rather a featured player, almost an up and coming character actor, something he clearly didn't want to be. Nor was he always so rough edged, as he later became, as he's downright urbane in I Walk Alone. Some directors who worked with him noted his classical theater training as a huge asset he had as an emerging player, as distinct from the (initially) awkward Lancaster. In this Kirk was nearer as a type to another Douglas, Melvyn, with whom he had little else in common; while pal Burt's screen beginnings more closely resembled Sterling Hayden's. It took a bit of time for Kirk to cash in on his natural athleticism, and his work in Champion is probably more than any one film the one that made him stand out. Young Man With A Horn cemented his reputation.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

You certainly nailed the arc of Kirk Douglas's career. He was a rare case of a superstar who was never regarded as a box-office champion, as he never made the list of the top ten moneymaker stars of any given year (back in the day that was the definition of a superstar; a bit odd considering that Glenn Ford made it to the top several years in a row and Richard Widmark didn't). Yet Douglas was easily a career superstar.

--

The whole concept of the "superstar" is an amusing one, one of those places where the "serious study of film" has to intersect with the hullaballoo of "movie marketing." And yet, it would seem that "we know a superstar when we see one."

Hollywood knows who they are. I think it was noted once that in the 70's, Michael Caine was a star, but he would have to make five movies to earn what Jack Nicholson earned for one. So Jack was a superstar.

Critic Richard Schickel wrote that with Dirty Harry and its huge success(as a blockbuster movie AND as a legendary movie character), Clint Eastwood "made the move from star to superstar." Clint not only started getting top pay, but a big percentage of his pictures and, often as producer/director, complete control over them.

Possibly the ultimate superstar was Cary Grant, the star who got more handsome and more successful as he aged, and who NEVER did the Johnny Carson show or other talk shows(the Oscar telecast was his only TV work pre-retirement), who had top billing in his final film at 62(Walk Don't Run), successfully retired rich and who thereafter refused all entreaties to return to the screen, both because he was too satisfied to want to and too rich to have to. (Meanwhile, Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda did TV series that bombed.)

--

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

The late screenwriter William Goldman said it was always fun to play a game called "Who's the Biggest Star?" at a precise time in movie history. He recalled that the year it was Clint Eastwood, other guessers thought Paul Newman or Robert Redford. In later years, Goldman offered Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kevin Costner one time(and look how they have fallen!).

"The Two Toms"(Hanks and Cruise) had neck and neck 100 million hits in the 90's. Hanks shot past Cruise on "prestige" points with his back to back Oscars, but both men are pretty bankable and top level today. Alas, Hanks doesn't really front blockbusters anymore and Cruise ONLY has a blockbuster franchise in Mission Impossible. (His upcoming Top Gun sequel will be big, but a "one off.")

Back to the days of Kirk Douglas. Stars cost less back then and in the 60's you will notice that usually movies -- often Westerns -- got two per film. Rock Hudson and Kirk Douglas in The Last Sunset. John Wayne and Kirk Douglas in The War Wagon. Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, AND Richard Widmark in "The Way West"(a "three-fer,"but frankly it never seemed like Richard Widmark after the fifties could carry any film alone; he was almost support.)

I recall this roundelay in 1967: John Wayne and Kirk Douglas in The War Wagon; John Wayne and Robert Mitchum in El Dorado, Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum in The Way West!

And how can we forget James Stewart and Richard Widmark in Two Rode Together(for John Ford) or William Holden and Richard Widmark in Alvarez Kelly?

Its interesting about John Wayne. He was a Number One star in the 60s and got top pay, but was usually willing to bring another star along for the ride. His "prestige" teaming was with James Stewart in Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"(with Stewart top billed in posters)...but Wayne got $750,000 versus Stewart's $350,000. Again, Hollywood knows who its superstars are.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Back to Kirk Douglas. I recall reading (with some surprise) critic Stanley Kauffman's assessment of Douglas as the best movie actor of his generation after Brando and it gave me pause. Kauffman was speaking, I think, to Douglas ability to dig deep into his emotion and to express seething righteous rage. That moment in Paths of Glory where Douglas explodes at his hypocritical boss generals with "and YOU CAN GO TO HELL!" was profane for 1957 and leaves the viewer shaken.

Even in the "Disney kiddie movie" 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Douglas is the good guy but he projects raw muscular masculine menace. Its fun to compare Douglas versus villain James Mason in this movie to Cary Grant versus villain James Mason in NXNW. Grant and Mason were suave and elegant peers, two sides of the same coin. Douglas is Mason's polar opposite...its rather a dry run for Bruce Willis verus Alan Rickman in Die Hard.

