The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Film: The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn

Director: Norman Jewison

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Steve McQueen is a weird star persona today.  In his era, McQueen was a big name, one of the biggest in movies, but because of a combination of factors (movies that aren't entirely in the modern zeitgeist, as well as his estate limiting his visage in merchandise after death), he's not remembered in the same way as other stars of his era.  James Dean died younger, Elvis Presley was more ubiquitous, Robert Redford & Paul Newman lived longer and were therefore able to make movies with men like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, & Chris Evans (i.e. the next generations of action heroes).  McQueen is remembered today by pop culture for Bullitt, being really cool, and dying young.  But he made a comparable amount of hits to Redford & Newman, and certainly more than Dean or Presley and he started it earlier in his career.  While he spent most of the 1950's doing television, theater, and B-movies (like The Blob), a chance skirmish in the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra essentially fired Sammy Davis, Jr. from working on Never So Few after they had a fight) gave McQueen the chance to really prove his worth, nearly stealing the picture from Sinatra.  The following few years included some massive hits, all led by McQueen, including The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Carpetbaggers, a now-forgotten sudser that was the #4 film of 1964, behind certified icons of the year Mary Poppins, Goldfinger, & My Fair Lady.  All of this is to say that by 1965, when McQueen was leading an all-star cast of Old & New Hollywood figures, he was already one of the definitive actors of the decade.

(Spoilers Ahead) Despite its name evoking a gangster picture, The Cincinnati Kid is not an actual action film (we'll get into a few of those to match our monthly theme with McQueen in the coming weeks).  The film is about The Kid (McQueen), a dynamite poker player who is tired of playing big games around New Orleans, and wants to move up in the ranks, potentially even moving to Miami, but knows he needs to beat Lancey (Robinson), the greatest poker player in the city, first.  The film's first half really focuses on the lead up to this, with Lancey clearly threatened by the Kid potentially coming for his throne, while the Kid's relationship with his best friend Shooter (Malden) and his girlfriend Christian (Weld) are thrown asunder, particularly as Shooter is blackmailed by local mobster Slade (Torn) into trying to fix the match for the Kid.  The film's most famous scenes are in the back half of the movie, when we see an aggressive, long-stakes game of poker between the Kid & Lancey, along with a host of other characters, most colorfully Joan Blondell as a boozy gambling diva named Lady Fingers.  The movie ends with Lancey once again beating the Kid, proving that youth and his cool demeanor are not enough to dethrone the champ.

The film's ending is maybe the most interesting part of the picture.  The entire high-stakes game is really something, and genuinely (and surprisingly, for a sports film) thrilling to see who might win.  It's pretty clear that so many of the side characters, especially Slade & Shooter's lusty wife Melba (Ann-Margret) want the Kid to win, which in movie language means that he won't, but the idea of the villainous older guy needing to make way for a new generation is also a trope of this genre that is ignored.  The ending also differs depending on the cut you see.  The one I saw was not what director Norman Jewison wanted.  He wanted a much more dour ending, with the Kid losing a game of penny-pitching against a kid who has been trying to beat him all film, ending with another shocking defeat for our leading man.  Instead, we get a more conventional ending with McQueen & Weld embracing, her forgiving him for having slept with Ann-Margret a few minutes earlier.

The movie's script needs tightening in this regard, but I get why this became storied in the world of poker, as it glamorizes the skill needed to make it in the world of poker, and the badass nature of it.  Most of the young cast is really hot, sexy cool spilling out from every corner of the film, including the end credits with a sleek, jazzy song by Ray Charles.  This might not shock people reading this about, say, McQueen or Ann-Margret or Tuesday Weld, but modern audiences will shocked to be reminded that Rip Torn at one point was a total Chad.  I can't quite put my finger on what might improve this film (one wonders if Karl Malden was miscast...you could see this part being played better by, say, Gene Hackman a couple of years later, and I say this as someone who generally likes Karl Malden), but most of it's great, including Robinson in one of his last roles, and Blondell totally stealing the picture.  As for McQueen-he plays this placid, unflappable, introverted character so well it makes sense it would become his go to for much of his career.

