El Dorado (1966)

Film: El Dorado (1966)

Stars: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Charlene Holt, Paul Fix, Arthur Hunnicutt, Michele Carey, Ed Asner

Director: Howard Hawks

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on John Wayne: click here to learn more about Mr. Wayne (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We're making a pretty big jump today in Wayne's career (particularly given we have two more Saturday's left this month) going from 1949 to 1966.  During that time frame, Wayne started to see a shift in his career.  The Duke had a work ethic that bordered on manic, and throughout the 1950's and early 1960's he worked constantly, and this resulted occasionally in bad decisions by Wayne, giving up several major westerns that we've covered for other actors this season of "Saturdays with the Stars" like The Gunfighter and Seven Men from Now.  But during this time, Wayne began to star in some of the best films of his career, movies that would define his persona.  These include The Searchers, Rio Bravo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and today's film, El Dorado.  We'll talk a little bit more about Wayne's reputation as an actor next week, but it has to be said that this is a really impressive run of movies, and it sometimes gets forgotten with Wayne (who made a lot of crap in his career during this time like The Conqueror) just how many classics he was able to get out.  Gene Autry & Roy Rogers were in dozens of westerns too...but they were never in movies this good, which is why Wayne is the actor synonymous with the western to modern audiences.

(Spoilers Ahead) El Dorado takes place in two acts, the first being between two renowned gunslingers, Sheriff JP Harrah (Mitchum) and his old buddy, gun-for-hire Cole Thornton (Wayne).  Thornton is working, he soon realizes, for the bad guys, a rich landowner named Bart Jason (Asner), who is trying to run the MacDonald family off of their land.  Thornton chooses to not work for Bart Jason, but during the confusion of which side he's on, one of the MacDonald sons, still pretty green about the way of gunfighting, shoots at Thornton, and Thornton mortally wounds him.  Another of the MacDonald's, their daughter Joey (Carey), shoots him, and lodges a bullet in his back, which causes him to have paralysis.  Months later, he still hasn't had this bullet removed, and we pick up the saga with us realizing that JP Harrah has become a drunk, a laughingstock who has let Jason's men run roughshod over El Dorado.  Thornton, along with his new sidekick Mississippi (Caan) have to not only fend off Bart's men once-and-for-all, they also have to find a way to sober up JP Harrah enough for him to gain back the respect of the town (and his own self-worth).

El Dorado is interesting for a variety of reasons.  At this point in Wayne's career, while he would never be "hip" he had found ways to upend the stereotypes of the western that he had established in Stagecoach by playing a hero-turned-villain in The Searchers and showing the pessimistic side of the western legend in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.  El Dorado is not doing what these films do.  There is a moment in the middle where it feels like it might.  There's a heartbreaking scene where Mitchum realizes that not only is he a drunk, but he's also a laughingstock, a man who prided himself on a rough reputation has become no different than the men whom he used to laugh at at the saloon.  This could've been groundbreaking, but they largely brush it aside even if Mitchum's clearly willing to give it a go in terms of breaking stereotypes.

But El Dorado is instead one of the last classic westerns.  Mitchum & Wayne are in the mold they set in the 1940's, not the mold they would upend in the 1950's.  This isn't meant as an insult-I love the westerns of the 1940's, and El Dorado is extremely well-structured, well-lensed, and while Wayne isn't breaking new mold, Mitchum's giving a strong performance.  At the time it would've been easy to call it old-fashioned, but with the benefit of time, it plays less as out-of-date and more as a swan song for these two men.  Wayne would continue to act, and we'll get to the how's and why's of that in the next two weeks, but this was a good encapsulation of his career at this point-people didn't want anything new from the actor.  He was still a movie star in 1966, frequently a big one (this was a hit), but the brief bit of trailblazing he'd done in the late 1950's & early 1960's in the western was being done by younger, New Hollywood actors.

OVP: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Film: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Stars: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack O'Halloran, Sylvester Stallone

Director: Dick Richards

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Sylvia Miles)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Chinatown is one of my favorite movies (as I get older, it becomes basically impossible to corner my favorite films to more than 4-5 films as it genuinely changes based on the day, but know this would be in contention for the crown).  I have not, however, spent a lot of time focusing on the films that came after the success of Chinatown, and honestly hadn't really thought about the strange history of the neo-noir film in the 1970's, which Chinatown was obviously the crown jewel of, but featured a number of films, some starring very important actors.  That's the case with Farewell, My Lovely, filmed in the wake of Chinatown (which you can tell based on the way the movie is shot), and starring Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe, a role that the actor was taking on for the first time & feels born to play (he is the only actor to have played the part, which saw actors as diverse as Dick Powell, Humphrey Bogart, James Garner & Elliot Gould take on the role, twice).  While Mitchum is well-cast, the movie itself struggles, not just in comparison to Chinatown, but also in trying to match that film's pacing & plotting twists.