In the opening scenes of Lonely Are the Brave, Douglas is warm, funny, charismatic, RELAXED. Its a true star role for him. But when a one-armed bully goads him into a barroom fight, he turns savage (as a poor young man, Kirk Douglas was a professional wrestler; he knew to how to "sell" the agony) and though he has warm scenes ahead after this savage fight, you never forget his capacity for violence. I think that's something I like about Lonely are the Brave; Douglas plays just about his nicest character but doesn't get rid of his "edge."

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

telegonus notes that Douglas never really had the Top Ten stardom of such fifties peers as Glenn Ford(he of the sweet face and apologetic manner), and you can add Grant, Holden and Hudson to that list and perhaps see why Douglas fell short "on the charts." Simply put, Douglas looked MEAN. He was scary. He wasn't the "all American man."

But you also note -- quite correctly -- that Douglas ended up a "career superstar" because when it was all over, he was clearly a part of some lasting classics -- from Champion to Detective Story(another "villainous good guy") to Lust for Life to Gunfight at the OK Corral(his Doc Holliday is superb), to The Vikings(where he is also quite the villain; Tony Curtis kills him) to his crowning achievement, Spartacus(in which Kirk goes near-naked in his gladiator scenes but finds other scenes of kindness and caring to project.)

And Paths of Glory is powerful early Kubrick. (Douglas worked twice with Kubrick but found him arrogant -- look who's talking -- and called him "Stanley The-Prick" behind his back!

"Lonely are the Brave" comes after all that. Douglas had almost two decades left of some stardom, but Lonely at the Brave is rather the quiet capper, the true end of his superstar run.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

There have always been paradoxes and ironies to the man's career, starting with his first movie, The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers, playing a rich boy weakling, two things he was not, and in the former case he surely wasn't born to wealth or even working class respectability (as his career progressed he achieved considerable wealth, of course).

---

I've not seen that but I've read of it. I HAVE seen "Letter to Three Wives" where Douglas is cast as a bookisn and intellectual teacher married to the higher-earning ad woman Ann Southern.) It almost seems like miscasting; Douglas lets a little of his seething resentment come through. But Kirk hadn't become Kirk yet...

---

Also odd about Douglas: he started out not as a star or even a "star of the future" with one lucky break (like his friend and frequent co-star, Burt Lancaster) but rather a featured player, almost an up and coming character actor, something he clearly didn't want to be. Nor was he always so rough edged, as he later became, as he's downright urbane in I Walk Alone. Some directors who worked with him noted his classical theater training as a huge asset he had as an emerging player, as distinct from the (initially) awkward Lancaster.

---

Interesting about Douglas theatrical roots and that helping him. As I note elsewhere, Douglas also wrote of doing the old-time carnival professional wrestling in his youth(I doubt he'd go with WWE today) but you could say that Douglas was trained in both verbal acting and physical acting.

---

In this Kirk was nearer as a type to another Douglas, Melvyn, with whom he had little else in common;

--

That's a funny thought...but its how he was cast for awhile.

---

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

while pal Burt's screen beginnings more closely resembled Sterling Hayden's. It took a bit of time for Kirk to cash in on his natural athleticism, and his work in Champion is probably more than any one film the one that made him stand out. Young Man With A Horn cemented his reputation.

---

Its fun trying to pinpoint "how a star becomes a star." For some of them, its a long road. Walter Matthau toiled for about ten years as a character man before "scoring" as comical type of leading man. For some, its immediate: Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate; Tom Cruise in risky business.

I guess for Douglas, he had to pay some dues and develop a sense of who he should be on screen. Champion likely sealed the physical part; Young Man With a Horn teamed him with some female stars; I'd say The Bad and the Beautiful locked down his "heel side." (And the ultra-heel of the lesser seen Ace in the Hole nailed it.)

And somewhere in there, Douglas started doing Westerns, which ensured his macho credentials.