OVP: The Stranger (1946)

Film: The Stranger (1946)

Stars: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Philip Merivale, Konstantin Shayne

Director: Orson Welles

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Motion Picture Story)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Loretta Young: click here to learn more about Ms. Young (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

The last two weeks we went through some wild shifts in Loretta Young's career and public persona.  While she'd been able to pull off some unique and more audacious roles in the early 1930's, the Hays Code and Young's relative conservatism offscreen led her to play very similar "beautiful saint" type roles for much of the rest of her career.  This was solidified in terms of her public persona in the 1940's with her three-decade marriage to Tom Lewis, providing even less fodder for Hollywood gossip rags after her quickie annulment marriage in the early 1930's and association with Clark Gable.  However, Young did make one film in the 1940's that feels atypical & also is widely-celebrated today, and before we get to a relatively typical film that we'd expect from Young during this era next week, we're going to discuss probably the best movie she ever made, and for sure the film that stands up the best upon scrutiny decades later: Orson Welles' The Stranger.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the immediate aftermath of World War II, in an idyllic Connecticut town.  There we find Professor Charles Rankin (Welles) who is about to marry the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice named Mary (Young).  We also learn that the man we've been tracking for the first ten minutes of the movie, a war criminal named Meinike (Shayne) is looking for Rankin, and knows him to actually be Franz Kindler, a Nazi and the architect of the Holocaust.  Kindler murders Meinike to cover up his intentions, which are to wait out in this Connecticut town until the Nazis "inevitably" come to power again.  The only problem for Kindler is that a detective named Wilson (Robinson) is on his trail, knowing of Kindler's obsession with clocks (which Welles spends much of the film working on the large town clock) and that Meinike is the only person who knows his real identity.  This sets up a game of chess between the two men (or checkers, as it were, which play as a subplot metaphor between Kindler & Wilson), with Kindler trying to find a way to cover his tracks...potentially even if it means having to kill Mary to do it.

The Stranger is really well-constructed.  Welles never really made a bad movie in my opinion, and this one with the backing of a studio (RKO) meant that he could spend money, and it doesn't go to waste.  The art direction is superb, as is the cinematography (all of those random angles in the clock tower make it harder to know exactly what is happening, which adds to the suspense of the final face-off between Young, Robinson, & Welles).  Robinson & Welles play well together, and I wasn't entirely sure they would (they're both very stylized actors, but Robinson is more sandpaper and Welles is more cashmere, and I thought that wouldn't gel but it does).  The film was nominated for Best Motion Picture Story, and the way that it's structured (no tight ends-at less than 90 minutes this is a taut film) it's hard to argue with this inclusion.  I love the way that late in the film a plan that Kindler has executed works perfectly as far as he's aware...only to discover later that Mary has accidentally screwed it up by not knowing what the plan is about.  Or the way that Wilson realizes that Kindler is suspicious not because of his bombastic views on fascism, but instead because of his casual antisemitism which shows his actual beliefs.  It's good stuff, and I get why The Stranger is the one film in Welles' directorial filmography that was an unquestioned hit for the studio.

As for our star?  While she's not in the same league as Welles & Robinson in terms of elevating her role, she's really good in this.  It's a smaller part (despite Young's position on the poster, we'd consider this a "supporting" role today as the leads are Robinson & Welles), but she's perfectly-cast here.  Welles knows exactly how to play off of Young's real-life persona with his director, having her play the "perfect wife" but showing how that can make her complicit in some really ugly things.  To Young's credit, she nails the part exactly the way that you'd need to make it chilling.  We know Kindler is evil, we know Mary is good...but the film makes a point of showing that Mary knows far more about Kindler's actions (even if she doesn't know he's a Nazi) to the point where she's covering up a murder the back half of the film, putting multiple people's lives at stake.  Throw in her really strong third act when she finally wants revenge on Kindler & to take him down, and you've got a great piece-of-work from the actress, and one that stands apart in her collective filmography.

