Category Archives: Hollywood

RIP Sir Sean Connery, 1930-2020

As if 2020 wasn’t already a rotten enough year, legendary Scottish actor and screen icon Sean Connery passed away on October 31 at the ripe old age of 90. The New York Times obituary is here.

The iconic incarnation of Bond…James Bond but also so much more.

While it’s only natural that the majority of tributes for this great man focused on his career and character-defining creation of James Bond on the big screen — a role that he will forever be linked with through his singular excellence even though he had not played the part in 37 years — Connery was at best ambivalent about this seminal pop culture cinematic contribution. He worked hard both during and after his time as 007 to establish a screen persona distinct from the debonair and dangerous secret agent. While Bond was undoubtedly his ticket to the big time, as early as 1964 Connery was looking to expand his horizons as an actor with his intriguingly complex role as Mark Rutland in Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964) breaking down a neurotic and sexy Tippi Hedren. Even as his career-defining work as Bond turned him into a 1960s pop culture icon on a level with the Beatles, Connery bristled at the confining nature and potential career cul de sac of such a monolithic character. Indeed, he was right to worry that his entire career would be defined by Bond and he would never be able to be perceived or accepted by the public in any other manner. Famously unhappy during location filming in Japan for 1967’s You Only Live Twice and the suffocating and hysterical adulation of his fans and paparazzi there, Connery shockingly renounced the role and passed on making the next film in the series, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. While 1969’s OHMSS is actually one of the greatest Bond movies in terms of plot, featuring complexities of character that wouldn’t be plumbed again until Timothy Dalton’s brief, unsuccessful tenure in the late ’80s and then the rampaging success of Daniel Craig’s current edgy and penetrating portrayal, and one-off Bond George Lazenby did a perfectly capable job, one still wonders what kind of special performance Connery might have given in that final scene mourning the death of his new bride Tracy (the lovely, late Diana Rigg), a victim of Blofeld’s vengeful drive-by shooting.

Alongside Michael Caine getting carried away with their success in John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King

After Lazenby self-destructed, Saltzman & Broccoli lured Connery back into the EON Bond fold by means of the then-unheard of amount of $1.25 million dollars for the somewhat tacky but enjoyable Vegas romp, Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Pocketing his money like any good Scotsman, Connery bid adieu to Bond and the requisite toupee for the remainder of the 1970s, embarking on a career no longer entirely beholden to the super spy. With his receding hairline a near declaration of liberation, Connery built on the grittier realism of Bond-concurrent performances in The Molly Maguires (1970) and especially Sidney Lumet’s excellent The Anderson Tapes (1971), to craft an equally charismatic but much more jaded and cynical character on screen, particularly the latter’s swaggering, unrepentant thief at large in 1970s New York City. Sure, Connery was still bigger than life, as witness his game participation in the bonkers sci-fi of Zardoz (1974) running around in only a red loincloth for most of the picture; the fantastic Kipling-derived adventure of John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (1975), finding the perfect partner for fortune hunting in Michael Caine but getting fatally carried away as a pretend god; and a very Scottish Berber bedeviling Theodore Roosevelt from afar in The Wind and the Lion (1975). But his finely crafted performances, natural as ever, now revealed men with serious flaws and character defects that made them all the more interesting, most notably delusions of grandeur and a true and sometimes self destructive soft spot for the ladies (unlike Bond’s love ’em and leave ’em ethos).

With the beautiful Audrey Hepburn as aging legends in Richard Lester’s poignant Robin and Marian

Connery embraced his middle age with Robin and Marian (1976), Richard Lester’s touching and elegiac reimagining of a post-Crusades Robin Hood returning to find Maid Marian, played by the wonderful Audrey Hepburn, a devoted nun and Nottingham unacceptably under the thumb of his old foe, the Sheriff, played by the always compelling Robert Shaw. Shaw was that rare match in equalling Connery’s natural machismo and toughness, as he had been back in the From Russia With Love days when he was a homicidal defector trained by the Russians to kill Bond. Sir Sean was back at his lighter, mischievous best in Michael Crichton’s excellent 19th Century heist extravaganza, The Great Train Robbery (1979), wonderfully paired with the always unique and equally roguish Donald Sutherland as two particularly brilliant and stylish thieves. After notable cameos in the star studded but bloated A Bridge Too Far (1977), one of several possible suspects for Poirot to consider in Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and the very trippy and enjoyable 1981 Terry Gilliam opus, Time Bandits, where he was perfectly cast as a fatherly Agamemnon, Connery gave another terrific lead performance in the criminally underrated space “western” Outland (1981), laying down the law against long odds Gary Cooper-style, only with a mining station orbiting Jupiter as the scene of the showdown instead of a dusty frontier town. In 1983 he gave in to the siren song of a return to Bond in the “unauthorized’, non-EON Never Say Never Again, a remake of Thunderball, the rights of which were not controlled by the Fleming estate. While the film and Connery’s return as an aging but still peerless Bond have their undeniable pleasures, not least of the them very worthy opponents in Klaus Maria Brandauer’s flamboyant Largo, a lethal, leather-clad Barbara Carrera as femme fatale Fatima Blush and a delectable Kim Basinger as Domino, it was a strange lateral and some might say spiteful move by Connery. By making a Bond movie in direct competition with not only his old mates Broccoli & Saltzman but also then-current Bond, Roger Moore, it may have satisfied audiences for a double dose of 007 but it did nothing for his reputation as a somewhat irascible star prone to view producers as rip-off artists — certainly with some justification — and to cling to long-held resentments even against those who had helped launch his amazing career.

As a seasoned Irish cop instructing Kevin Costner’s green Eliot Ness on The Chicago Way in The Untouchables

Never Say Never Again was the last time Connery would revisit Bond and not only was he truly done with the legendary character but he embarked on an arguably greater chapter in his career, embracing his age to evolve into a kind of grand old man of Hollywood complete with gravitas and prestige to deliver to any larger than life role. After a fun, swashbucking turn in the silly but enjoyable fantasy of Highlander (1984) — as a Spanish swordsman, no less — Connery found the greatest critical success of his already highly accomplished career as the veteran Irish cop Jim Malone, teaching Kevin Costner’s green Eliot Ness “The Chicago Way” in order to hunt down Al Capone in Brian De Palma’s mega-hit The Untouchables (1987). The role, which the great film critic David Thomson noted culminates with his character “dying a samurai death,” won Connery that year’s supporting actor Oscar, his first and only Academy Award. It also opened up the floodgates of terrific parts to close out the ’80s and provided serious momentum well into the ’90s. He was Indiana Jones’s amusingly cantankerous dad in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), a skillful Soviet submarine commander matching wits with Alec Baldwin’s Jack Ryan in the smash hit The Hunt for Red October (1990) and a British publisher involved in Cold War intrigue and wooing Michelle Pfeiffer in the smart and intricate film version of Le Carré’s The Russia House (1990). As if that wasn’t enough of a third act, Connery also starred in and was executive producer on 1993’s Rising Sun, schooling Wesley Snipes in the ways of the Yakuza; likewise star and executive producer of the Simpson/Bruckheimer/Michael Bay summer blockbuster extravaganza The Rock (1996), as a long-imprisoned British commando freed to team up with Nicholas Cage to stop a group of rogue soldiers from turning Alcatraz into ground zero for a biological terror attack; and showing a lithe, cat-suited Catherine Zeta-Jones the ropes as a suave veteran thief planning a very high concept — and very high! — skyscraper robbery in Entrapment (1999). Even his last real film role, 2003’s very promising but troubled The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, offered a treat for Connery fans with his resonant portrayal of legendary adventurer Alan Quartermaine in twilight.