And this: The Burt Lancaster/Kirk Douglas pairing is one of the "hidden teams" in movie history. Newman and Redford were classic but only in two movies together. Burt and Kirk did something like 8 of them, and it was as if they were MEANT to be together. Some of it was their physicality: they were both macho musclemen at heart; some of it was their capacity for menace(recall Lancaster's villainy in Vera Cruz and Sweet Smell of Success.) They were called "The Twin Tempers" or "The Twin Terrors" evidently in homage to their personalities BEHIND the camera as much as before the camera.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I post this on the morning of the 2019 Oscar ceremony and I'm reminded that Burt and Kirk did a song and dance at the 1957 Oscars called "Its Great Not to Be Nominated." (No, I didn't see it first run, but I've read about it and seen the clip on YouTube.) And yet, a few years later, Burt WAS nominated -- and won -- the Best Actor Oscar for Elmer Gantry and the Lancaster/Douglas team would forever tilt in Burt's favor. Lancaster got billing over Douglas in "Seven Days In May"(1964) but it was produced by Douglas, he wanted Burt and offered him either lead role(Burt took the bad guy.)

I do recall some bittersweet feelings when Burt and Kirk reunited one last time in the 80's for a comedy action film called "Tough Guys." They played 50s bank robbers released from prison into the 80s. I guess Burt was older than Kirk? Because the plot line put the superfit Kirk into a sexual relationship with a younger aerobics instructor while pairing Lancaster in a peer-appropriate romance. My feelings were bittersweet about Tough Guys because it underlined that the TRUE Burt/Kirk era was long over and gone, and the 80's just weren't home for them. (I guess it was rather the same effect as Psycho II and III in the 80's...there, on topic.Hah.)

And I also remember this: Burt Lancaster died, some years after a stroke, in 1994. So Kirk outlived his partner by about 25 years.

Funny point: when both Burt and Kirk were alive and older, Kirk sent Burt a letter with this sign-off: "Have you noticed the girls don't notice you anymore? Me, neither."

[–] telegonus (736) 5 years ago

Little time this afternoon: great postings, EC. I can recall when many people regarded Kirk as a second string Burt. Not quite top of the line as a major player. As to why, I cannot say. It's not like he was Dana Andrews to Burt's Henry Fonda. Andrews was for a while there like Fonda in the World War II era and for a short while after. They were never really a team, and while I liked Andrews a lot I never felt he was in Fonda's league. A nearer analogy (and a better one IMO) would be between Fonda and Jimmy Stewart, however they weren't a team like Burt and Kirk, either. They were the small town boys to men of the Depression and postwar era, with both returning to the New York stage after the war, then coming back in a big way afterwards.

Yet Stewart had the edge even early on, thanks to Frank Capra and two classic films from the late Thirties, plus the classic western comedy Destry Rides Again. Fonda did fine work in the late Thirties, too, but that didn't elevate him to superstar status; nor did The Grapes Of Wrath, even as the movie itself achieved super-classic status from the time of its release. With Fonda, it seems it was as much the movie that made the star, as his career always had its ups and downs; while Stewart was instrumental in the enormous success of his Fifties westerns with Anthony Mann; and while his Hitchcock pictures were massively successful in the same period, their success strikes me as nearly attributable to Stewart's star power as to Hitchcock's genius (yes, blasphemy, I know).

Alas, in a rush today. More later, I hope...

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I can recall when many people regarded Kirk as a second string Burt. Not quite top of the line as a major player. As to why, I cannot say. It's not like he was Dana Andrews to Burt's Henry Fonda. Andrews was for a while there like Fonda in the World War II era and for a short while after. They were never really a team, and while I liked Andrews a lot I never felt he was in Fonda's league. A nearer analogy (and a better one IMO) would be between Fonda and Jimmy Stewart, however they weren't a team like Burt and Kirk, either. They were the small town boys to men of the Depression and postwar era, with both returning to the New York stage after the war, then coming back in a big way afterwards.

--

The more I think about this -- particularly with your paragraph above -- the fact that Burt and Kirk WERE such a team is a little item of movie history, isn't it? They did a forties movie together where Burt was the bigger star, but I will guess that "Gunfight at OK Corral" did it for them. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, that immortal buddy team(interesting: Bogart was set to play the diseased Doc, but died of disease before he could do the role!) Then we got them together with Olivier in the upscale play-movie "The Devil's Disciple." A few years later, they went head to head as villain and hero in Seven Days of May(Kirk rather sacrificially played Burt's military aide, which meant that Burt ordered him around before Kirk finally turns the tables.) Off the top of my head, those three movies were really the "Burt and Kirk" movies, other than that forties one(was it I Walk Alone?") "Tough Guys" was a novelty film.