Scarlet Street (1945)

Film: Scarlet Street (1945)

Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay, Rosalind Ivan

Director: Fritz Lang

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the month of June, in honor of the 10th Anniversary of The Many Rantings of John, we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

Robinson, Bennett, Duryea, & Lang...four names that are quintessential if you're talking about 1940's film noir, not just because they were all in the foundational work The Woman in the Window (one of the most important noirs of 1944), but also because they'd all make a number of film noirs throughout the decade (both Bennett & Duryea will be back later this month for another one of their noirs).  Despite the success of The Woman in the Window, lead actors Bennett & Robinson would only make one more picture together a year after that film's success, Scarlet Street.  You could make a legitimate argument that of all of the films that we're going to profile this month for our film noir features, this is the most famous one that I still hadn't seen.  Generally considered one of the best examples of the form, it proved that not only could Robinson & Bennett strike lightning twice, but also that the second time around, they would be able to pull off an ending worthy of the work they'd just done.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Chris Cross (Robinson), a cashier for a clothing retailer who has a pretty miserable life.  His wife Adele (Ivan) hates him, wishing he was her first husband (who has died), while he works a life that's pointless-the only joy he gets out of life is his amateur painting.  Enter Kitty March (Bennett), a gorgeous brunette whom he chances upon after stopping a man (who turns out to be her boyfriend Johnny, played by Duryea) from robbing her in the streets.  Despite a one-sided attraction (Kitty only loves Johnny), they become friends, with Chris robbing from his employer to give Kitty the money that she needs.  Kitty is convinced that Chris is getting the money from his successful paintings, but it turns out that this is just a hobby, a misunderstanding that Johnny clears up...except then an art critic realizes the paintings are good, and wants to sell them.  Johnny decides to say that Kitty made the paintings, cutting Chris out of the deal, and Chris is so happy that he's being appreciated (and that it makes Kitty the money she desires), that he is fine with her taking the credit (and the money).  When Adele's first husband shows up, though, invalidating Chris's marriage, he goes to Kitty, and after she laughs at him for thinking she'd find him attractive, he murders her.  Johnny, though, takes the fall, and in a bit of a twist for 1945, is executed for the murder.  Chris doesn't get away freely, though.  He attempts later to kill himself (unsuccessfully) and to claim credit for the murder (unsuccessfully).  He ends up destitute & homeless, all the while his paintings are making a fortune under the assumption that the beautiful, dead Kitty painted them.

The film, like the best noir, is nasty & a bit vicious.  The treatment of Chris, who is a good guy if a bit of a wimp, is heartbreaking-he's stuck in a loveless marriage to a woman who idolizes a brutish other man...and is in love with a woman who is doing the same.  He is a case of a guy who picks the wrong girls, and I was intrigued that he didn't get the chair in the end because it feels much worse that he is constantly haunted by that cruelty.  Film noir is best when it lays bare the harshness of the human experience, and you get that here-Kitty doesn't get off scot-free, but she does get away with her con & spends eternity with Johnny while Chris wanders the streets alone...that's not exactly getting your comeuppance.

The film's writing and acting set it apart, as does the ravishing production design.  Robinson, one of the best actors of his era, is vulnerable & heartbreaking as Chris, the man who just wants to be loved.  Bennett is equally good as Kitty.  Gone are some of the other roles she'd be famous for, where her femme fatale was more exposed than dangerous, and she nails the part of this viper with aplomb.  Duryea, as well, is superb.  I love the way that you genuinely don't think Johnny loves Kitty...that there's a weird mirror effect where, like Chris, Kitty is in love with a man that will never love her.  I wish they'd given maybe one more scene to underscore this, but it's there in plain writing (I also would've loved one more moment with Adele, either for Chris's good or bad).  All-in-all, this is a terrific movie, and one of my favorites we'll profile this month.