Connery’s cunning Soviet sub commander matches wits with Alec Baldwin’s Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October

So Sir Sean Connery’s passing offers us an opportunity not only to mourn the man who defined James Bond for decades of enchanted fans but also an actor of great daring and bravery who was not content to be solely pigeon-holed by Bond and actively worked to slip the potential trap of such a career-making role. That he succeeded so brilliantly is all the more proof that he was a film actor and a true movie star of the highest order, one of the last of that rare breed who was able to dominate cinema for a multi-decade span by the strength of a very fixed but adaptable screen persona. To revisit the Connery Bond films is always a pleasure and a delight of almost childlike enjoyment; to revisit his other great roles is to see the craft and skill of the mature actor whose joy in more complex parts was always evident on screen and therefore contagious to the audience, a multi-generational audience that never seemed to get enough of the great Scotsman. Godspeed, Sir Sean, and thank you for a lifetime of special performances. While we won’t see your like again we will always have your wonderful films and those many magnificent moments on screen to remember you by.

RIP Burt Reynolds, 1936 – 2018

The death of Burt Reynolds at the age of 82 a few weeks ago has been a real bummer. Burt was one of our heroes here at MFL, so much so that no one could bring themselves to write the tribute. Looks like I drew the short straw…

If you grew up in the 1970s or ’80s Burt Reynolds was about as close to a vicarious favorite uncle as you could get. With his swagger, hairy chest and mustache, not to mention a varying assortment of ever-changing custom toupees, Reynolds dominated the box office through a series of increasingly Dixie-centric action films that featured fast cars, hot & spicy women and real stunts. If the plots were a little less than Mensa-level they were redeemed by Reynolds’ knowingly wry performances, bemusedly observing some of the more ridiculous antics in a self-depricatingly humorous way that rarely failed to connect with his audiences. All Burt had to do was let out one of those high, hyena-like laughs and you knew that he was having as much fun making the movie as you were watching it.

Reynolds had a very long career and was already a known, working actor in the 1960s and at the dawn of the ’70s, with prominent parts on TV in Riverboat and Gunsmoke leading to title roles on the short-lived police dramas Hawk and Dan August. Somewhat burdened by his physical resemblance to Marlon Brando in his early career it took his performance as a macho businessman on a rafting holiday gone horribly wrong in 1972’s Deliverance to sear a distinct screen identity into the national culture and catapult Reynolds to the top of the Hollywood A-list. That role cleverly exploited the limits of the self-styled man of action when faced with uncontrollable circumstances and the shifting nature of the alpha-male within a small group under siege. The film itself, directed by that keen observer of male codes and primitivism, John Boorman, has gone down as one of the all-time classics, if a grim one. As if to undercut the somberness of his career-defining role in Deliverance, Reynolds became equally famous that year for posing semi-nude on a bearskin rug in Cosmopolitan magazine. Although he never failed to mention how much he regretted the publicity stunt even in the last interviews of his life there is no doubt that it gave a major boost his overall popularity if not his standing as a serious actor (and if he regretted it so much why did he also put out a risqué paperback called “Hot Line” that featured him bottomless in a football jersey among other playful beefcake photos?). His Cosmo centerfold in all its hirsute glory became one of the most iconic and subversive images of the ’70s, right up there with Joe Namath posing in pantyhose.

That was always the yin-yang with Burt Reynolds. He was the ultimate crowd pleaser but yearned to be taken seriously, capable of expounding on his personal foibles in unvarnished detail and then prowling around a studio audience of middle-aged ladies like a sex panther. Beginning with White Lightning (1973) and then its sequel Gator (1976), the first film he directed, Reynolds perfected the reliable screen persona of a good old boy out to stick it to the man, one that drew on his southern roots and proved enormously appealing to moviegoers both above but especially below the Mason-Dixon line. This character and formula found its apotheosis in the immensely successful Smokey and the Bandit, which was second only to Star Wars in 1977 box office gross receipts. Smokey and the Bandit brilliantly tweaked the Reynolds man-of-action character with a more comic slapstick approach and fused it with a host of ’70s zeitgeist touchstones like trucker CB culture, contraband Coors beer, Jerry Reed’s killer theme song “Eastbound and Down,” a feisty young Sally Field and Burt’s black and gold T-top Trans Am all while being pursued by a fat, tan and uproariously foul Jackie Gleason. But enjoyable as his redneck gearhead protagonists were, Reynolds most interesting work was often in more challenging and uncategorizable movies, parts more in the Deliverance vein that were propelled by some inner hurt within Burt that he worked so hard to gloss over most of the time.

He was particularly productive with director Robert Aldrich, another keen observer of flawed macho behavior, with the morally ambiguous and very moody L.A. neo-noir Hustle (1975) and even better as the footballer behind bars in The Longest Yard (1974). His Paul “Wrecking” Crewe in Yard is one the best roles Burt ever had, funny, cocky, sensitive and rebellious in all the best ways, outwitting the guards and a corrupt warden by whipping his misfit cons into a cohesive football team and cleverly finessing a seemingly no-win situation. His background as a serious amateur ballplayer was put to good use again in Michael Ritchie’s Semi-Tough (1977) alongside Kris Kristofferson and Jill Clayburgh in a very funny and very ’70s send up of football, its wealthy patrons and the patently ridiculous self-realization craze of the time. Other notable films of this era are Hooper & The Cannonball Run, more antic action frolics helmed by Bandit director and Reynolds’ pal Hal Needham, the ace stuntman & his former housemate; and The End directed by Burt about a man with a terminal prognosis determined to end it all in ineffectively hilarious fashion with the unwanted and homicidally zealous aid of Burt’s frequent sidekick during this era, Dom DeLuise.

Despite the star-studded guilty pleasure success of Cannonball Run, Burt was essentially running both the car chase genre and his grinning good ol’ boy persona into the ground due to a series of weak sequels — Cannonball Run II, Smokey and the Bandit II & III — finally bottoming out with the poorly received Needham-helmed stock car farce Stroker Ace in 1983. He had ridden this particular wave as far as the public wanted it to go and it had broken. He had also tried diversifying his screen persona with relationship comedies like Paternity (1981) and the very good Starting Over (1979). And he also explored relatively humorless tough-as-nails cops in the Clint Eastwood vein in crime thrillers like Sharky’s Machine (1981) and Stick (1985), both of which he also directed, as well as the rather more tepid Heat (1985). But even though those films hold up well now for the most part the reception at the time was decidedly mixed. The public was suffering from Burt Reynolds fatigue.