(Spoilers Ahead) Mitchum's Philip Marlowe is hired by bank robber Moose Malloy (O'Halloran) to try to find his old girlfriend Velma, whom he hasn't seen since he got arrested.  Marlowe starts chasing down Velma, initially thinking she's a woman that has been locked up in an asylum, but this appears to be an imposter.  The real Velma we only learn in the last minutes of the film is Helen Grayle (Rampling), the trophy wife of a wealthy local judge.  As the film goes, we learn that Helen was a prostitute who helped with the bank robbery that Moose had perpetrated, though she didn't go to jail for it, and has been slowly killing everyone that is connected with her past in hopes of erasing it, getting to restart her life of privilege with her rich, oblivious husband.  The film ends in a giant shootout on a boat, where pretty much everyone except Marlowe ends up getting shot, and he lives to see another day as a detective, once again wisened by the streets.

That's the plot in a nutshell.  One of the defining characteristics of film noir is that it has a lot of story-there are tons of twists & turns, frequently characters, especially beautiful women you shouldn't trust, & where you start is never where you land.  This is what I love about it-it requires you to expect the unexpected.  But Farewell, My Lovely doesn't handle the extra plot well enough because it seems to be so obsessed with Chinatown.  In some ways this works-the music by David Shire is properly moody & delicious, and the cinematography is gorgeous and I'm surprised wasn't nominated for an Oscar that year.  But while Chinatown's difficult-to-comprehend plot is anchored by three strong performances (as well as Roman Polanski's precise direction), Farewell, My Lovely doesn't have actors ready to gloss over the movie's constant twists, oftentimes throwing in too many characters at once (which makes them difficult to track, and more importantly, difficult to vest into).  This isn't because these aren't great actors (Charlotte Rampling, Harry Dean Stanton...come on, this is a good call sheet), but they aren't able to elevate the material.

This is particularly true for Sylvia Miles, the one Oscar nominee from the film.  Miles is famous in some sections of Film Twitter for delivering two tiny performances that got nominated for an Oscar (her combined Oscar nominations make up less than 13 minutes of screen-time, less than any of the eight women she competed against at either of her Oscar ceremonies), but this isn't one of those mind-blowing cameos that you can't stop raving about.  She gets two scenes, the first as a relatively capable drunk attempting to mine booze from Marlowe (no matter what danger the information she's sharing will bring to her), and the latter scene is a throwaway moment, a return to a character that only left an impression because there's so few women in this movie.  Miles has no bearing on the plot, and honestly feels like the sort of role that people mine meaning from because she's so distinctive, not because she's giving something radiant.  Personally, I would have much rather one of the many women giving sensational turns in Nashville have gotten a third Supporting Actress nod from that film rather than a blink-and-you'll-miss-it return for Miles here.

OVP: The Longest Day (1962)

Film: The Longest Day (1962)
Stars: John Wayne, Richard Todd, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, Peter Lawford, Eddie Albert, Jeffrey Hunter, Stuart Whitman, Rod Steiger, Leo Genn, George Segal, Paul Anka, Fabian, Roddy McDowall, Tommy Sands, Curd Jurgens, Frank Finlay, Sal Mineo, Richard Beymer, Robert Wagner, Alexander Knox, Edmond O'Brien, Mel Ferrer, Arletty
Director: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, & Bernhard Wicki
Oscar History: 5 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Art Direction, Editing, Cinematography*, Special Effects*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Does size matter?  That's the question looming over much of The Longest Day, our last film in a week dedicated to Best Editing nominees.  The Longest Day might well have deserved a nomination for least edited film, considering it clocks in at three hours long, and it's honestly very difficult to review, as we'll find below.  The film was gargantuan at the time, one as you see above that's filled with star cameos (we'll get into this in the review), and one that cost upwards of $8 million at the time, but earned that back 4x over to a sum of $30 million (the modern day equivalent of about $250 million, a blockbuster by any standard).  The movie is certainly big, and something to behold-the war film is realistic, frequently showing unfathomable aerial and maritime shots, and it's an achievement, without a doubt.  The question I kept coming back to as I watched the (VERY) long war movie is...is it any good?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is told in a somewhat documentary style (at least by 1960's standards), with characters identified with name plates rather than more expositional dialogue, and focuses on the lead-up to D-Day.  The planning & battle are really the central characters in the movie; no character takes on the role of "lead" in the film, though certain actors like John Wayne & Robert Mitchum are in more of the movie than most of the cast-of-characters (today everyone would be marketed as a supporting actor here, but I suspect these two would've been lead if the film had scored acting nominations).  Again, especially in a pre-The Wild Bunch era, the film is merciless in its body count, even if the effect of the violence isn't what it would be in later war classics simply due to keeping the obvious bloodshed off screen.