Previous Films in the Series: Murder My Sweet, The Woman in the Window, The Killers, The Big Sleep, Nightmare Alley, Ride the Pink Horse, Night and the City, They Live By Night, Gun Crazy, In a Lonely Place, Sweet Smell of Success, The Big Heat, Pickup on South Street, The Killing, The Long Goodbye, Body Heat

A Slight Case of Murder (1938)

Film: A Slight Case of Murder (1938)

Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Bryan, Allen Jenkins, Ruth Donnelly, Willard Parker, Bobby Jordan

Director: Lloyd Bacon

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

We are continuing our look at some of the films of 1938 with a movie that Oscar did not pay attention to, despite it having a pretty fun premise (and the 1930's being the rare decade where Oscar was actually into comedy (he'd lose his sense of humor by the late 1940's): A Slight Case of Murder.  This is one of several films that Edward G. Robinson did throughout the decade riffing on his his tough guy persona, and was one of the rare films between the very popular gangster films of the early 1930's and the film noir pictures that were about to become the rage with the success of 1941's The Maltese Falcon.  As these are two of my favorite genres, I figured this was a great movie to investigate during our look at the pictures of 1938, and so that's what we're going to do today.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place at the end of Prohibition, where bootlegger Remy Marco (Robinson) has decided to go legitimate, selling his beer legally and buying his wife Nora (Donnelly) and daughter Mary (Bryan) a spot in proper society.  There's a problem though-Remy's beer is terrible, and has only been successful because there wasn't any competition on the market.  Flash forward a few years, and Remy is broke (and his crew is still getting used to being "legitimate"), and needs money to save his brewery.  This seems to fall right into his lap when four dead mobsters show up in his house, complete with $500k worth of loot, but Marco's problems aren't entirely solved-his daughter has brought home her fiancé, who just happens to be a cop.  The film follows what happens as Marco tries to stay legitimate, and how his yes men eventually let him know that his beer is, well, terrible.

A Slight Case of Murder is not a complicated film-this isn't something that stands up with the great pictures of Robinson's later career like Double Indemnity and The Woman in the Window which are challenging and take a look at the tougher parts of human nature (and give him some boffo acting moments).  But it is hilarious, genuinely, and Robinson is pitch perfect for the part.  Robinson was a bit of a precursor in some ways to figures like Robert de Niro, Jack Nicholson, and Al Pacino, aging stars who knew that they couldn't compete with a new generation of leading men as "tough guys" on their own, so instead they began to make a profit spoofing that persona for box office points.  Like these later movie stars, Robinson didn't do this to the chagrin of his career-he was able to play the kinds of dramatic roles that made him famous into the 1950's, but he added to his persona in a smart way by giving us comedy (and opening up a whole new type of movie that the studios knew they could find success with him in).  Robinson is one of the most baffling actors when it comes to the Oscars and why he was never nominated, particularly when seen in the light of something like A Slight Case of Murder, as he makes comedy look so easy after making his name in drama...he could genuinely do it all.

The film's supporting cast is also spry-these aren't breaking any molds (pretty much everyone is playing to stereotype), but great acting doesn't always require you to standout-sometimes it's important just to make the script the winner, and they all feed into the comedic gags throughout the film. The movie's look at the nouveau riche and "be careful what you wish for" would've played well with a destitute Depression-era audience, as well as the decadence of the Marcos' lifestyle.  I also want to call out that Bobby Jordan (as a young hoodlum orphan) is fun a year out from his big break in Dead End.  It's nice to see him get such a plum central part here, as Jordan's life would be rough in the years that followed: World War II would essentially cut him out of the Dead End Kids franchise as it transformed into the lucrative Bowery Boys series, and eventually he'd become a divorced alcoholic who would die of cirrhosis at the age of only 42.