Worse still for Burt he was injured during the making of the Prohibition period pic, City Heat (1984), in which he co-starred with Eastwood himself on something of a Hollywood macho man action star dream team. His laudible penchant for performing as many of his own stunts as the insurance companies would allow, which earned him tremendous respect from the stunt man community, boomeranged on him when he was accidentally hit in the face with a non-prop chair, shattering his jaw. His recuperation would see him drop a scary amount of weight, leading to ugly rumors, and a debilitating dependance on sleeping & pain pills, which unfortunately would recur later in life. But he came back strong on the small screen with an appealing homage to small-town life, Evening Shade (1990-94), which won Burt an Emmy. Better yet was his auteur director of smut Jack Horner, adult entertainment impresario and surrogate father figure to a group of misfits in the porn industry, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic Boogie Nights (1997). It was perhaps his best acting since the early to mid-1970s, a fully realized portrait of an honorable man with artistic leanings in a scuzzy business, a professional with X-rated standards who resists the move to cheap, plotless videotaped carnality performed by amateurs and serves as the protector and enabler of his porn family’s dreams. It was a stunningly rich performance with a palpable backstory that not only earned him an Oscar nomination but also newfound respect in the industry for his acting chops.

His bewildering reaction to the success of Boogie Nights illustrated the conflicts raging beneath the surface of this seemingly glib stud. Despite its critical success Burt disowned Boogie Nights, claiming never to have seen it straight through. He feuded with prodigy director Anderson, although it seemed like a one-sided grudge as Anderson was willing to cast him in his next picture, Magnolia. But Reynolds turned him down. It’s unclear whether Reynolds didn’t really understand Boogie Nights, not only one of the best films of the ’90s but certainly one of the best performances of his career, or simply found the end product distasteful. But, like his reaction to the Cosmo centerfold that came on the heels of his breakthrough in Deliverance, Reynolds seemed intent on undercutting one of his greatest successes with needless public second-guessing and airing his discontentments. It was as if within the man there was an unresolvable conflict between being taken seriously as an actor to earn the respect of his peers and the absolute need to subvert that potentially pretentious goal by treating so much of his work as a series of mistakes or purely mercenary undertakings, often even the good stuff. His loudly professed dislike of Boogie Nights cemented his reputation as a difficult star to work with and short-circuited his comeback. Perhaps it even cost his that year’s Oscar. Along with his epically complicated relationships with women, including Dinah Shore, Sally Field and Loni Anderson, it all pointed to a strangely restless and unsatisfiable soul.

But in his best work on the screen — and in hours of old talk show clips still viewable on You Tube — Burt channeled those deep waters into the pursuit of having the best possible time, inviting the audience along with him for the ride and letting them in on the jokes like a lucky passenger in that famous speeding black and gold Trans Am. His physicality and daring were perfectly suited to action romps but behind the mustache and hairy chest was also the deft touch of an expert light comedian, a nearly unique combination in such a macho dude perhaps only paralleled during that era by the sly Roger Moore in a suave English version (and with some echoes today in Ryan Reynolds’ impressively deft action-comedy performances). He successfully escaped the massive shadows of Brando and Eastwood to create an entirely unique screen persona, self-mocking but capable, tough but romantic, anti-establishment but with his own code of honor, always a faithful friend. He was, above all, an absolute charmer, as self-effacing and yet as confident in his excellence and good looks as a Southern 1970s Cary Grant, the cackling laugh substituting for Grant’s untraceable accent. Like Grant, he was massively complex in real life, often dissatisfied and full of self-doubt. But in front of the camera he was a master and a “natural” by way of hard work and experience. To ponder all the happiness Burt Reynolds leaves behind through his extraordinary and prolific career, the omnipresent drive-in movie and videotape/cable TV background for those of us who came of age in the ’70s and ’80s, is precisely why his passing leaves us so bereft. There are a ton of Burt Reynolds movies out there to continue to watch and enjoy. But to think that he will never make another, never laugh that hyena laugh again while he burns out and outfoxes the law is more than a little bit sad. It’s more like losing a wry older friend from childhood and a masculine role model than simply another movie star. But isn’t that the mark of this special man and his particular quality of stardom? Adios and via con dios, Burt — you were always a great amigo.

Gorgeous Lady of the Week – Morena Baccarin

This beautiful Brazilian-American actress has been on our radar since the early 2000s when she graced Joss Whedon’s cult Sci-Fi series Firefly as the luminous and feisty courtesan, Inarra Serra. Baccarin’s character was not merely stunning but also winningly witty, wry and more than a match for Nathan Fillion’s captain Malcom Reynolds in the finest romance-as-combat Howard Hawks tradition. And despite the fact that Firefly only made it two seasons before being foolishly cancelled by Fox, with the very good stand-alone movie Serenity serving to tie up loose ends, Ms. Baccarin’s career was launched and her science fiction bona fides proven.

With her almond-shaped brown eyes, thick brunette mane, cheek bones to die for and a smile like a Renaissance painting, Morena found increasing success with a recurring role as an adult Adria in the Stargate SG-1 series beginning in 2007 and then had a major coup as the sinister alien antagonist Anna in ABC’s underappreciated reboot of V (2009-11).

By far her biggest success and the one that showed off her Juilliard-trained acting chops to their fullest extent was her powerful portrayal of Jessica Brody, the complex and long-suffering wife of enigmatic Marine Nicholas Brody (played by the always outstanding Damian Lewis) in Showtime’s nail-biting espionage thriller series Homeland. With Morena’s wonderfully shaded portrayal of a flawed, compassionate and intelligent woman faced with unknowable questions about her long-absent “hero” spouse newly returned to her after 8 years as an Al-Qaeda prisoner it’s no wonder she was nominated for an Emmy in 2013. As anyone who has seen the show can tell you, it was obviously a well-earned honor for the beautiful Ms. Baccarin.

Her success reached even greater heights after her run on Homeland with a major franchise role in the Marvel Universe as Vanessa Carlyse, the super sexy, super naughty girlfriend in 2016’s blockbuster Deadpool, which she reprised in the just released sequel. And since 2015 she has been a regular on the excellent Batman prequel Gotham playing Dr. Leslie Thompkins, love interest to Ben McKenzie’s Jim Gordon. In a case of life imitating art, Baccarin and McKenzie fell in love are now married, making Ben a very lucky boy in our books.

Count us thoroughly enchanted by the talented and charming Morena Baccarin. We look forward to seeing what else she achieves as an actress. With a face like that and talent to match, the sky’s certainly the limit.

