ChristineCB

AND MORE TRUTH DISCOVERED! The original lyrics were actually, "I'm in The Village, goo goo ga joo" and he's wasn't dead. Just kidnapped.

It's all starting to make sense.

Moor Larkin

My own preference is that John Drake resigned etc....., escaped from the village, took up a sub-contract for the Yanks, shot the wrong bloke, got completely fed up with the whole thing and turned to doing dodgy deals with the CIA until finally rumbled by Lt. Columbo..... Be seeing You!

There's type-casting!!.......

I missed showings of that twice last year..

Patrick McGoohan does seem an interesting example of how type-casting can exist and yet how it can change...... Rank typed him as a villain in his contract film career. He was tagged as 'Mr. Menace' and the 'Beast of Pinewood'....... (although Rank did cast him as a nice guy in his fourth and final movie for them)...... He seemed to break that mould via Television playing in three or four TV Plays in 1958, to good reviews. I think a version of "All My Sons" was the first.

He played the good Irishman against Richard Harris's bad Irishman in "Rest in Violence" and in an interesting play called "This Day in Fear" he was an Irishman trying to leave his IRA days behind him....... there does seem to be some Irish-typing creeping in doesn't there...

Then he became a noble heroic type as a television Danger Man

For good or ill he resolutely made three Sixties movies entirely at odds with both each other and his popular persona. In "Two Living, One Dead" he was an insipid, self-doubting clerk, then a manic-depressive in "All Night Long", followed by a zipped-up medical doctor in "Life for Ruth". What his Danger Man fans must have thought when they went to the cinema to see their hero's latest release can only be guessed at!!

After he packed up England it is interesting that in his fractured 'Hollywood' career he generally tended to go back to playing villains again..... I wonder if he found villains easier to live with..... Interviewers tend to not to ask, "How much of that evil so and so is based on your own personality Pat?"

ChristineCB

His career and his ability to jump from Mr Sinister to Mr Noble Hero rather mirrors my opinion of Basil Rathbone's choices.

Now... does their ability to implant their facial expressions also give way to their ability to implant such distinctive voices in my head?

I know I can immediately recognize Basil's voice on every radio show I have of him. I suspect McGoohan would occupy the same plateau. (I need to scan thru the hundreds of CBS Mystery Theatre shows and see if he's been cast in those.)

It's a shame that Columbo put him away. Darn. Are you sure he did? Is there a chance that McGoohan staged some escape and, instead of leaving some prison island, he merely disposed of the real prison warden and took over his job?

I know, I know... probably just another silly idea of mine. It'd have no more chance of success than a chrysanthemum in a tyrant's fist.

Moor Larkin

Now you're making that final leap over the edge of the cliff that marks the border between the sanity of the land and the madness that is the Ocean - Alcatraz!





He only ever made on radio 'appearance' - in 1956. He claimed in an interview to have a 'terror' of disembodied microphones.....

ChristineCB

Meanwhile, on Planet Christine, she's still insisting she's the only normal one.

djdave

Actors may gnash their teeth against being typecast in certain types of parts.

But sometimes it's the audience's fault....Clint Eastwood only died in one iof his films - The Beguiled - and the fans didn't like it. Their favourite actor dying? No way, Jose.

By the same token, I quite like John Wayne and his films. But the idea of him playing, say, a Quentin Crisp-type character is a bit offputting.

D Cairns

But perhaps not so far from the truth...

Steve Crook

Just because he was called Marion that's no reason to make assumptions

Steve

Moor Larkin

It's that old chestnut isn't it. Are films intended to be Art or are they intended to make lots of money. People pay money to see certain actors be certain things and when you are successful and making lots of money, it must be very difficult to toss it all away for 'art'......... how many of us have stuck at careers because they became safe and we found a niche for ourselves that worked.....

Were old Brit-actors typed in this way though? Some surely were I would have thought. Would it be that the range of believable characters is limited for most actors. Are they typed by their audience or merely by their range of ability? And should they care?

I don't think the audience is to blame. I mean, they'll get their fix, regardless of the actor. If Clint doesn't want to do hero, they'll soon find someone who does.

Some 'stand-out' performances do seem to be those against 'type' however. I recall Reg Varney being incredible as that embittered old 'variety' performer, reduced to Holiday Camps. But I do wonder if his performance only seems so stunning now because it is the same face that launched a thousand appalling buses, and that if it had been Sir Larry thesping, I would just yawn.

kelp

Several actors (and I'm sure Aitch will bear me out on this) would rather have a secure income, than the usual...."What do I do now?" (been there done that, not funny.) My old Producer/Actor buddy Jack Woolgar used to tell me, "Sooner 52 weeks work in THIS(refering to CROSSROADS) than waiting for the phone to ring each day!"

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...YOU MAY GET IT!

ChristineCB

I can manufacture sympathy for the George Reeves types who wanted to do something else but felt or were restricted from it.

But for the Eastwoods and Dukes who had substantial control over many of their choices, well, if they couldn't find the script to do something, then they didn't look hard enough.

After all, Wesley Snipes did the American remake of PRISCILLA QUEEN OF DESERT role (called ?? uh - oh, TO JULIE NEWMAR or something like it).

I'm not sure that Duke would have been better in Maureen's roles than her, though.

She, however, did pretty well when she decided to wear the britches.

ChristineCB

This is a point that is hardly mentioned. "They'll get their fix, regardless..." Indeed. And when I see 2 or 3 actors at the same age and similar appearance, I believe this point is well understood. Audiences will get their fix, regardless. "We'll just substitute Lolita Davidovich for Kyra Sedgwick for Julie Warner..."

batman

a great anecdote from the american actor jack elam....

the 4 stages of an actors career....


1. who's jack elam?
2. get me jack elam
3. get me a jack elam type
4. who's jack elam?

I wish I had claws.

ChristineCB

Great, just great! I have an even more fond regard for him now.

He's the original Steve Buscemi looker. Odd looking, very distinctive but never a leading man type. But oh so useful. I think he was a variation on the Slim Pickens character - or vice versa.

In regard to our many other discussions about Charles Laughton and his 'Looks', I realized that Burgess Meredith could have been a younger version of Laughton. Odd looking, never handsome, short, not graceful. But unlike Laughton, the American films never found works that let Meredith be a leading or central character like Laughton delivered to us.

I really don't know if we'll ever be allowed a Laughton-esque character again.