OVP: Pepe (1960)

Film: Pepe (1960)
Stars: Cantinflas, Dan Dailey, Shirley Jones (and a mountain of celebrity cameos we'll mention below)
Director: George Sidney
Oscar History: 7 nominations (Best Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Scoring, Sound, Original Song-"Faraway Part of Town")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

A few months ago (which somehow feels like only a week ago and at the same time years ago...Covid is messing with my internal clock, y'all), we reviewed Around the World in 80 Days, a box office smash that won the Best Picture Oscar.  It featured the American debut of a Mexican comedian named Cantinflas, who won a Golden Globe for it and became a sensation, and inevitably was someone that would get another big movie.  However, as Hollywood struggles to cast actors-of-color, especially in the 1950's, Cantinflas would have to wait four years before getting his next break in another glossy, epic film where he did his shenanigans against the backdrop of a star-studded bonanza.  That film was Pepe, our Best Editing (amongst other things) installment today.

(Spoilers Ahead) For a movie that clocks in at three hours, the film doesn't have a lot of plot.  Essentially we have Pepe (Cantinflas), a horse trainer who thinks of his horse Don Juan as his son, and calls him that despite the confusion of everyone.  He cannot buy the horse in the opening scene, as it is instead purchased by Ted Holt (Dailey), a struggling movie director.  Pepe comes to take care of the horse, and after a successful night in Vegas, begins to bankroll Holt's next movie, under the condition that he cast Suzie Murphy (Jones), a dancer that Pepe is in love with, and soon, so is Ted.  As this is a movie from 1960, white, blonde Shirley Jones is going to end up with Ted as her winning love interest rather than Pepe, whom she thinks of as a friend, but Pepe still is able to win back Don Juan, and have him sire a number of foals, happily back in Mexico.

Pepe was a flop-a big one.  It's considered one of the largest money losers of the 1960's, and has never even been released on DVD (I caught it on TCM).  There's a reason for that-Pepe borders on awful.  Cantinflas' humor doesn't work without a proper straight man, and Dan Dailey is no David Niven (Dailey is, for my money, one of the worst actors to be nominated for an Oscar at some point in their career).  Cantinflas plays him as a racist cartoon-he's dismissed as "not really a man" by Shirley Jones at one point, and she sings about him like he's a puppet.  I don't begrudge Cantinflas too much here, even if he doesn't add to the character since his being a Mexican man who got to lead a movie was a big deal in 1960, but then-and-now this plays poorly, and is hard to get behind.

The saving grace of the movie is the star cameos, which I always love.  The film is DRIPPING with not just cameos, but in many cases the cameos are extended, and almost always involve actors playing themselves.  Edward G. Robinson is basically the fourth biggest part in the movie as himself, and we get a lot of appearances from everyone from Greer Garson to Jimmy Durante to the entire Rat Pack (one of only three movies to feature Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, & Joey Bishop).  These aren't always successful (Bing Crosby's is ludicrous, Cesar Romero's unfunny), while others are great, though none compare to Jack Lemmon, playing himself as if he's filming Some Like It Hot, so we get to see (in color!) him in his Daphne drag from the movie (Tony Curtis appears later in the film, and not as his character).

The movie's seven Oscar nominations are all a waste, to be honest.  The costume work (Edith Head) is maybe the best element, but they're mostly fun when they're on Kim Novak or Janet Leigh than on any of the actual characters, while the sets feel like vacant movie lots, even the ones that take place outdoors.  The movie features a number of songs, but they're all staged too long & while it's great to hear legends sing, this doesn't rise above what you'd hear on a record.  This is true even of the nominated song, sang by Judy Garland (who for some reason doesn't even cameo despite singing the nominated song), which doesn't fit the mood of the movie at all (it sings like a torch ballad).  The cinematography is flat, the sound work routine, and the editing...the movie is three hours long & will go on huge stretches of boredom, while glossing over Ted's mistreatment of Pepe.  All-in-all, while I wish this movie was more readily available (even as a flop, it's still nominated for seven Oscars and stars the most important Mexican comedian in Hollywood of the Golden Age), I'm glad to have it in the rearview mirror with the OVP.