Classic Movie Watch — On Dangerous Ground (1952)

It’s far too facile to call Nicholas Ray’s stark 1952 classic, On Dangerous Ground, a film noir. It certainly starts out that way with hardened cop Jim Wilson, played by the incomparable Robert Ryan, violently working his way through tarts and hoodlums in his obsessive pursuit of two cop killers. But quickly we see that Wilson is no hero. His partners are finding it difficult to work with him and his superior has had to give him increasing warnings about police brutality. From the opening shots of the film we see that Wilson is utterly alone and has only the job to live for, while one of his two partners has a devoted young wife and the other more senior one already has a large family. Worse still for Wilson, he is beginning to hate his job and himself by proxy. As Wilson sneers at one point “everyone hates a cop” on both sides of the law and “garbage is all we handle.” It’s readily apparent that violent self-loathing is beginning to consume Ryan’s masterfully curdled Jim Wilson.

But although On Dangerous Ground begins in the grimy urban shadow world typical of film noir it doesn’t stay there. Having cuffed around one too many suspects Wilson is given an assignment out of town and far upstate until things cool down for the wayward detective. A young girl has been murdered in a small country town and Wilson is sent up to help the local sheriff. Suddenly the movie drives out of a crime infested, artificially lit city and up into the stark and pristine mountains, eventually arriving at a sparsely populated wintry outpost that has been the scene of a horrible crime.

There Wilson meets Walter Brent and his family, whose young daughter has been slain. Brent, played by the square-jawed and tough Ward Bond, familiar from so many John Ford Westerns alongside John Wayne, is consumed by the need for revenge and vigilante justice. He is resentful and dismissive of the big city detective when all he wants to do is find his daughter’s killer and blow him away. Nonetheless, Wilson and Brent join together to pursue the suspected killer after he steals a car in town, following him even further into the mountainous wilds until they crash their car in the icy conditions. Their quarry has also crashed his car and they follow his tracks as best they can to a remote house in a barren, frozen landscape. There they meet a blind woman seemingly living alone, Mary Malden, played by the always excellent Ida Lupino. And now the source of tension changes yet again, as the detective and the bereaved father wonder if the blind woman is hiding or helping the assailant and Wilson begins to wonder if he can open his heart to this stubbornly independent yet tender and kind woman.

Once the action has left the city and moved to the rocky terrain the tenor of the film also changes. Upon repeated viewings there is a distinctive existential aspect to the manhunt and its implications, becoming almost an allegory. All of a sudden Wilson is the one upholding the law and trying to keep Brent from pursuing extra judicial action. It’s almost as if Brent is the ultimate extension of Wilson’s increasingly judge and jury approach to law enforcement in the city. In seeing it in another man he experiences a similar revulsion to that of his partners at his own over-the-line actions. And can the blindness of Mary Malden simply be a plot device or is there something more profound being implied there? After all, the famous statue of Justice is blindfolded and once Wilson comes into contact with this isolated blind woman his own angry defenses begin to soften and he begins to want to trust in the process of the law again over simple retribution.

It all makes for an extremely strange and intriguing police drama. Ray’s sense of story is inventive and never bound by the conventions of genre. The black and white cinematography is dark to the point of cinema verite with the vast outdoor spaces seemingly even more claustrophobic than the inky, densely packed city streets of the first third of the film. The tense mood is consistently heightened by the pulsing score of the great Bernard Herrmann, Hicthcock’s favorite composer. And the two stars are top notch. Ida Lupino, with her lovely eyes and husky voice, was always such a fascinating combination of tough and tender, a perfect foil for hard men, and never more so than in this brave and accomplished role. She was also a Hollywood groundbreaker as a female director at a time when that was almost unheard of and got her start in that pursuit by directing a few scenes in On Dangerous Ground when Ray was too ill to work.

But the movie’s center of gravity is Ryan’s hair-trigger Jim Wilson, a man drowning in his own exposure to the darkest aspects of human behavior, in others and those within himself. Made some 20 years before Dirty Harry, the cop in On Dangerous Ground is a direct progenitor of the kind of avenging urban policeman that Clint Eastwood portrayed so well. But whereas in Eastwood’s conception of Dirty Harry his vigilante violence is cathartic and necessary as a response to impotent bureaucracy in an increasingly chaotic and frightening world, for Ryan’s Jim Wilson the chaos is within and so the resort to violence is self-wounding and destructive of his humanity. His exposure to someone even more out of control, even more hungry for blood in Brent the avenging father brings him back to the belief in the power of and the need for the due process of the law. Of all the classic Hollywood leading men of the 1940s and 50s Ryan was the probably the least suited to that title. He was more like an anti-matinee idol, often specializing in heavies and unreliable neurotics. But there is not really another actor like him and his ability to channel an inner darkness was rarely matched. There’s just something about those jet black eyes of his that radiates menace even when he is a supposedly sympathetic character. That his Jim Wilson requires the help of a blind woman to save him from himself and that Ryan only grudgingly allows this redemption to happen makes this one of his most satisfying “heroic” roles in a career mainly distinguished by masterful portrayals of violent racists and psychopaths.

A final word on director Nick Ray, at least for now: Ray was undoubtedly one of the most interesting American directors to emerge from the post-WWII era. While trained to be a typical handler of studio projects, Ray constantly found ways of making routine material something more transcendent. Thus a movie like They Live By Night (1949) becomes a doomed romance rather than a simple crime spree movie. In A Lonely Place (1950) allows Humphrey Bogart to take his uncompromising tough guy persona to an unsavory extreme. Bigger Than Life (1956) is a seemingly typical 1950s domestic melodrama upended by James Mason’s frightening steroid-induced psychosis. The brilliantly stylized Rebel Without A Cause (1955) became the signature youth rebellion film of all time due to an intuitive grasp of a coming generational revolution and the absolutely perfect casting of James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo as the teenagers. And 55 Days At Peking (1963), Ray’s last major film after being dismissed late in the production, is a period war epic that allows the often monolithic Charlton Heston moments of wounded humanity that he only rarely revealed in his other films. And there are several other great films to his credit aside from these like The Lusty Men, Bitter Victory and Johnny Guitar, all well worth seeking out.

Ray had an obvious gift with actors, getting them to delve deep and really expose themselves and also a rare understanding of interior and exterior spaces as emotional contributors and activators (not coincidentally he studied architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1930s). All of his best talents of mining hidden depths in conventional material and making the most of limited resources are on display in On Dangerous Ground, possibly the most unusual film noir in the canon. It’s truly a movie of deceptive complexity and beautiful playing that rewards multiple viewings and reveals new levels of understanding each time. It’s hard to think of a better compliment to Ray’s unique cinematic talents than that and it’s an ideal jumping off point for further exploration of one of the more idiosyncratic of the major “Golden Age” Hollywood directors.

Horological Mythology: The Osmosis of Cool

In the world of watch collecting, one gets used to heady price tags and watching the those prices rise over the years. It’s logical, despite occasional anomalies like market corrections and bubbles, that desirable things go up in value over time. It equally adds up that in a time when wealth is more concentrated than it has been in decades, those who can afford to pay a lot for something can usually afford to pay a WHOLE LOT for something, and so dealers adjust their prices accordingly, and the rest of us have to pay up to keep up. C’est la vie.