And Frank Gorshin loved to imitate Burt and Kirk AS a team...their famous voices were a bit alike, but not. (You can see a clip of Gorshin doing them, on YouTube.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I sometimes forget this, but I actually saw Burt and Kirk doing a stage play, live and in person, on stage, in San Francisco, 1981. I think it was called "The Boys of Summer" and it postulated Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as grown-up men(with serious "adult issues" like pedophila involved. Yecch.) It wasn't a good play and while it was fun to see Burt and Kirk together, there was a sad aspect: each man had trouble remembering his lines and each man(but especially BURT) had to keep yelling "Line!" to their offstage aides, both women, which made it even weirder to hear females say the line first.

Oh, well. I saw them. And years later, I ended up for 20 minutes with Burt Lancaster alone in my office, just to talk as we waited for a driver to come take him to the airport. THAT's a memory...

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

As to why, I cannot say. It's not like he was Dana Andrews to Burt's Henry Fonda. Andrews was for a while there like Fonda in the World War II era and for a short while after. They were never really a team, and while I liked Andrews a lot I never felt he was in Fonda's league.

--

"Not in the same league" can be tough for one actor versus another. Its like the "star" versus "superstar" thing, but it can even be worse if a particular name actor isn't really even a "star." (Farley Granger comes to mind as an example of that.) Dana Andrews did better than Granger -- in "Laura' and "The Best Years of our Lives" he is truly a lead -- but no, he wasn't in Fonda's league and he didn't last. (Evidently an alcohol problem hastened the decline.)

--
A nearer analogy (and a better one IMO) would be between Fonda and Jimmy Stewart, however they weren't a team like Burt and Kirk, either. They were the small town boys to men of the Depression and postwar era, with both returning to the New York stage after the war, then coming back in a big way afterwards.

--

Yes, though reportedly Fonda spent too much time on stage while Stewart zoomed ahead of him as a star in the fifties. They remain amazing in this regard -- one was a staunch Republican(Stewart), the other a staunch Democrat(Fonda) and they remained friends. Never talked politics. And Jane Fonda always liked her "uncle Jimmy."

Fonda and Stewart finally teamed up for two movies near the ends of their star careers, both "weird Westerns." In "Firecreek," Fonda is an outlaw and Stewart is a sheriff and this one kills the myth that Fonda was ONLY a bad guy in "Once Upon a Time in the West." In "The Cheyenne Social Club," Stewart inherits a Disneyland-like brothel and Fonda's his cowpoke buddy. Its a comedy with some nudity and some killings and what's notable about it is that while Stewart looks frail and ancient, his buddy Fonda looks tan and handsome and manly as all get out...truly outshines his "pal."

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Yet Stewart had the edge even early on, thanks to Frank Capra and two classic films from the late Thirties, plus the classic western comedy Destry Rides Again. Fonda did fine work in the late Thirties, too, but that didn't elevate him to superstar status; nor did The Grapes Of Wrath, even as the movie itself achieved super-classic status from the time of its release.

---

In addition to his stage work(I mean, didn't he play Mister Roberts for a year), Fonda often picked grim(if classic) social dramas, from Grapes of Wrath to the Oxbow Incident and on to 12 Angry Men and Hitchcock's grimmest, The Wrong Man. Couldn't have helped. Fonda had a string of "political films" in the 60's(Advise and Consent, The Best Man, Fail-Safe) but audiences didn't much want to see politics on screen, either.

--

With Fonda, it seems it was as much the movie that made the star, as his career always had its ups and downs;

---

And outright "gaps" -- he was MIA off and on.

---

while Stewart was instrumental in the enormous success of his Fifties westerns with Anthony Mann; and while his Hitchcock pictures were massively successful in the same period, their success strikes me as nearly attributable to Stewart's star power as to Hitchcock's genius (yes, blasphemy, I know).

--

Oh, I don't think its blasphemy. Hitchcock gave his superstars some of their best films, but we must admit that when Hitchcock had only Bob Cummings or Farley Granger or John Forsythe or Frederick Stafford or Jon Finch as his lead -- Hitchcock alone didn't shine quite as bright. With Stewart or Grant...much starrier package.

That said, I much prefer 50's Cary Grant to 50's James Stewart as a screen presence, and Hitch in some ways helped take Stewart higher(and weirder) in Rear Window and Vertigo.

--

Alas, in a rush today. More later, I hope...

--

So do I. Take your time and come back with more.

I myself only get over here about once or twice a week...