OVP: Cheyenne Autumn (1964)

Film: Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
Stars: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Sal Mineo, Dolores Del Rio, Ricardo Montalban, Gilbert Roland, Arthur Kennedy, Patrick Wayne, Elizabeth Allen, John Carradine, James Stewart, Edward G. Robinson
Director: John Ford
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We conclude a week's worth of all-star films from all walks (horror, musicals) with a western, one that expanded 155 minutes and managed to have time for a plethora of stars crawling out of the woodwork (it also, weirdly, has a connection to The Swarm in that both films feature Oscar-winner Ben Johnson, albeit here he is in an uncredited cameo).  Cheyenne Autumn is a bit of a bittersweet picture not just because it's very somber (plot coming in a second), but also because it's the end of the line for a director we have discussed on this blog a lot through the years-John Ford.  While Ford would make one more feature film (1966's 7 Women with Anne Bancroft & Sue Lyon), this was the final western that the director would make, and as a result is something of a sendoff of Ford's own career.  I love John Ford's westerns as a rule (alongside film noir, the western is my favorite Hollywood genre), so this is definitely right up my alley.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is long, and has a lot of plot, including a completely ancillary to the story middle section.  The main story is about a Cheyenne tribe of 300 moving from Oklahoma territory to Wyoming, led by two chiefs (played by Roland & Montalban in the film).  They are being watched & pursued by Captain Thomas Archer (Widmark), who is sympathetic to their plight, and are joined in their journey by a Quaker woman named Deborah (Baker) who is teaching the tribe's children to speak and read English.  Along the way they get into a battle at Fort Robinson, led by the drunk Captain Wessels (Malden, and in a strange twist for a western, alcoholism isn't meant as a sign of endearment here), and attract the attention of Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz (Robinson), who comes and states that the tribe can return to their home, and he'll work with Washington to ensure that promise can be kept (though he pointedly calls it a "gamble" since he knows "promise" is a broken word to the Cheyenne).  The film ends with the Cheyenne tribe returning home...and with Sal Mineo's Red Shirt being killed for sleeping with another man's wife.

If that last sentence seems out-of-place, well, it does a little bit in the movie too.  The film is gorgeous (cinematography was a well-earned nomination, with William Clothier painting Monument Valley in a wash of sandy color, and really these stand up with films like The Quiet Man and The Searchers in terms of beauty from Ford's filmography), but it's incredibly disjointed.  Mineo's character never actually speaks in English (supposedly this is because Ford was worried that Mineo's thick Brooklyn accent would be impossible to overcome), but as a result you see a very famous actor in a dismissible part, and you put the crux of the film on us connecting to a somber final battle between Mineo & Montalban's Little Wolf.  It doesn't work.

That said, a lot of the film doesn't work that well even if it's all pretty.  Widmark is stoic, Baker angelic, and Robinson wry, but they don't add anything of value to the film-it just sort of meanders.  It isn't often I wish a film starred John Wayne, but one wonders if the natural gravitas Ford could pull out of Wayne would have been a better fit for the lead than Widmark.  As it is, there's nothing truly great going on through two-thirds of the film, and you'd be forgiven for skipping this if you're just skimming through Ford's filmography...

...except the sequence with Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt Earp totally makes up for it.  There's no real point to this long sequence-it's not important to the plot at all, and feels more like a short film buried in the picture than anything else, but it's hilarious & completely awesome.  Stewart is at his fumbling best here, playing the sharpshooting Wyatt Earp so well you kind of wonder why this isn't crowed about more by his fans.  There's a scene where he, John Carradine's Jeff Blair, and Arthur Kennedy's Doc Holliday are playing poker while all hell is breaking loose (and Elizabeth Allen's Miss Plantagenet, a lady of the evening, is trying to convince Wyatt Earp they've met before) and you'll cackle.  The whole chase sequence is great, the ending obvious but still terrific delivery.  I haven't seen enough of 1964's Best Supporting Actor contenders to say this with certainty, but I totally would have considered Stewart for an Oscar nomination here, as this is a triumphant extended cameo.