But what in the world accounts for something like the $17.75 million we saw shelled out for Paul Newman’s own Rolex “Paul Newman” ref. 6239 Daytona at auction last week? The most paid for any watch ever. Theories abound, of course. The fact that a normal Rolex “Paul Newman” ref. 6239 Daytona is a somewhat rare and desirable watch in it’s own right is a good starting point. Add to that the sweet story about his wife gifting it to him, and Mr. Newman’s owning and wearing this particular watch throughout an exciting portion of his life (regularly racing cars and frequently seen in public generally being cooler and better looking than the rest of us), thus leading collectors in the 80’s to name the reference the “Paul Newman” in his honour, and we have a pretty solid explanation as to why this watch would be worth more than the “normal” Paul Newman. But a normal “Paul Newman” Daytona goes for about $200,000, so is the one that started it all really worth that much more, solely as an originator of a sect of the watch collecting world? I say no.

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RIP Hugh Hefner, 1926 – 2017

When Hugh Hefner, the maverick founder and publisher of Playboy, died last week at the age of 91 it was tempting to say that it marked the end of an era. But in truth that era ended long ago, perhaps as far back as the 1990s and the birth of widespread internet access with all the instant onanistic delights that would bring. It wasn’t hard to see that his death was treated as the passing of a retrograde dinosaur by the gleeful way so many piled on, tamping the dirt down on poor old Hef before the body was cold or the last period was put on his New York Times obituary.

The first Playboy cover in 1953

Hef was called a creep, a pervert, an exploiter of women, a pimp, a lonely old loser. Great claims were made about how he had single-handedly degraded the sexual culture of the United States and done us all irreparable harm. That these claims were primarily made by women on the left of the political spectrum, as well as a few pearl clutching conservative men, made me wonder if Hef wasn’t lying bemused there in his special crypt in Westwood Memorial Park — a final resting place that he purchased so he could spend eternity next to his feminine ideal and also the ticket to his success as a publisher, Marilyn Monroe. It almost seemed as if Hefner’s sexual revolution had turned back on itself and become a new puritanism despite — or perhaps because of — the unlimited, undreamed of access to the multifaceted turn-ons of the cyber universe, a time where most if not all sexual imagery is debated as someone being exploited and all nudity, artfully shot or otherwise, is once again shameful “pornography.”

Hefner’s legacy is an understandably complex one. But of course judgements from the distance of 2017 on men who made their fortunes in the mid-20th Century amidst its highly sexist, highly male-dominated society are rarely going to be favorable. That Hefner made his particular fortune on the naked bodies of nubile young women would make him a polarizing figure no matter when he did it. That very first coup of the Monroe nudes that instantly propelled Playboy to a must-buy men’s publication — photos which mortified Marylin but which she also admitted helped her career — illustrated the dichotomy of Playboy in a nutshell, the opportunism and panache, the exploitation and pitch perfect taste. In future all the other models would be willing participants, paid certainly, but also unashamedly showing their naked bodies at the peak of their sexual attraction — young, fit, and airbrushed to perfection. It’s true that Hefner was selling the idea of “sexual liberation” and revolt against puritanism. But of course it’s also true that he saw it exclusively through the male lens of available sexy college coeds and girls next door to perfectly compliment a swinging bachelor’s lifestyle filled with little black books and a pad decorated with Eames and Saarinen furniture with a premium Hi-Fi system playing Miles Davis and John Coltrane on quarter inch reel-to-reel tape.

But then, this was a men’s magazine back when such notions were not yet vigorously contested. The barbershop, the pool hall, the club and especially the board rooms were almost exclusively men-only (and white men only, at that). In publishing a racy magazine for men in the 1950s how much could we really expect Hefner to cater to an equal-opportunity female perspective? He had no interest in that whatsoever and he never really would. But as time passed and Playboy became an American institution like Coca-Cola and Lucky Strikes, Hefner pushed the intellectual boundaries that could be intertwined with such a publication. If sex was undoubtedly still the main selling point he wanted something that was worth discussing after orgasm filling the pages of his life’s mission. So alongside Miss July one could find minor (and sometimes major) works by literary giants like Ian Fleming, Arthur C. Clarke, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. LeGuin, Jack Kerouac, Ray Bradbury, Alex Haley, Vladimir Nabokov, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and even feminist icon Margaret Atwood, among many others. And Hef put his considerable fortune not only into his famously cheesy Playboy clubs with its parade of tightly corseted, cotton-taled Bunnies (blisteringly exposed by a young, undercover Gloria Steinem in “A Bunny’s Tale”) but also groundbreaking television shows, Playboy’s Penthouse and Playboy After Dark, which featured swinging, fantastically hep soirees with entertainment by the leading black, white and Latino performers of their time, a quietly revolutionary fully-integrated scene in the 1960s.

He was also a staunch advocate for free speech, civil rights and a woman’s right to choose (though obviously feminists will say that last one was completely self-serving, as do, ironically, staunch conservatives). The Playboy Interview series had some of the better in-depth conversations with stars of sport, politics, technology, music and film. The interview conducted with Jimmy Carter while he was running for president where he admitted that he “lusted in his heart” is probably one of the most famous ever given by an American politician, while future Roots author Alex Haley’s chilling interview with American Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell in 1966 was another of many important groundbreakers that put a spotlight in American race relations, a long-time Hefner concern.

So yes, it’s a complicated legacy. Like a lot of the greats he peaked after an extraordinarily fertile period and then rode his fame and stereotype to ever-diminishing returns. If he somehow opened the door to the pornographic free-for-all that some perceive around us now it’s also true that he never capitulated to hardcore and gynecological close-ups like his main competitors, Bob Guccione’s Penthouse and Larry Flint’s execrable Hustler (Flynt may be a fee speech hero to some but his magazine is absolute garbage). Although Hef did try to have his cake and eat it with the quiet purchase and publication of the more explicit Oui magazine, over at Playboy even pubic hair was a long time coming. As swinging and revolutionary as it had been in the 50s and 60s, by the late 1970s amidst the tumult of the real sexual revolution that it had arguably uncorked, Playboy was actually reactionary in its “wholesome” approach to the female nude. And by the time of the internet explosion Playboy was more of an American fixture like a Chevrolet or a ranch house than any kind of avant grade trendsetter or integral part of a happening zeitgeist. It’s what respectable people read when they wanted a little titillation and perhaps an interesting article or interview. Sure it was cringe-worthy to see Hef still walking around in pajamas and squiring a rotating harem of identical perfectly proportioned blondes in their 20s preaching the gospel of Viagra. But that was the image Hef had created for himself and he was unable or unwilling to slough it off despite his advancing years. What did we really expect this ultimate adolescent-cum-swinging bachelor to do after all these years, stop living his fantastical dream, settle down and grow up? From a marketing perspective, if Hef and Playboy were essentially the same entity how could this aging Don Juan possibly change himself as the embodiment of the Playboy lifestyle that he so enthusiastically promoted?