[–] telegonus (736) 5 years ago

Yeah, Gunfight sounds about right. It was a blockbuster in '57, gave further proof of Burt's superstar status, and it elevated Kirk, who was darkly sinister in the film, and of the two leads gave the better, more charismatic performance. Burt was nearly always the alpha guy in his films, even when appearing with Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell Of Success, for which Burt "positioned" himself as top gun even if a villain). Yet in From Here To Eternity Monty blew him off the screen in every scene they shared, and Burt knew it; yet in the long term "supporting actor" Burt benefited from this even as being literally top billed, with his character surviving at the end. For all that, it's Monty's Pruitt who haunts this classic very Hollywood movie. Sinatra's up there, too. Burt does rather "carry" the picture on his broad shoulders, though he sure doesn't "own" it.

In their oddball (and excellent and highly entertaining) "supporting co-starrer" The List Of Adrian Messenger Burt scarcely appeared, and some have claimed that it wasn't really him in the final chase scenes. Maybe so, but Kirk wholly dominated his scenes sans disguise makeup, giving a kind of master class super villain performance that haunts me to this day. He seems to actually revel in his evil, and essentially stole this multi-star movie which he produced but wasn't really the star player in (I believe George C. Scott and Dana Wynter got the honors). Kirk really managed to shine in those indoorsy dinner table scenes. Later, the next year, he managed to IMHO essentially steal Seven Days In May from his friend; a rare case of alpha Burt Lancaster simply not measuring up to his pal and co-star Kirk Douglas, who was intensely, almost tragically authentic in his scenes, with Burt's menace coming off, as I see it, as rather bland. I can only wonder: was this planned? Burt just didn't have the fire in this one (and aside from maybe oddly cast George Macready the supporting actors in this one don't impress me, and I like 'em all).

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Yeah, Gunfight sounds about right. It was a blockbuster in '57, gave further proof of Burt's superstar status, and it elevated Kirk, who was darkly sinister in the film, and of the two leads gave the better, more charismatic performance.

--

True...but then I like to say in the Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday genre of movies...Doc's always the better role. More flamboyant, more tragic, better with a gun,..etc. Wyatt is the straight man. And thus Burt is a bit subdued in this one. That said, in the now mini-classic "Tombstone" of 1993, Kurt Russell got an opening verbal beat down of Billy Bob Thorton that gave EARP some real "punch" -- but alas, Val Kilmer's Doc still stole the show.

What Kirk Douglas gave Doc Holliday was that capacity for rage and menace that Douglas had -- it made Earp's friendship with Holliday more "risky" than the Russell/Kilmer version, and it made Doc's willingness to befriend Wyatt Earp more...touching?

In both films, there is a kinkiness to Doc's "romance" with a damaged woman, but in '57, it was more disturbing.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Burt was nearly always the alpha guy in his films, even when appearing with Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell Of Success, for which Burt "positioned" himself as top gun even if a villain).

---

"Cigarette me," Lancaster's brilliantly named "JJ Hunsecker" demands of Curtis -- light me a cigarette. Nicely dominating.

---

Yet in From Here To Eternity Monty blew him off the screen in every scene they shared, and Burt knew it;

--

I read somewhere that Lancaster knees uncontrollably shaked whenever he shared a scene with Monty.
I guess sometimes an actor feels he's sharing the screen with a "super actor," and it gets hard on the ego.

--

yet in the long term "supporting actor" Burt benefited from this even as being literally top billed, with his character surviving at the end. For all that, it's Monty's Pruitt who haunts this classic very Hollywood movie. Sinatra's up there, too. Burt does rather "carry" the picture on his broad shoulders, though he sure doesn't "own" it.

---

I've always felt that Burt's character in From Here to Eternity rather "brushes up against" the Monty and Sinatra characters. Burt's main story is the illicit romance with Deborah Kerr, but he starts to show sympathy to Monty's unfairly hazed Prewitt and he leaps to the defense of Sinatra against Borgnine's Fatso Judson...willing to go broken bottle-to -knife with him. Its an odd role -- the "hero" who doesn't really have the lead.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

In their oddball (and excellent and highly entertaining) "supporting co-starrer" The List Of Adrian Messenger Burt scarcely appeared, and some have claimed that it wasn't really him in the final chase scenes.

---

Yes, some "historical background" on that "gimmick movie" has arisen, and of the five "disguised guest movie stars" in Adrian, three of them only really appeared at the end to take off their disguises -- Lancaster, Curtis, and Sinatra. Kirk Douglas was advertised as one of the "disguised stars" but he was really the (villain) lead in the movie. And as for the fifth "disguised star" -- Robert Mitchum, he had a substantial short role(as he was a pal of the film's director, John Huston), and he is fairly visible in face and voice under HIS disguise.

