Brief Candles
“Is it possible to be a great star without appearing in very many great movies?,” asks N.Y. Times DVD guy David Kehr in a brief riff on Clark Gable before getting into the subject of Warner Home Video’s new Gable box set. Gable, says Kehr, “is one of the few major box office stars of the 1930′s who might produce a glimmer of recognition from a contemporary audience, but after Gone With the Wind and perhaps It Happened One Night, most people would be stuck naming many more of his films.” That’s because Gable generally made run-of-the-mill programmers. I have a better example of this never-so-few syndrome — Steve McQueen. He made 23 or 24 films between 1960 and 1980, and his mythical reputation arose out of only five films, one of which — 1962′s Hell Is for Heroes — the public is barely aware of. His rep really boils down to four quintessential performances — Vin in The Magnificent Seven , “Cooler King” Hilts The Great Escape, Jake Holman in The Sand Pebbles and Frank, the taciturn San Francisco detective who drove a mean Mustang fastback and occasionally smiled at Jacqueline Bisset in Bullitt…and that’s all. Everything else he did was marginal, not bad, pretty good, so-so. There are several others whose esteem rests upon two or three or four films. Look at Willem Dafoe — Platoon, The Last Temptation of Christ and “Clark” in Clear and Present Danger…that’s it. Tom Berenger and Charlie Sheen have only Platoon. Most actors, I would venture to say, are lucky to star in only one incandescent classic film….just the way of the draw. Life is short, chances are few, count your blessings.
Come on, Jeffrey; give it up for “The Getaway.” It has a few dated elements (e.g., McQueen/McGraw’s visit to the park near the start), but most of Peckinpah’s decisions hold up, and McQueen was electric.
Gable also had Mutiny On The Bounty and a few other decent films in the 1930s. McQueen also had The Thomas Crown Affair. But it’s true that stars are the sum of their best roles.
Some, like, say, Ava Gardner (I could think of other examples, but she’s the first that came to mind) may be forgotten because of the lack of great titles.
Then there’s the case of Rosalind Russell. If she hadn’t been in His Girl Friday, a part at least four other stars turned down, I bet she’d be all but forgotten. Also, Gloria Swanson was a huge star in the silent era, but no one cares about that–she was lucky that Billy Wilder was able to use her in Sunset Boulevard.
My God, if that’s the standard, look at DeNiro. On the other hand, Nicholson and Eastwood look pretty good.
In any case, Dave Kehr is not to be trusted.
I would add the Cincinnati Kid in that last as well. I wouldn’t call it “iconic” but was a great film that reinforced the understated, cool persona that McQueen had used to make a name for himself.
“Tom Berenger and Charlie Sheen have only Platoon.”
I beg to differ. How could you possibly have forgotten Major League?
huh? I think a few people might remember Dafoe for Wild at Heart, The English Patient, Shadow of the Vampire and Life Aquatic, all films with devout followings; Berenger WAS in The Big Chill, and as for Rosalind Russell, a hell of a lot more people watch her in Auntie Mame and Gypsy and The Women than they probably do in His Girl Friday, (a really overrated film, in my opinion, but with great performances)
Maybe we have to define terms, first. Is a “great star” someone who has become iconic? Made a lot of money? Been in some damn good films, in spite of being a somewhat limited actor? It opens up the field a little bit, depending on how you look at it. Harrison Ford: Star Wars, Raiders, Witness, Blade Runner. Did the films make him, or did he make the film?
Steve McQueen may have been a great star, but was never a great actor. He was the ultimate icon of cool and I think that’s what held him back creatively.
Sure, he was immensely popular in the 60s. Girls loved him, guys wanted to be him. He was the highest paid star of his time, etc.
William Goldman relates an episode in ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE, when he was writing TOM HORN for him. Goldman was trying to make his character interesting and complex, with growth and a character arc. McQueen stopped him cold. “I don’t want to be the guy who learns. I want to be the guy who KNOWS”. Big difference.
Yeah, I loved watching him ride the motorcycle in THE GREAT ESCAPE, drive the fast car in BULLITT, make love to the Bissets and Dunaways.
But I think that’s why, with a few exceptions, he was always playing the same surly character. Like other “stars”, he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, change. And when he tried at the end of his career, with ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, god bless him for trying, but it just didn’t work.
Some of his films are fun, even memorable. Maybe if he hadn’t gotten sick and lived longer, he would’ve deepened. We’ll never know.
He had an incredibly dysfunctional childhood that marked him for life, and I think, informed his work. Too bad.
RIP Steve.
Yeah, mikel, Shadow of the Vampire was the first thing that jumped into my mind when I saw Dafoe’s name mentioned, and I agree on your other picks. I would also add To Live and Die in L.A., possibly Mississippi Burning (I haven’t seen it, but I think it’s pretty well respected), and Auto Focus. And I might add American Psycho and eXistenZ, which are great movies in which he has pretty small roles. Others might stretch and include Finding Nemo.
As for Charlie Sheen, you’ve got Wall Street, Eight Men Out, and small but very memorable roles in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Being John Malkovich.