In some of the fierce critiques that have emerged in the short time since Hugh Hefner’s passing there has been an effort to tarnish him with the tragic death of Dorothy Stratton in 1980, as if her introduction to and promotion to stardom by Playboy had been responsible for her murder rather than her scheming, scummy, murderous husband. I would only answer that with a question: how many murders have occurred among employees of other “respectable” businesses during all the years Playboy has been published? A hell of a lot more than one, that’s for sure. There is also a concentrated effort to portray Hefner as the ultimate exploiter of women, somehow luring them to bare their flesh for his personal profit and satisfaction. This seems to me to be one of the more ironically antifeminist positions, as if the countless models and centerfolds of Playboy did not have any choice in the matter. True, they did not make the money that Hefner made off of their labors. But what employee makes the same money as the CEO? Many former playmates wound up working for the company and many were happy with their nude photo shoots. I’m sure some were dismayed in retrospect but again, in what employment transaction is satisfaction 100% guaranteed? The idea that these literally thousands of women were exploited against their will seems like utter nonsense. It’s much less condescending to think that they knew what they were doing and perhaps had a plan for what they would do with money they were being paid to better their lives. It’s a distinct possibility that many of the models actually enjoyed the prospect of being desired by millions of men and perhaps look back now when they are older at their youthful images with pride. If that’s a sick proposition to some it may be time to re-examine just where exactly the border lies between exploitation and willing sexual participation, of human desire and fantasy, of lust and admiration, of voyeurism and necessary physical gratification. And to the critique that Playboy presented an unrealistic vision of perfect women that warped the boys and men exposed to it I’d just say this: look at the millions of boys and men who read Playboy at some point in their lives. As one of them I can tell you the boys were certainly ecstatic to finally find out what grown-up women looked like under their clothes and what to look forward to when they grew up to be men. And the vast majority of men understood the idealized nature of the images and simply settled down to perfectly normal marriages and relationships undamaged by such visions of All-American Aphrodites no matter how much they may have enjoyed them and, like President Carter, lusted in their hearts.

Hef’s last laugh on us all may just be how far we’ve regressed as a society where to be successful at what Hugh Hefner and Playboy did 50-60 years ago involves exponentially more debasement and exponentially less aesthetic and intellectual veneer, where pundits knowingly reference PornHub but turn around and excoriate Hefner and Playboy. You can lay the blame at Hefner’s feet for the fact that there’s a strip club in every town and endless porn available on the internet if you like. But better to look at our own human needs and weaknesses to find the real answer to the question of just why that is so. If men didn’t want it and women weren’t willing to participate in it Hugh Hefner and Playboy would’t have been the massive success that they were. He sold an openly sexual dream world at a time when Americans were desperate for it and people bought it in spades for decades afterwards. So tell me how exactly did he corrupt such willing consumers? You can shoot the messenger if you’re uncomfortable with that. But I’m afraid he and his silk pajamas have just left the Mansion.

Classic Movie Watch — Harper (1966)

1966’s Harper is not only one of the great Paul Newman’s best and most enjoyable films. It’s also by this late date a bit of an under looked classic with a remarkable creative pedigree. Based on the great Ross MacDonald’s first Lew Archer novel, The Moving Target, and capturing the bubbling striking and strangeness of burgeoning, fast moving California in the post war era, Harper is an excellent crime thriller with a first-rate cast. Not only is there the always terrific Newman as the title character at his most wry, nimble and reluctantly heroic. The film is also packed with other standout actors like the screen legends Lauren Bacall, Shelly Winters, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh and Robert Wagner. Great character actors also play their parts notably the always indelible Strother Martin, Robert Webber and Harold Gould. The movie was also legendary screenwriter William Goldman‘s big breakthrough, establishing him as a major Hollywood writer and adaptor of work and essentially launching his long successful career in the movies. It was capably directed by Jack Smight with a nice light touch, who also went on a pretty good run later in the 60s and 70s helming films like No Way to Treat a Lady (from a novel by Goldman), The Illustrated Man, Airport 1975 and Midway. Finally Harper was shot by the great Conrad Hall and the film has a terrifically bright and colorful California feel even though it is essentially a noir in content.

Without giving too much away, down on his luck private investigator Lew Harper is hired by an old friend, an ex- Assistant DA and now private attorney Alfred Graves (Arthur Hill) to investigate the disappearance of his client, millionaire grower and developer, Ralph Sampson. The unlikeable Sampson has disappeared en route to LA while flying back from Vegas and his wife, the beautiful but ice cold and disabled Elaine Sampson (Bacall) wants to find out what happened if only to catch him stepping out on her. Harper also meets Sampson’s daughter from another marriage, Miranda (played by a very kittenish Pamela Tiffin) and her boyfriend and Sampson’s private pilot, Alan Taggert (Wagner), who also happens to be the last person to see Sampson before he went missing at the LA airport after ordering a limo. By searching Sampson’s private bungalow Harper finds a picture of faded starlet Fay Estabrook (Winters), whom he tracks down and finds to be overweight and alcoholic. Harper gets her drunk to pump her for info and from Fay’s web of strange connections he’s led to even more unseemly characters such as the nightclub singer and junkie Betty Fraley (Harris), Fay’s vicious husband Troy (Webber) and the bogus holy man Claude (the one-of-a-kind Martin). Deeper crimes are uncovered including kidnapping, human trafficking and even murder and no one is entirely what they seem.

If that all sounds complicated it is. True to the Ross MacDonald style there are a lot of characters to keep track of and a lot of plot twists to follow and throw the audience off balance. Harper uses his wits more than his fists to move the case forward, though he is more than capable in either hand-to-hand combat or with a gun. He’s a step above the local police and he doesn’t mind letting them know it to their face. He takes more than a few beatings and serious risks to his life but, like all great detectives, is compelled to stay on the case and see it through no matter were it may lead. As personified by Paul Newman, Harper is never grim but always wise-cracking, quick witted, effortlessly masculine with a appropriately sardonic take on his gray-shaded word and the people in it. It’s one of Newman’s subtly great performances in that it comes across so effortlessly, as though Harper were just a second skin he was slipping on, and ranks right up there with Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (another Goldman screenplay) and The Sting for moving Newman away from the “angry young man” stereotype of his earlier career — a sort of alternative Brando — and into the persona of the affably cynical, world wise, wise-cracking and sometimes reluctant hero that served him and us as theater-goers so well. The direction is crisp and manages to fit in all its twists and turns in a highly enjoyable and never draggy 2 hours. And of course the brilliant screenplay does justice to MacDonald’s original novel even elevating the humor somewhat to keep the dialogue fast and clever, rife with sharp ripostes and cutting lines. It’s tough and violent enough without being exploitative and it’s one of those movies where everything just seems to hum along like a well-oiled machine with just enough oddness and ingenuity to prevent it from being an exercise in formula or slickness. In short, if you’re a Paul Newman fan and crime thriller fan and you haven’t seen Harper yet what are you waiting for? It’s a mid-60s knockout and you are going to love it.