Further info: the "disguised stars"(less Douglas) were paid $75,000 each -- and in the case of Sinatra, Lancaster, and Curtis -- that was just for taking off the masks and sticky make-up and taking a bow. Only Mitchum played a few dramatic scene scenes in disguise. Actor Dave Willock did Sinatra's "disguise" scene(as a gypsy); a woman did Burt Lancaster's "animal rights woman" at the climactic fox hunt, and an actor named Jan Merlin did some of Douglas's disguise scenes(under a mask.)

Now, all of that is the "reality" of how The List of Adrian Messenger parlayed its "gimmick"("five disguised stsrs). On first viewing it IS fun imagining that all five stars are actually in disguise during the film, and it IS fun to watch each and every man take off his disguise with a bow and, in Lancaster's case, that big toothy grin of his.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

As a matter of "gimmick showmanship," I also like how the "disguise reveals" come at the end of the movie AFTER "The End" appears on screen, and an announcer intones:

"WAIT...that's the end of the movie...but NOT the end of the mystery...." and we segue to the stars each unmasking. And this, as each man's famous face appears we are reminded why they ARE stars: unique individuals(yes, even Tony Curtis, who is easily the most handsome of the group) who earned themselves some immortality (yes, even Tony Curtis, who is in Some Like It Hot and Sweet Smell of Success, after all.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Kirk wholly dominated his scenes sans disguise makeup, giving a kind of master class super villain performance that haunts me to this day. He seems to actually revel in his evil, and essentially stole this multi-star movie which he produced but wasn't really the star player in (I believe George C. Scott and Dana Wynter got the honors).

---

As a matter of "star billing," this movie is really an outlier. Scott(just barely a star in 1963) and Wynter have the lead billing, but that makes the movie almost look like a "B". It is Kirk Douglas' movie, really -- just like "Lonely are the Brave" of the previous year -- and Scott, Wynter, Herbert Marshall and some French actor are really his support.

That said, Scott is the second lead -- the brilliant inspector(Sherlock Holmes division) who will root out and go against Douglas evil mastermind, and given how much of a star Scott WOULD become, he becomes a star "retroactively" here(hey -- just like Walter Matthau in Lonely Are the Brave the year before opposite Douglas!)

---

Kirk really managed to shine in those indoorsy dinner table scenes.
--

When Douglas emerges in the third act of the movie to look LIKE Kirk Douglas and to play dramatic scenes, we indeed get a good hard look at evil -- Douglas character even makes a little speech on the topic "Oh...I think evil EXISTS," he says, almost with a self-knowing twinkle in his eye.

--

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

The List of Adrian Messenger shares with -- wait for it -- Kirk's "Lonely are the Brave" a year before -- an early Jerry Goldsmith score. And its just as great and necessary to the tone of the mystery as it was to the modern Western.

Goldsmith's Messenger score is NOT -- for most of the film -- Hermannesque thunder and mood. It relies on a quirky, almost jaunty melody that suggests mischief as much as murder, and at the end when Douglas shows off ALL his disguises for us, each disguised character is found to get a new version of the same title melody.

But this: at the very end of the "dramatic movie"(before the curtain call disguise removals) that jaunty tune DOES turn into Herrmann -- powerful, slow, horrific -- as Douglas villain dies a horrific death on the death trap he had set up to kill a 12 YEAR OLD BOY. Its one of the great finishes for a villain in screen history, sight AND sound(Douglas tears his final disguise off his face as he dies, as if to die "as himself.")

Great little movie, and part of a "run" that Kirk Douglas certainly had in the fifties and sixties.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

I've got some gap-filling to do: Lust for Life, Champion, Lonely are the Brave, Young Man with a Horn are all unseen by me.

But leads in The Bad & The Beautiful, Ace in the Hole, Paths of Glory, Spartacus are by themselves enough to make Douglas immortal. Of these films only Spartacus was hugely commercially successful but all have had long tails of cultural influence and all continue to play like gangbusters. And a lot of that is because of Douglas's performances. He made a great reluctant hero & a magnetic anti-hero. Either way, troubling violence often bubbled beneath the surface, meaning you couldn't take your eyes off him onscreen.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I've got some gap-filling to do: Lust for Life, Champion, Lonely are the Brave, Young Man with a Horn are all unseen by me.