For a three-hour movie, you'd expect a longer summary paragraph, but The Longest Day is unusual because it doesn't really have a proper narrative story.  The film's script is its weakest asset not just because there's no character development, but also because other than D-Day, there's no real story.  To a modern audience member, The Longest Day is weird because I don't have the "I lived through it" mentality that most people in 1962 would have of the sheer size & scope of D-Day (even if you weren't at Normandy at the time, most would've lived through the war, read about this in the newspaper, and heard from people they knew who were at Normandy).  As a result, you have to be a student-of-history to know a lot of the names flashing up onscreen, and while I knew some of them, I didn't know all, and with no character development or better grounding of the D-Day invasion's place in the war, the movie lacks a bit of context, and occasionally even purpose.

The star cameos by this point in the 1960's had become a recurring theme in epic films (look at Around the World in 80 Days or Pepe for other examples), and this would prove to be the biggest for this trend.  There are so many it becomes kind of like a game of "Where's Waldo" with certain faces.  You're like "oh, there's Mel Ferrer" or "I think that's Red Buttons," but the shocking thing about it is how many of these cameos are onscreen for mere seconds.  I had to rewind to confirm the Sean Connery scene, and Roddy McDowall's face is onscreen for roughly a minute.  This makes the movie one I'd theoretically re-watch just to confirm I caught all of the cameos, but it also means you aren't really emotionally-invested in the characters onscreen, just in awe of the cast.  It's too much-the film feels bloated and sort of a "so what" by the end of the picture.

And so I'm going with 2-stars here, which I honestly didn't think I would pick.  The Longest Day is very watchable, and the technical achievements are impressive.  The visual effects are glorious, extensive, and surely cost a fortune, particularly the aerial & maritime shoots.  Ditto the cinematography, which shot from the air, land, or sea is fascinating & beautiful-this is one of the last black-and-white films of the era to really capture a sense of majesty in the camerawork (it seems like most of the best cinematographers had moved to color photography by this era).  The editing is easy to mock because of the film's length, but it has extended longshots (also a nod to the cinematographer) on the beach that gave the film a smoother focus, and while you don't care about the characters, you're never bored-there's always "more, more, more" coming at you visually.  Best of the bunch is the art direction, meticulously recreating multiple battle scenes, war rooms, and seemingly a whole, destructed town.

But technical achievements, while novel at the time, don't make a strong movie, and in many ways this feels like Transformers or Armageddon with a better cast-it's large, advanced, and surely meant a lot at the time, but in retrospect it feels bloated, without any sense of passion, and is using the memory of one of the 20th Century's most important days to coast on not having anything to say.

OVP: What a Way to Go! (1964)

Film: What a Way to Go! (1964)
Stars: Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Robert Cummings, Dick van Dyke
Director: J. Lee Thompson
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Art Direction, Costume)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

There's nothing better than a surprise when it comes to a movie, and I will admit I wasn't paying very close attention to the opening credits to What a Way to Go! so imagine my delight in this black comedy as a cascade of the biggest names in Hollywood came out to woo Shirley MacLaine in What a Way to Go!.  It's not really a spoiler alert (they get top-billing and all of that), but it's still a sheer joy to watch a bunch of game performers, particularly the likes of Newman and Mitchum who so rarely worked in comedy, come out in such an interesting and lovely way in a film that is heavy on repetition, but has such a game cast that it's hard to fault it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Louisa May Foster, a black widow of sorts, as she tries to donate $211 million to the US government, and we hear during a long session with a therapist how she ended up in possession of such an enormous sum of money, despite spending most of her life hoping for "the simple life."  The film is a black comedy, so know that we're going to see a number of different major Hollywood stars die a comic death, but the film watches as MacLaine marries men who seem hapless and not remotely capable of success, and then through her inspiration, manage to become mega-tycoons who then die comically as part of hubris from neglecting their wives.