Just a couple of quick asides: Legend has it that the character was changed from the original Archer to Harper because Newman liked H names and thought they were lucky (see Hud, Hombre, The Hustler, etc). Other sources say that because the producers only has the rights to The Moving Target and no other MacDonald works at that time they didn’t want to use Archer. In fact another Harper/Archer movie was made nearly 10 years later with Newman reprising his role and playing alongside his wife Joanne Woodward in The Drowning Pool (1975). The location was shifted from MacDonald’s beloved coastal California to New Orleans and while the plot was equally byzantine if not more so and the cast of characters just as compelling the film plays a lot more seriously and almost has a grim feel to it. Not a bad thriller by any means but definitely not the nimble, witty masterpiece that the original Harper is. It’s also worth mentioning that the original Archer books themselves are definitely worthy of a read. They are a major cut above most detective fiction and MacDonald earns his high praise as the natural successor to Raymond Chandler as a superlative writer of hard-boiled crime fiction with his Lew Archer grabbing the baton from Chandler’s iconic Philip Marlowe and ably running with it.

RIP Roger Moore, 1927 – 2017

The heroes of our youth continue to fade away. So it is with the passing of Sir Roger Moore Tuesday, May 23 at the age of 89 after a life very well spent. The Guardian’s obituary is here.

Moore was “our” James Bond for those of us growing up in the 1970s and early 80s, an impossibly suave and arch version of Ian Fleming’s iconic super spy. Taking over the role at 45 from the great Sean Connery and Aussie George Lazenby, who flamed out after one very good outing (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), Moore slowly moved the portrayal of Bond away from the super macho style that Connery personified and into a more self-aware, almost ironic approach. With his first two outings as Bond, the very good blacksploitation hybrid Live And Let Die and the rather less effective The Man With the Golden Gun, Moore seemed to be trying to split the diferrence between his own mischievous personality and the hardness of the Connery era, including slapping women around nonchalantly. But as two-time Bond movie alum Maude Adams famously remarked that was simply not Roger. And as the movies became more gadget driven and wilder in concept, culminating in the very wacky Moonraker that tried to capitalize on the Star Wars craze by putting Bond into space, Moore’s self-aware bemusement served the ever more hyperbolic franchise well. Even if today’s pundits are quick to dismiss the Moore era as lightweight and his portrayal of Bond as lacking in gravitas this misses the zeitgeist of when his films were made. The 70s were not a time of gravitas but rather The Me Decade, a time of partying down and sexual abandon, of thinking less and doing more. And so Moore’s Bond was simply suitable to the times. He seemed to recognize that his perfect features constituted the most important weapon in Bond’s ultimate pursuit, the conquest of women while in the service of the Queen. It’s certainly no accident that he essayed the role 7 times over 12 years, even if by his last outing in 1985’s A View To A Kill his knees seemed to be showing their 57 years more than that well-tanned face. Yet he still managed to take on the Amazonian Grace Jones and a very nasty Christopher Walken, as well as bed Tanya Roberts in the process, so you could say Moore’s Bond retained the good stuff even in his swan song.

Moore had been a major international TV star before being cast in Live And Let Die in 1973. His big break came when he took over from James Garner as his British cousin on Maverick in the early 1960s after working regularly in other action roles on American television. Most importantly, he played Simon Templar in The Saint from 1962 to 1969, a cultured thief who only steals from other criminals. The series was a huge hit both in England and in the US and probably put Moore on Albert Broccoli’s radar as a potential future Bond. He was also immensely enjoyable as one half of the wealthy oil-and-water crime fighting duo in The Persuaders! alongside a manic Tony Curtis, bickering and galavanting their way through jet set Europe and generally having a ball. While the series was not the big hit in the States that the producers hoped it remains a very enjoyable cult classic and peak super suave Moore (check out his very early-70s self-designed wardrobe as Lord Brett Sinclair). After his time as Bond, Sir Roger became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador due to the example and influence of his friend, Audrey Hepburn. He was knighted by the British Empire in 2003 for his years of service doing that worthwhile charitable work and his special focus on helping children in the developing world.

Roger Moore liked beautiful women, finely tailored clothes, good cigars and good drink and most of all pleasant company. He loved playing James Bond and never struggled with being strongly identified with the role, as so many of the other actors have (with the notable exception of Pierce Brosnan). For him, Bond and his ever wilder and more humorous adventures were all great fun to be approached with a raised eyebrow and a good quip but not too much perspiration. There was never any doubt he was going to accomplish his mission, kill the villain and sleep with the girl. He made the James Bond movie a terrifically enjoyable experience during a time when the films were real blockbuster summer events. His was an angst-free Bond for a hedonistic era, helping perfect an over-the-top formula that simply worked like a charm nearly every time. If tastes have changed and authenticity is now the new fetish that is no fault of Moore’s. He had the light touch at the right moment and his films remain the most consistently and purely fun of the franchise’s epic run. So godspeed to Sir Roger Moore and may he rest in peace. He brought the world a lot of joy and entertainment and did a lot of good work in his long time on this earth. He is the first cinema Bond to pass on and certainly one of the most loved. But even with that towering cinematic accomplishment he’ll be even more fondly remembered as Roger Moore the kind, funny and very generous human being. Just read this great anecdote from a fan who met him as a child and then again as an adult for proof of that.

Gorgeous Lady of the Week — Krysten Ritter

Once in a while an actress finds a role so perfect that it lets her punch through to another level entirely. Such is the case with the fascinating and unconventionally beautiful Krysten Ritter and her wonderful work as the title character in Netflix’s original series, Jessica Jones. Netflix and Marvel have cleverly reimagined some of the more obscure protagonists in the Marvel Universe for TV, with Luke Cage and Iron Fist also getting their own series, and the compelling Jessica Jones shows just how satisfying it can be when relatively unknown superheroes get modernized and fleshed out in a morally complex world that is anything but black & white.

And it is Ritter who enables Jessica Jones to reach it’s very fine full potential. At turns fragile and combative, cynical and idealistic, Ritter lets Jones’ damage show beneath the surface of her gamine good looks and her tough private eye facade. With it’s claustrophobic urban setting and her ominously dangerous nemesis, Jessica Jones inhabits a truly adult superhero demimonde, portraying sexual and mental subjugation in ways the big ticket franchises could never be bold enough to tackle. Add to that barely remarked upon interracial sex scenes between Jones and Cage, Jones’ use of her wits over her own seldom-deployed super strength and surprising eruptions of deadly, sanguineous violence, and Jessica Jones is a sophisticated vehicle that Ms. Ritter is wringing the very most out of.

The 34-year old actress was born in rural Pennsylvania and was spotted by a modeling scout as gangly teenager in a local mall. With her throwback Coco Chanel looks, Ritter found herself in New York City in no time flat, where she was signed by the big agencies for print and runway work. With her lively and outgoing personality she made an easy transition into acting for commercials and television. She also made a concerted effort to act in theater, honing her acting chops even further.