--

And of that group, I"ve only seen Lonely are the Brave. At least all the way through. So: me, too!

I'm not sure how you'll feel about Lonely are the Brave, but it is on record as the favorite Kirk Douglas movie of Kirk himself, son Michael, and maybe Walter Matthau(co-star, of his OWN films.) I ascribe the emotional power of the film to Jerry Goldsmith's score. On the one hand, it has that "classic Western epic grandeur" of his scores for Rio Conchos and Bandolero; on the other hand, it is filled with sad melancholy along the lines of fellow Western composer Elmer Bernstein's score for "To Kill a Mockingbird." There's a lot of emotion in Lonely are the Brave and the score sells it. Also: Kirk's final scene with Gena Rowlands. Superb.

---

But leads in The Bad & The Beautiful, Ace in the Hole, Paths of Glory, Spartacus are by themselves enough to make Douglas immortal.

---

Yes. Perhaps Stanley Kauffman was right. Douglas's capacity for raw emotional power in those movies -- whether held in check or allowed to explode -- is off the charts.

And he made me cry at the end of Spartacus.

---

Of these films only Spartacus was hugely commercially successful but all have had long tails of cultural influence and all continue to play like gangbusters. And a lot of that is because of Douglas's performances. He made a great reluctant hero & a magnetic anti-hero. Either way, troubling violence often bubbled beneath the surface, meaning you couldn't take your eyes off him onscreen.

---

All agreed. In my own film-going life, Douglas went from an actor who was rather off-putting to me(too muscular macho and angry) to someone whose personal power was much more impressive and lasting once I was old enough to appreciate it.

And that VOICE. Can't imitiate it on paper, but can't we all hear it?

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

gap-filling: Champion, Young Man with a Horn

I've now watched Champion (1949) & Young Man with a Horn (1950). Both are rags-to-riches tales where Douglas as the lead triumphs but with predictable costs. And especially in the career-making final Act of Champion, Douglas's performance of rage & wild animality is something to behold. Champion (1949), which I saw in a very dark sub-dvd-quality version, owes a bit to noir both in its lighting and plot emphasis on a corrupt social order chewing up Douglas's Midge Kelly. There's a nifty swinging light scene where Kelly beats up his brother that may have influenced Psycho's own swinging light scene. The film's director Mark Robson is just OK....and his budget & pinched style contrasts sharply with Curtiz's slick A-list, big-studio, luxury: NYC locations, fantastic matte shots, great swooping cameras, you name it Curtiz as got it in YMwH. Douglas must have thought he'd arrived with YMwH.

In both films Douglas plays well with a bevy of beauties - Douglas codes on-screen as a bit of a paradox: a brute who's also a lady's man - but in YMwH he's upgraded from Ruth Roman & Marilyn Weaver to Doris Day and Lauren Bacall.

On first viewings I'd say both C & YMwH are a notch or two down from Douglas's best films, but both are still very watchable today: C for Douglas's star-making performance & YMwH for Curtiz's overall production mastery.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

The film's director Mark Robson is just OK....

---

Robson had a long career, but just one look his 1963 thriller "The Prize" with Paul Newman trying to be Roger Thornhill from an "inferior" Ernest Lehman script heavily borrowing from NXNW...nope, Robson didn't have Hitchcock level talent.

And Robson(poorly) directed a movie Hitchcock turned down(for obvious reasons): "Earthquake"(1974) the clunky Universal disaster movie that was bested by The Towering Inferno one month later. Though those quakes in "Sensurround" WERE pretty cool to feel and watch.

---

and his budget & pinched style contrasts sharply with Curtiz's slick A-list, big-studio, luxury: NYC locations, fantastic matte shots, great swooping cameras, you name it Curtiz as got it in YMwH. Douglas must have thought he'd arrived with YMwH.

--

A nice two step..reminds me of how today, Brie Larsen can win an Oscar for a good indie like "Room" -- and immediately move up in pay and budget to a Kong movie and Captain Marvel. Its the same for some indie directors, too -- from shoestring budget to half-billion Marvel budgets.

---

In both films Douglas plays well with a bevy of beauties - Douglas codes on-screen as a bit of a paradox: a brute who's also a lady's man - but in YMwH he's upgraded from Ruth Roman & Marilyn Weaver to Doris Day and Lauren Bacall.