The film's heart is MacLaine, who is one of my favorite performers and always a joy to watch.  Her Louisa was originally intended for Marilyn Monroe before her death, and then for Elizabeth Taylor (who wanted a larger salary), but while both of these women are the sort that random men would give their fortunes to obtain, MacLaine sells both the sex angle and has the comic skills to back it up (that Monroe and Taylor probably lacked, let's be honest).  MacLaine's constant blustering toward her paramours, particularly as the film gets more predictable, is wonderful and she is certainly the best part about the movie.

Which of the men is your favorite will probably depend on which of these men are your favorite actors in real life.  The five husbands (Newman, Mitchum, Martin, Kelly, and van Dyke) all play some version of their Hollywood personas, albeit for laughs.  Kelly is fun to watch as he, in many ways, starts to mirror Lina Lamont, but for my money Paul Newman is the winner of the bunch, as he so rarely got to be funny so watching him as a "starving" artist (despite being broke he's eating in literally every scene he's in) is lovely, and it's worth noting that he has rarely looked this sexy, considering he's sporting some otter-inspired realness with a beard and a gigantic artistic chip on his shoulder.  It's easy to see why he was the one who, in a series of cinematic vignettes that run throughout the movie, got the Fellini-inspired motif.

The film nabbed two Oscar nominations, for Art Direction and Costume, and both were wildly deserved.  The art direction occasionally runs into the category of "most" rather than "best," but considering the film's comedic sensibilities it's gaudy enough that it works as a visual punchline.  The best moment surely would be Pinky's (Kelly) randomly pink mansion, going places even Jayne Mansfield wouldn't have wanted to tread, but the entire film from the elevating psychiatrist chair to the impeccably structured art machine created by Paul Newman to the garage sale beginnings of Dick van Dyke's store show touches that you don't normally get from a comedy.  The costume work was done by Edith Head, so you know this isn't a nomination due to coasting, and indeed MacLaine is outfitted from head-to-toe in elaborate gowns, a costuming budget that felt like it never got cut from when Liz Taylor was still in negotiations, and we see MacLaine in nearly every hair color and style imaginable.  Some highlights (for me) included MacLaine (in a pink wig) sporting a pink mink sable, her incredibly sexualized widow's outfit, and her elbow-length gloves in a yellow-blue-and-pink gown that recalls Newman's paintings.  All-in-all, both of these are massive triumphs in terms of Oscar ingenuity, so well done all-around.

The film is a bit silly and predictable, so I'm going with three stars, but a hearty three stars so if you have a few hours and want a good time, catch this movie.  For those that have seen it, what are your thoughts?  Can you imagine this movie with Taylor or Monroe?  Which husband would you succumb to (Paul Newman is the only acceptable answer)?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Crossfire (1947)

Film: Crossfire (1947)
Stars: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Jacqueline White
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor-Robert Ryan, and Supporting Actress-Gloria Grahame)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

On occasion Oscar decides to go with a film that doesn't seem extremely typical of his tastes.  It's not necessarily that he always ignores a specific genre or filmmaker (though occasionally he does), it's just that when he goes there, it seems to be at an odd time or in a big way.  Think of someone like Darren Aronofsky finally getting his moment with a horror film like Black Swan.  Or, in this case Edward Dmytryk, who made some of the best film noir films of the 1940's, getting randomly assigned a quintet of very big nominations for Crossfire, a film that is excellent but all of his films usually were, so I don't know why this particular film caught their fancy.

(Spoilers Ahead) I'm glad it did, though, as otherwise it would have just been another film that I need to get around to on Dmytryk's filmography rather than one that I'm reviewing right now.  The film is your classic detective drama: we open with a man named Joseph Samuels having died, with the likely killer being amongst a troupe of demobilized soldiers.  We see an investigator named Keeley (Young) who is determined to find the killer, though apparently only by staying behind his desk (was Robert Young pregnant or something during this movie-he seems like he's behind a desk 80% of the movie and he's the lead!).  Initially he's led to believe that a cowardly corporal named Mitchell is the killer, but slowly (and with a bit of help from Robert Mitchum, playing the always-honest but inevitably tough soldier-without-a-cause) figures out that it is of course one of the headliners, in this case Robert Ryan in the role that would win him an Oscar nomination and leading man status.

