Tag Archives: Actors

Classic Movie Watch — Patton (1970)

Among the greatest of war movies, 1970’s Patton features a mind-blowingly good performance by George C. Scott as the famously colorful WWII general that serves to catapult this epic far above the standard military biopic. The film is not only remarkable for the vivid on-screen portrait of a gifted but notoriously impolitic and ambitious American general helping to turn the tide of war in the United States’ favor but also for the off-screen context of being made at the height of rampant anti-war sentiment in the US and abroad due to the Vietnam War. You would have expected the film to be a hatchet job on an unrepentant warrior from the gung ho past and to reflect the anti-authoritarian zeitgeist of the time. You would also have expected a war-weary public to reject yet another nostalgic World War II movie released at the end of the 60s. Instead, it’s a straightforward yet nuanced portrayal of a seriously flawed but undoubtedly great military leader that earned popular and critical success from the get go with an unapologetically pro-US message. And through the movie we come to see that a man like Patton, a true lover of war who believed himself reincarnated from Roman Legionnaires and Napoleon’s soldiers, should probably be kept in a glass case that says “Break Open in Time of War”. But we also see that it’s surely good to have old soldiers like George S. Patton handy when the stuff hits the fan.

The famous opening sequence, a stylized and also sanitized version of Patton’s famously profane speech to the Third Army, remains one of the movies’ best “grabbers”, as well as one of the most iconic 6 minutes in the history of cinema. And despite Scott’s misgivings that starting with the speech would overwhelm subsequent scenes, that acts as a preamble and the movie gets better from there. It really starts with Patton’s arrival in North Africa to take command of a green and badly demoralized US II Corps after their mauling by Rommel’s Afrika Korps at Kasserine Pass, quickly whipping them into a cohesive fighting unit ready to take on the seasoned and highly accomplished German troops. By utilizing Rommel’s own tank tactics against him, we see the revitalized Americans fight back via impressive large scale armored tank battles thundering from the oversized 65mm widescreen print.


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Classic Movie Watch — To Catch a Thief (1955)

One of Alfred Hitchcock‘s more effervescent cinematic cocktails, 1955’s To Catch a Thief is a must-watch for any cinephile or aspiring bon vivant. A gentleman can learn many lessons from the impossibly stylish Cary Grant as reformed (or is he?) jewelry thief and hero of the French Resistance, John Robie, aka “The Cat”. Grant’s Robie comes under renewed suspsicion when a series of high profile, high value robberies plague the glitterati of the French Riviera. His old war buddies, with whom he escaped from a bombed out prison, soon turn on him for fear of having their paroles revoked, leading Robie to endeavor to find out who the new “Cat” is before the police pin it on him or his old mates do him in to save themselves. Added to the heady mix is the lucious Grace Kelly in her prime as prim but sexy nouveau riche debutante Frances Stevens, determined to share in the excitement of “The Cat’s” criminal exploits and capture the uniquely intriguing Robie for her own pleasure.

Filmed largely on location in Nice, Cannes and Monaco, To Catch a Thief looks as stunning today as it must have when it was released if not more so because the coast and the Principality had not yet been so frantically overdeveloped. The helicopter shots of high speed drives through Mediterranean hills and villages are breathtaking. And the teasing rapport between the ultra-tan, ultra-suave Grant and the golden, precocious Kelly is pure cinema magic. It’s no wonder that Grant, along with James Stewart, was one of Hitchcock’s favorite male leads. They did four remarkably good films together — Suspicion, Notorious, Thief and North by Northwest — and Hitch was always able to coax the dark shadows of Grant’s sometimes glib personality to the fore. For the Master of Suspense, he was willing to reveal his weakness and even his unattractive side and if you know only the smiling playboy caricature of Grant you’ll be in for a treat watching any of those classic collaborations. One of the unquestionable cinema greats, Grant’s body of work for Hitchcock alone would put him near the top of any list of all-time best movie actors.

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And as is well documented, Hitchcock was enraptured by Kelly as his ultimate cool blond with hot blood. After making three terrific films for Hitch in quick succession — Dial M for Murder, Rear Window and Thief — Kelly married Prince Ranier in 1956 and retired from movies to be the Princess Consort of Monaco. While the great director quipped that he was “very happy that Grace has found herself such a good part” he was in fact bereft and struggled in vain to find a new version of her in subsequent films. Hence he has Kim Novak with Stewart in Vertigo, Eva Marie Saint with Grant in North by Northwest, Janet Leigh in Psycho and Tippi Hedren in The Birds and Marnie. While all those actresses did admirable work in their own way, especially the very touching and tragic Kim Novak in Vertigo, it’s no doubt that Hitchcock would have preferred Grace Kelly in all of those roles. After watching her take Grant on a white knuckle ride through the hills of Monaco before stopping to picnic and slyly offering him the choice of a leg or a breast, it’s easy to see why. The fact that Princess Grace was killed in a car accident in 1982 at the age of 52 in those very same cliffs just adds a layer of poignancy to the near-perfection of To Catch a Thief.

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman, 1967 – 2014

We’ve lost one of our finest American actors. The brilliant and gifted Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead on February 2nd in his West Village apartment of an apparent intravenous drug overdose, most likely heroin. In addition to his many highly praised film roles, Hoffman was an accomplished stage actor and director, winning special acclaim for his lead work in excellent revivals of True West, Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Death of a Salesman. He was also a co-artistic director of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York City. Part of Paul Thomas Anderson’s informal repertory company, Hoffman appeared in 5 of his 6 films to date, including the title character in last year’s The Master. He also won the Best Actor Oscar for his uncanny portrayal of Truman Capote during the In Cold Blood years in the 2005 film Capote. He was always a standout from his first big breakthrough as the no good prep school kid alongside Chris O’Donnell and Pacino in Scent of a Woman; to his irreverent priest matching wits with Meryl Streep in Doubt; to his wonderfully touching work in Tamara Jenkins’ underrated The Savages alongside Laura Linney. In fact, his standout parts are too numerous to do them justice here so I hope you’ll explore his filmography to see what a wonderful actor he was (see below for links) even if it hurts to think that we’ll see no more from him. You’ll probably also be surprised at how prolific he was.

He leaves behind his wife Mimi O’Donnell and their son and two daughters. Just an ineffably sad day for those who admired his work and his creative spirit. We are all truly poorer for his premature passing because you never really knew what delightful thing he was going to do next.

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s full Wikipedia bio is here.

His IMDB page is here.