She had her first sustained TV work with a nice multi-episode role on the WB’s very popular hit, Gilmore Girls. That propelled her to supporting roles in features in the romantic comedies What Happens in Vegas with Cameron Diaz and Aston Kutcher, 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl and She’s Out of My League with Jay Baruchel (all 2008) and again as the lead’s gal pal in 2009’s Confessions of a Shopaholic alongside Isla Fisher.

But Ms. Ritter’s real breakthrough came with her remarkable portrayal of Jane Margolis during the second season of AMC’s legendary Breaking Bad. Effortlessly conveying the trademark tough-vulnerable qualities that would serve her so well in Jessica Jones, Ritter’s sexy tattoo artist and heroin-addict is a wonderful femme fatal and irresistible to the love-starved Jesse. So perfect was the role and the casting that one wishes Ritter’s Jane and Aaron Paul’s Jesse could have escaped Walt’s clutches and made their getaway to New Zealand. Instead the character’s death served to propel several profound plot twists going forward, and Ritter’s short-lived Jane Margolis was very much a vital deus ex machina. More than that, though, her performance was pitch perfect and indelible.

An actor never likes to see a project get canceled but it was almost certainly a blessing when Krysten’s ABC sitcom Don’t Trust the B—- In Apt. 23 got the axe after two seasons. Yes the show was reasonably funny and Ms. Ritter was perfectly cast as the titular B—-. But the show’s demise created the opening for her to take her role of a lifetime in Jessica Jones. Now not only is her show one of Netflix’s top properties and a critical success but she will be featured in the multi-hero spinoff, The Defenders, slated to debut in 2017. Alongside Daredevil, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, Jessica Jones will be keeping good company as these heroes team up to fight crime and injustice. And Krysten Ritter is sure to keep doing attention-grabbing work as one of the more interesting actresses out there.

RIP Gene Wilder, 1933 – 2016

When the great comic actor Gene Wilder passed away on August 29th at the age of 83 due to complications from Alzheimer’s it felt just as though a favorite eccentric uncle had died. (The New York Times obituary is here.) For those of us who grew up in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s Wilder left an indelible impression. If you enjoyed funny movies in the least (and really, who doesn’t?), Wilder was one of the joys of the cinema during that period, all the more so because there was nobody before or since who quite possessed his unique blend of neurotic mania and soulful mensch-ness. Even when Wilder was portraying a character a little bit naughty, like Leo Bloom in the original The Producers, the unpredictable Willy Wonka of chocolate factory fame, a descendent of Victor Frankenstein compelled to pursue the same macabre obsessions as his infamous grandfather or a wrongly convicted con alongside his great comedy partner Richard Prior in Stir Crazy, Wilder always seemed to juxtapose a sweetness with his delightfully manic outbursts.

After studying acting at the Old Vic in England and the HB Studio in New York, the Milwaukee-born Wilder first came to wide attention with a small but impactful role in Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn’s seminal Bonnie and Clyde (1967), interrupting the film’s otherwise grim narrative with a burst of humor as a rather eager and happy hostage. But his major breakthrough came a year later in Mel Brooks’ all-time classic, the hysterically funny The Producers. As the nebbishy and neurotic Leo Bloom, Wilder was perfectly matched with the bigger-than-life, morally bankrupt has-been theater producer Max Bialystock, played to the hilt by the peerless Zero Mostel. Amidst the side-splitting opening sequence, as Bloom is abruptly initiated into Bialytsock’s crazy world when he comes to do the producer’s accounting books, it is Bloom who conceives of the idea of raising much more money than needed for a production so bad that it is doomed to close on opening night, thereby allowing the surplus cash to be kept. Bialystock runs with it, coercing Bloom to be his accomplice. They then find a fantastically wretched play called “Springtime for Hitler” and the rest is cinematic comedy history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2pt2-F2j2g

His next major role was as the title character in 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Though not a major hit at the time it became a cult classic with some likening it to a latter day Wizard of Oz, a film that works as both a kids’ movie and something more profound, and Wilder’s influence can be seen throughout in his unique bits of improvisation and inspiration. Johnny Depp was good in the remake but it’s hard to think of anyone other than Gene Wilder as the definitive Willy Wonka, especially when delivering his unexpectedly poignant song, “Pure Imagination.”

He was drafted again by Brooks, as a last minute replacement no less, for 1974’s screamingly funny Western satire, Blazing Saddles. Against type, Wilder played a laconic gunman with a drinking problem given renewed purpose by his fast friendship with the town’s besieged new black sheriff, played by Clevon Little. As if that wasn’t enough comedy gold, that same year Brooks and Wilder collaborated on the brilliant Young Frankenstein, a masterpiece that was Wilder’s concept and that he co-wrote. Filmed in beautiful black and white as an elaborate sendup of 1930s Universal-style horror, Young Frankenstein became a classic in its own right with an unparalleled ensemble cast — including Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars and newcomers Marty Feldman and Peter Boyle — and pitch perfect direction and screenplay. It stands as one of the great collaborative movies of all time and is arguably both Brooks and Wilder’s best work.

1976 saw a magical bit of good casting as Wilder was paired with Richard Pryor for the first time in Silver Streak. Alongside the wonderful Jill Clayburgh in this very good, very funny comedy-thriller about murder and mayhem aboard an LA-to-Chicago train, the two men made cinema history as the first bi-racial comedy duo and audiences loved their unlikely, yin-yang chemistry. As a result, Wilder and Pryor would make three more films together, 1980’s excellent prison comedy Stir Crazy (directed by Sidney Poitier!), the underrated See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) and finally Another You in 1991 when Pryor was already greatly diminished by multiple sclerosis.

Wilder found another impactful partnership when he met Gilda Radner on the set of 1981’s Hanky Panky. The two became comedy royalty when they married in 1984. But the relationship ended tragically when Radner passed away in 1989, a victim of ovarian cancer. This loss inspired Wilder to establish an early detection center in Los Angeles, as well as co-founding Gilda’s Club in New York City, a non-profit support group for cancer patients and their families that now has branches throughout the United States (where it is now known as the Cancer Support Community) and Canada. Wilder found love again when he met Karen Webb while working on See No Evil and they married in 1991. They remained together until his death, a much longer if less romanticized relationship than his union with Gilda Radner, so spare a thought for Ms. Webb at this sad time as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLzPRyMmOGY

Though Gene Wilder had largely retired from acting since the early 1990s, instead concentrating on writing, the importance of his best work grew over the years as his special films became part of the greater pop cultural and comedy firmament. That makes it extra difficult to lose such an original actor who got the laughs because he played his characters so truthfully, one who was always so audaciously alive and vibrant on screen. For those of us who grew up with his movies it feels as if we’ve lost a very funny older friend, one we could turn to for a guaranteed laugh no matter how the world was treating us. But we must also remember that Gene Wilder lived a wonderfully full life, was a truly good man and left a massively joyful contribution to the world that survives him via his films. And if we’re being just a little sentimental, it’s not hard to imagine Gene reunited with Richard and Gilda and Marty and Peter and Kenny and Madeline someplace special, cutting up with them all again, his explosive, utterly contagious laugh ringing out through the ether in the company of fine old friends.

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