The film is a conundrum for me in terms of whether to love it or not.  For some reason (perhaps it's his weird blandness), but Robert Young is one of those leading men of Classical Hollywood whose appeal I just don't get (Dick Powell is also on this list).  He's easily the most boring character in every film that he ever makes, and I just feel underwhelmed with him when someone like, say, Paul Henreid would have been a more compelling leading man.  Still, the dialogue and plotting of this movie is brisk and wildly entertaining-you can see the killer coming a mile away, but you don't actually know how many people are going to die before he's caught, or even if they will find justice for him (noir being one of those rare genres where Hollywood cliche can occasionally get thrown to the wolves).  And I loved the way that the film took its time with certain scenes-one of the things you can enjoy when you watch old films, and something that newer directors should take note of, is that you build so much from characters if you let them sit and talk for a bit, rather than edit everything down to the absolute essentials of a scene.  Your actors get to stretch out their characters a bit, let us know their facial expressions and not just cliched cues of facial expressions.

The film's acting is easily the best part of it, particularly the Oscar-nominated supporting players.  Robert Ryan as an anti-Semitic soldier could so easily have drifted into cliche, and occasionally his dialogue does (1947 was the year of the Academy taking a stand against anti-Semitism, with both Crossfire and Gentleman's Agreement gaining nominations in the Best Picture race), but his performance feels very modern.  There is genuine fear felt against him onscreen, and there's a reason-he uses his massive frame and dark, penetrating eyes to great effect, and frequently talks in sentences that could be threats, but might be just normal chatter.  It's something that great screen villains are made of, and it was definitely something that left me wanting more.

The same could be said for Gloria Grahame, getting her first Oscar nomination as a taxi dancer (though you get the impression she's also a prostitute) with little going for her, but a lot of weariness.  So often films of this era would make the "hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold" style characters, but Grahame (best known to modern audiences as Violet in It's a Wonderful Life) doesn't go that route-she's not here to change the course of a hero, she's simply a random stranger that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I loved the complicated relationship she has with the man in her apartment, first claiming to be her husband and then we learn that he's clearly something darker, possibly a pimp or even a stalker.  There's so much gritty truth in this side character and her performance in what could have been a throwaway role.  I have to say that both Ryan and Grahame wholly deserved their Oscar nominations for this movie.

Those are my thoughts on Crossfire, a great little film that hopefully you catch late at night on a Saturday sometime (it plays better, like most movies, when you're watching it in the dark).  If you've seen it, what are your thoughts on the movie, and on Ryan and Grahame in particular?  Does anyone really love Robert Young (am I going to have to investigate his TV work to finally get the joke)?  And why do you think this film, of all of the movies that he made, got Dmytryk his sole Oscar nod for directing?  Share in the comments!

AFI's 25 Greatest Actors, Part 3

This Article is part of a 15-Year Anniversary series commemorating the American Film Institute’s 25 Greatest Stars.  For the Actresses, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  For the Actors, click the numbers for Parts 1 and 2.

So far we've chronicled six of the biggest legends of cinema, and as a whole they were fairly uniform-the leading men of their eras, whether romantic, dramatic, or comedic.  Here we get a few more of the classic leading men, as well as someone who went on to become a character actor, and while we deceptively will get nine winners, it's really a dozen fellas.  Let's take a look at the final set of the AFI's 100 Stars honorees...

17. Kirk Douglas (1916-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Douglas would receive a trio of Oscar nominations in his career, all for Best Actor, but would lose every time (he probably came the closest to winning for 1956's Lust for Life).  Douglas would deservedly win an Honorary Award in 1996 from the Academy.
Probably Best Known Today For: Living forever?  Hopefully that's the case-it clearly helps your star exponentially to have some longevity around it (unless you do what the next guy on this list did, though that doesn't seem like as enjoyable of an alternative).  Douglas has been one of those great, enduring links to Hollywood's classical age, and as recently as 2010 (when he famously handed the Oscar over to Melissa Leo) he has been in the public eye (he still blogs for the Huffington Post).  Douglas also, of course, is known for his work in Spartacus and for being Michael Douglas' father.
My Favorite Performance: I have to admit that I like the idea of Kirk Douglas more than I like him in practice as an actor.  I love that there's still a great film actor out there from Hollywood's Golden Age remaining active and as a link for today's audiences into the Hollywood of the past, and I do hope that Kirk Douglas just continues living forever.  That said, I've never had that moment of adoration with one of his films (I admittedly have a few to go with this particular gentleman), so I'll go with his Oscar-nominated work in The Bad and the Beautiful for now.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: As I stated above, there's a few to go here, including his iconic work in Spartacus, his near miss with the Academy in Lust for Life, and his work in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece Paths of Glory.  Anyone up for a marathon (actually-that goes for any of these articles; in hopes of getting more comments going I'll offer up a weekend of reviews on some of the missing links on a few of these actors if we can get some discussion going)?