I’d like to add Papillon to the list at the very least above average SQ films. I think the film holds up upon repeated viewings.
Wow – I really agree on Steve McQueen – I think he was potentially one of the greatest actors who never really got the parts that fully exploited his potential or range.
For which I think McQueen himself was probably to blame. Like Marlon Brando (an actor I actually don’t like very much), he seems to have had a lot of hang-ups about the ‘sissy-boy’ aspects of being an actor – and unlike Brando, my impression was he was not a good judge of material and was a real pain in the ass to work with.
But McQueen really DID have a wonderful ‘pane of glass’ quality where you always felt like you knew what he was thinking – and there was a unique ‘aliveness’ to his thought process.
Call me crazy – I think he would have made for a really good Hamlet.
Nevada Smith and Junior Bonner (a Peckinpah no less) are movies of his I’ve seen many, many times over the years. He died so young, it would be very easy to see him being in the same circle with Newman/Redford etc. in these golden years.
Guys, guys, guys. How can you all be forgetting THE BLOB?
Sad as it is, my first exposure to both McQueen and Newman (and Dunaway, for that matter) was THE TOWERING INFERNO. As a kid, I had no idea how big a casting coup (or wretched a film) it actually was. But for someone who died so young, McQ did pretty damned well in terms of recognized filmwork. Gable, though, I will have to agree with. Lot’s of decent-enough work in forgettable B pictures.
“My God, if that’s the standard, look at DeNiro.”
I know. The poor man has worked so hard and the only maybe – and I say maybe! – great movies he’s ever been in are The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Deer Hunter, Heat,and Once Upon a Time in America. Can’t a guy catch a break just once?
“Tom Berenger and Charlie Sheen have only Platoon.”
I beg to differ. How could you possibly have forgotten Major League?
Not to mention: In the 1992 Sight & Sound ten best poll, when they asked directors to name the ten greatest films of all time, both Jackie Chan and Richard Lester named Midnight Run on their lists. Yes, THAT Midnight Run, the DeNiro-Grodin one. Well, you know, think about it. When everybody in it has been dead for 20 years, it’s exactly the kind of easygoing, no-message, good-chemistry-between-its-stars movie that could very well look like “the kind of movie they don’t make any more.”
Anyway, it has a better chance at it than Rush Hour….
By the way, Gable didn’t make B pictures. Gable was a star from the early 30s on, strictly in A productions. Now, they may be formulaic, they may be forgettable, but they were top of the line MGM product, co-starring other A-list stars (Greer Garson, Ava Gardner, Doris Day– actually Teacher’s Pet is one of his best later movies, if nothing weighty).
uh, Jimmy Dean? And I don’t meam the sausage guy.
“My God, if that’s the standard, look at DeNiro.”
I know. The poor man has worked so hard and the only maybe – and I say maybe! – great movies he’s ever been in are The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Deer Hunter, Heat,and Once Upon a Time in America. Can’t a guy catch a break just once?
To me, Marilyn Monroe is the classic case of an iconic movie star who starred in almost no memorable movies: take away SOME LIKE IT HOT and GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and what have you got? Cameos in ALL ABOUT EVE and THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, and a bunch of middling, uneven pictures like THE MISFITS and THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, plus programmers like NIAGARA and RIVER OF NO RETURN. And yet her charisma was so powerful that 40 years after her death, she remains pretty much the definition of “Hollywood star.”
“In any case, Dave Kehr is not to be trusted.”
Um, why?
Don’t forget, McQueen also had Papillon, a pretty classic film. But I think this is a very valid subject, and considering their iconic stature, both Gable and McQueen did indeed star in a relatively few classic films.
As for Sheen, Berenger, et al, the question is moot — why on earth are we even discussing them here? They were never stars of anywhere near the level of Gable or McQueen. Kevin Costner would probably be a better comparison — or better yet, Julia Roberts, a huge star with only a handful of films that will be watched a couple decades from now.
I second others’ mention of “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “The Cincinnati Kid” and “The Getaway.” I would add “Papillon” to the mix.
As for Gable, the distance in decades has erased from the collective memory his movies that were clearly more the “run-of-the-mill programmers.”
“The Misfits”
“It Started in Naples”
“Teacher’s Pet”
“Run Silent, Run Deep”
“The Hucksters”
“Mogambo”
“In any case, Dave Kehr is not to be trusted.”
Um, why?
Yeah, why?
what about Dafoe in Wild at Heart? Bobby Peru is one of the great villians. Mcqeen was very good in the little seen Robert Mulligan film Baby, THe Rain Must Fall.
Just remembered Steve McQueen/Natalie Wood vehicle “Love With The Proper Stranger”, a romantic comedy with dark overtones (deals with unplanned pregnancy in an era where such things were not really discussed in public yet).
Natalie playing an ethnic working class girl is a little strange – but McQueen is pefectly cast and he and Wood have very good chemistry and are charming together. Lots of nice early 60′s New York City ‘color’ too.
I too like this movie, but since you mention it Wood’s casting, I didn’t exactly buy McQueen as Italian.