---

Hmm..between the two movies, two Hitchcock leading ladies. For whatever that means...though Ruth Roman never reached DD levels. I think young Ruth Roman had a certain mannish sexuality ...it lasted a decade or two and then she got "tougher."

--
On first viewings I'd say both C & YMwH are a notch or two down from Douglas's best films, but both are still very watchable today: C for Douglas's star-making performance & YMwH for Curtiz's overall production mastery.

---

I shall try to get to them!

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Later, the next year, he managed to IMHO essentially steal Seven Days In May from his friend; a rare case of alpha Burt Lancaster simply not measuring up to his pal and co-star Kirk Douglas, who was intensely, almost tragically authentic in his scenes, with Burt's menace coming off, as I see it, as rather bland.

---

I've read a lot about the making of Seven Days. It was Kirk's production and the studio(Paramount?) wanted him to play the villainous general and Paul Newman to play the heroic "military informer." Kirk wasn't ready to act opposite a younger star of that caliber, so he pitched Seven Days to Burt ("Take any role you want.") Burt took first billing and the villain role and Kirk moved over to the more intense role of the troubled hero.

---

I can only wonder: was this planned? Burt just didn't have the fire in this one

--

Hard to say. I think part of the problem was that left-wing Burt was playing a right-wing general and probably his heart wasn't in it...he distanced himself from full commitment to the role. The general's villainy finally emerges "full out" in a final long confrontation with the liberal President(Fredric March) in the Oval Office. (The kind of villainy where the villain simply denies everything smugly -- then reveals megalomania and madness.) Story: March was letter perfect with his lines and Burt kept blowing them. Burt said apologetically "I don't get it, I did this perfectly when I rehearsed in my office", and March said "maybe we should bring your office to the soundstage." Thus intimidated, Burt likely had even more trouble "selling" the scene(though he's quite good in the scene, I think; less so in the overall movie.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

As for Kirk, he gets a great long scene early on where his military man takes "the long way round" to tell the PResident of Lancaster's plot. The Prez finally says "Do you have a problem with the English language, Major? What are you trying to tell me?" And Douglas gets one of those great "camera moves to close up" and declares a military coup is imminent(in seven days.)

As Kirk and Fredric dominate the scene, a third man is in it with them.. He is playing "Paul Girard," the President's chief of staff and key advisor and he barely has one line(something like "Yes, I was there.") The rest of the time -- like a good Presidential aide -- this actor just intensely listens to the other two men and finally offers his opinion when it is all over: Kirk is CRAZY. No way there could be such a coup.

The actor: Martin Balsam , continuing his 60's run of good movies and good supporting roles. And yet...as you say, telegonus...

---

(and aside from maybe oddly cast George Macready the supporting actors in this one don't impress me, and I like 'em all).

---

Hmm. Hard to say why. Here is a guess. Seven Days in May is a thriller which doesn't play as a thriller. All the President's men are pretty cool and business like, we never sense that something REALLY horrible is imminent. And it does get headed off with relative ease(except for poor Marty, dead again.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Interesting casting in Seven Days: Edmond O'Brien and Martin Balsam get the screen together with their names in the credits, O'Brien first, Balsam second. In 1964, it made sense -- O'Brien already had a Best Supporting Actor Oscar(The Barefoot Contessa); Balsam did not. One year later(1965, natch), Balsam got HIS Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Perhaps from then on...alphabetical? I DID enjoy seeing Balsam and O'Brien together -- Balsam is the neat-as-a-pin, suave Presidential aide; O'Brien is the hard drinkin', slobby Southern Senator. Together, a little master class in how to be supporting actors "the same but different."

MacCready's got, I guess you might say, "the HItchcockian role" he REFUSES to believe Kirk Douglas warnings of a coup and keeps insulting him about it. Leads to a dust up where Douglas champions his military pals(like General Burt) as heroes "put in mothballs until you need us for the next war." Its a scene with the conflict the rest of the movie could use.

Once on Imdb, I said that Charade had "arguably the best cast in a thriller"(Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy.) Someone rebutted with Seven Days in May(Burt, Kirk, March, Ava Gardner...and those great character guys.) Oh, maybe, but Charade with its murders and mysteries seemed more like a thriller to me.

And how about Three Days of the Condor?(Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max Von Sydow, John Houseman)

...or...

The Kremlin Letter(Richard Boone, George Sanders, Nigel Green, Dean Jagger, Barbara Parkins, Bibi Anderson, Patrick O'Neal)

...a lotta candidates!