18. James Dean (1931-1955)

Oscar Nominations: 2 nominations, both posthumously, for East of Eden and Giant
Probably Best Known Today For: Being the quintessential "live hard and die young" star.  Eternally youthful (it's always a weird moment the first time you realize you're older than James Dean ever was), he made three classic movies, and then died in an automobile accident.  Since then, in a similar way to Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, he has become an icon of the 1950's, frequently featured in poster art and 50's nostalgia and becoming synonymous with being "cool."
My Favorite Performance: It's also a weird moment when you actually see Dean onscreen for the first time-it's kind of like seeing Marilyn for the first time in a movie.  It's an odd juxtaposition because you have become so used to seeing them, almost as cartoons in poster art for so many years that to realize that this beautiful creature actually was a person at one point-it's a tad bit jarring.  That said, my favorite performance of Dean's would be his troubled, sensitive young man in Rebel Without a Cause, a marvelous movie and one of the most nuanced performances of the 1950's.  It's one of those performances where you say "what might have been..."
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: While he technically had uncredited roles in a handful of movies (that's what happens when you become hyper-famous: they find the random tiny roles you did when you were just trying to make rent), he was only billed in three films: Rebel, East of Eden, and Giant.  The only one of these I haven't seen is East of Eden, so clearly that's the miss here.

19. Burt Lancaster (1913-1994)

Oscar Nominations: Lancaster received 4 Oscar nominations, winning for 1960's Elmer Gantry
Probably Best Known Today For: Being awash in the suds with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity.  That image, of them making out in the sand, is one of the most iconic in film history, and if he hadn't had anything else in his career that alone would keep him forever in the public memory.  That said, he was an actor with an extraordinarily long career (spanning four decades), and he's also pretty memorable from his work in Field of Dreams and his late career comeback in Atlantic City.
My Favorite Performance: Like Kirk Douglas, I am missing a few pieces here but haven't been wild about what I've seen so far.  I actually quite liked his tiny role in Field of Dreams-it's probably my favorite performance in that movie.  I'll go with that, though From Here to Eternity is an appropriate if not all-together inspired choice (he's like the fourth or fifth best performance in that movie-the Monty Clift/Donna Reed story has always intrigued me more from that picture).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Elmer Gantry, clearly, with his Oscar win for that film, though seeing him with a young Susan Sarandon in Atlantic City is definitely keeping that movie pretty high up on my to-watch list.

20. The Marx Brothers (1887-1979)

Oscar Nominations: None of the Marx Brothers ever received an Oscar nomination in their careers, though Groucho won an Honorary Oscar in 1974.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being one of the great comic teams of classic cinema.  The brothers: Chico (1887-1961), Harpo (1888-1964), Groucho (1890-1977), and Zeppo (1901-1979) appeared in a number of classic comedies together in the 1930's and 40's and are famous for their madcap antics in some of the era's most celebrated comedies (there was a fifth brother named Gummo that was part of the act but left when he was drafted during World War I and didn't appear in any of their films; I couldn't find a quality photo with Zeppo, who isn't pictured to the left, but he wasn't as significant of a part of the Marx Brothers as his three older brothers).
My Favorite Performance: In my opinion you can't really go wrong with a Marx Brothers comedy, particularly with Duck Soup or A Night at the Opera (I will admit that I get these two particular films mixed up as the whole point of a Marx Brothers film is not the plot but seeing the madness that comes out of what's happening onscreen).  If forced to pick between the two...maybe A Night at the Opera.
Glaring Miss in Their Filmography: I have never gotten around to Animal Crackers-this is noted as one of Groucho's funniest performances, so I'd probably go with that.

21. Buster Keaton (1895-1966)

Oscar Nominations: Keaton would never win a competitive nomination or win from the Academy, but he did win an Honorary Oscar in 1960.
Probably Best Known Today For: ...not being Charlie Chaplin?  That's cruel, though it's worth noting that the rivalry that cinematic fans of their work have long fueled has decidedly come out in Chaplin's favor through the years, at least in terms of enduring fame (if it makes you feel better, Buster, Harold Lloyd clearly got the shaft of the three of you).  That said, his work as the great stone-faced comedian of the Silent Era is still known today and celebrated by many critics, a number of whom argue (vociferously) that he was better than Chaplin.
My Favorite Performance: I've only seen one Keaton film, and while I didn't love it (so far, I'm more on the Chaplin side of things), Sherlock Jr. is hard to argue with in terms of certain incredible scenes in the movie, particularly the scene where Keaton enters the movie during the dream sequence.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I mean, I haven't seen The General.  If I were going to create a list of classic movies that I haven't seen, the number one title on that list would be The General, so you know that my head is pretty damn low right now.  It's currently at Number 12 on my Netflix list-provided I don't get to re-arranging too much, we'll hit this by the end of the year.

22. Sidney Poitier (1927-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Poitier received two Oscar nominations in his career, winning Best Actor for Lilies of the Field (becoming the first black man to win Best Actor).  Poitier also won an Honorary Award in 2002.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being an iconic and celebrated figure in the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and along with Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and Harry Belafonte, being one of the very first black movie stars (he's also Ambassador from the Bahamas to Japan, as he actually has dual citizenship with both the Bahamas and the United States-random fact!).  Poitier is one of the most widely-respected actors in the industry, and one of its most enduring stars.
My Favorite Performance: I know that some like to quibble about how Poitier never received an Oscar nomination for In the Heat of the Night, but part of me thinks it was more to do with vote-splitting (he also had Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and To Sir, with Love out that year) than racism.  Still, he certainly deserved an Oscar nomination for his iconic Virgil Tibbs.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never actually seen the movie that landed Poitier his Academy Award.  For whatever reason Lilies of the Field has never made it to the top of my queue, though I've seen a lot of Poitier films through the years.

23. Robert Mitchum (1917-1997)

Oscar Nominations: Mitchum received an Oscar nomination for The Story of GI Joe, but didn't win.  Mitchum is noteworthy on this list because, aside from James Dean who died at age 24, he's the only person to have never won either a competitive or an honorary Oscar.  Clearly AMPAS dropped the ball on that one.
Probably Best Known Today For: All right, I'm going to go there-Robert Mitchum is most well-known today for wearing his high-pants and being an "out-of-shape, in-shape" guy (you can thank Seth MacFarlane for introducing Mitchum to a new generation of filmgoers, albeit with a series of Mitchum cliches, and if you don't know what I'm talking about you don't watch Family Guy).  Mitchum was one of those great, enigmatic tough guys-frequently finding himself on the wrong side of the law but on the right side of a dame.
My Favorite Performance: Hands down this is Night of the Hunter.  Mitchum's creepy Harry Powell in this movie is one of the most chilling villains ever brought to the screen, and definitely a strong introduction to his work if you're not particularly familiar with him as an actor (he's one of the least known of this list of 25 men).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never seen Cape Fear, the original production with Gregory Peck and Polly Bergen-that would probably at the top just over his work in The Winds of War (a giant miniseries for ABC back when broadcast television invested in giant miniseries and it wasn't just something the History Channel and HBO created).

24. Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973)

Oscar Nominations: Robinson never received a competitive nomination in his long career, though he did win an Honorary Award in 1973 (though, sadly, it was given posthumously).
Probably Best Known Today For: Saying the phrase "see" a lot?  Robinson's persona is what is well-known today, most notably being parodied by Chief Clancy Wiggum on The Simpsons.  Robinson is also well-known as one of the cinema's most famous portrayer of gangsters, with Little Caesar coming to most people's minds.
My Favorite Performance: I actually would go with Double Indemnity, when he was starting to shift into supporting performances (he's one of those rare actors who did that shift during that era, rather than just petering out in terms of what work they were doing).  I love the calculating way that his character draws out scenes, getting more and more information (though there's not really a "bad" part of that movie).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I can never remember if I've seen Little Caesar-I feel like I have, but that might just be because that is one of those films that you see so many clips of that you are sure you've seen it.  As a result, I'll go with Orson Welles' The Stranger here, though I should clearly probably re-view Little Caesar just to make sure I've enjoyed it.

25. William Holden (1918-1981)

Oscar Nominations: Three nominations, he won Best Actor for 1953's Stalag 17.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being face-down in a pool.  I always wonder if actors sort of hate the fact that they become most well-known for an early role, constantly living in its shadow.  If William Holden did, at least he can take comfort in knowing that his work as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard is a truly splendid piece of work, and established him as the easy-going, cool but potentially more below the surface handsome man that the 1950's desperately needed (as he became a major star as a result of that movie).
My Favorite Performance: I'll go with Sunset Boulevard.  With one big exception, I've actually seen most of the major movies of Holden's career, but I (like the public) liked him best early-on, charming Norma Desmond as a boy toy certain he'll be a great screenwriter, and then finding his way into a nightmare (this is also one of my all-time favorite movies just in general).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never seen the film that won Holden his Oscar, oddly enough. Stalag 17 has for whatever reason stayed off my radar, but as it was a major player in that year's Academy Awards, we'll get to it someday with the OVP.

And there you have it-we're done with the official entrants in the AFI's 100 Stars list.  We'll get into the also-rans tomorrow, but in the meantime-who are your favorites of these nine gentlemen?  Do you have a performance you gravitate toward?  Which of their films are you ashamed to admit you've never seen?  And which would you like me to discuss more in-depth on the blog?  Share in the comments!

Out of the Past (1947)

Film: Out of the Past (1947)
Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Nothing quite hits the spot cinematically like a healthy dose of noir.  A few months ago (an embarrassingly long time ago, if we’re being honest-for some reason there have been three films that have just sat there on my “to review” list despite actually quite enjoying all three and I’m goaling myself to have all three out onto the blog in the next week, this being the first) I caught Out of the Past, one of those classic films that no one really talks about anymore.  A brilliant movie in its time, it didn’t have the cultural cache of The Maltese Falcon, the Oscar nominations of Laura, or the career-defining brilliance of Touch of Evil.  It was just a very strong movie, one whose reputation may need a bit of a dusting-off, even if it remains quite shimmering.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Jeff (Mitchum), who is a former private investigator who now works as a gas station attendant.  After being called to meet with an old associate named Whit (Douglas), Jeff and his girlfriend Annie (Virginia Huston) drive out to Whit’s house, with Jeff telling about his former life as a PI, and how it all came crashing down one day when he met Kathie (Greer), Whit's girlfriend whom Jeff was hired to track down (after Kathie allegedly ran off with $40k of Whit's money) and then fell in love with.  Of course, that's never the end of the story, and as the film unfolds, Jeff told Kathie what had happened, and she denied taking the money.  Bing bang pow (and a little bit of steam between Mitchum and Greer) and Jeff is left with a dead body that Kathie made that way, and he soon learns that she did indeed steal the money (there's nothing like a steamy noir to make you want to write like Edward G. Robinson is reading your article out loud).  

The film sounds like the setup to a great Dashiell Hammett novel, and it really is.  The best parts of the movie are the crisp dialogue and the utter sexiness between Mitchum and Greer.  The film is predictable (you know this train is headed toward hell), but you have to love the way the story unfolds.  Greer in particular was a revelation to me, as she has so rarely been seen in other films (this was the one giant highlight in a career in which she was dominated by Howard Hughes, who wouldn't let her star burn quite as brightly as it could have).  I love the way that she coolly is in control of the entire room, always re-calibrating, but completely handling the situation.  I love these sorts of characters, and the film's ending (a giant shoot-out that leaves Jeff and Kathie dead) seems a little cheap in that regard (I doubt she would have trusted Jeff that much, and I doubt even less that she loved him enough to have a blind spot toward him), but at least she wasn't put out by a complete lack of intellect.

Everyone else sort of pales in comparison to Greer.  Mitchum is smoldering, but his character doesn't have the intrigue that Greer's does.  Kirk Douglas, before he became an impossibly large star, gets third billing in the film and is the sort of character everyone says they're afraid of, but you can never 100% tell why.  Yes, he's a murderer and a criminal, but so is everyone else in the movie.  I also rather enjoyed Rhonda Fleming in her small role, but it seemed completely ancillary to the plot.  She does what great supporting actresses do, though, and made her Meta Carson feel like she had her own interesting movie happening on the sidelines.  It's worth noting that since we've been on a bit of a kick over "living stars of classic movies" that both she and Dickie Moore (who played the Kid) are still alive today.  Anyone think that they should write some sort of great movie putting Fleming and O'Hara together in a film?  The two great redheads of the 1950's?  Just a thought.

And those are my thoughts, but what are yours?  Do you also find that Jane Greer totally made this film for you, or were you latching on to one of the other characters?  Any theories as to why this film seems to have disappeared in a way that The Maltese Falcon hasn't?  Share in the comments!