OVP: The Woman in the Window (1944)

Film: The Woman in the Window (1944)
Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Dan Duryea
Director: Fritz Lang
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Score)...for the 1945 Oscars, so we're using that tag below since tags follow the OVP, even though the film was released in November 1944.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the Month of June, as a birthday present to myself, we'll be profiling 15 famous film noir movies I've never seen (my favorite film genre).  Look at the bottom of this review for some of the other movies we've profiled.

You're going to see a lot of classic (or below-the-line) classic movies with our month-long tribute to film noir, but you might wonder why I started with this particular picture, and I wish I had a better counter to make than "it was first chronologically"...but I don't.  I saw this one first because I couldn't find a more binding theme without getting into the twists and turns of noir, one of the few Classic Hollywood genres that genuinely has surprises in the plot formula.  After watching The Woman in the Window (no relation to the novel by AJ Finn which is being made into a movie with Amy Adams & Gary Oldman later this year), though, I think it's the perfect film to kick off our tribute to noir.  Sneaky, beautifully-acted, and with enough twists to both comment on the brilliance of film noir (and point out the clearest flaw of the genre), The Woman in the Window is pretty much everything I love about the genre wrapped into one 99-minute package.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers on a married psychology professor Richard Wanley (Robinson) whose wife and family are out-of-town and he's being egged on by a few coworkers to make the most of his temporary bachelorhood by pursuing a woman while he's alone.  He demurs, saying his randy days are over, but soon meets the subject of a beautiful painting that he's walked by earlier in the film, Alice Reed (Bennett), who invites him back to her place for "drinks."  The movie then takes a sharp turn as Alice's lover finds them, and tries to murder Wanley in a jealous rage, when Alice kills the lover to save Wanley's life.  However, it's obvious at this point that no one would believe that they didn't kill the man, so he attempts to cover up the crime by driving the man to the middle of nowhere, dumping the body, and hoping to ensure that they get away with it.  This doesn't work out, and Wanley gets a firsthand account of what he did wrong as he's invited by a mutual friend to watch DA Lalor (Massey) track down the killer, not knowing that it's Wanley himself who committed the crime.  There's a great subplot involving Dan Duryea playing a blackmailer who also makes some cheap passes at Alice (even though she's trying to poison him) before we get to the movie's controversial ending.

1944 was essentially the beginning of film noir as a mainstream Hollywood entity.  While it had certainly been prevalent in previous years with movies like The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key, 1944 brought about what would be four staples of the genre: Double Indemnity, Laura, Murder My Sweet, and of course The Woman in the Window.  Most of what we see here is classic, standard-fare film noir tropes, with a beautiful woman (Bennett) bringing an honorable man (Robinson) down while the law (Massey) is watching.  The movie rises above just being a prototype, though, with bravura work from all involved.  Robinson was such a good actor (truly one of the best performers never cited for an Oscar), and has great rapport with Bennett despite not having the traditional leading man good looks of a Dana Andrews or Tyrone Power.  I liked Bennett (though I've always been a bit more partial to her sister Constance), and thought Dan Duryea was fabulous as the blackmailing Heidt, giving us all of the nasty villainy that we're lacking from the seemingly "good people" played by Bennett & Robinson.  The movie won one Oscar nomination, for Best Score, and it definitely deserved it-Hugo Friedhofer creates an atmospheric, moody piece that totally matches the desperation of the main characters and plot.

The problem with the film is the ending, and it's why we're going with 4 stars rather than 5 here, as it would have assuredly gotten to five with a better finale.  The film likely was precluded by the censors from ending with Eddie Robinson, having just moments earlier gotten away with the murder (thanks to a series of circumstances outside his control, the cops had come to believe it was Duryea's Heidt, not Wanley or Alice, who had killed the lover), killing himself after going down his slow march to hell, a desperate Joan Bennett running to try and stop him.  However, we instead got a hackneyed dream sequence (which was probably not all that hackneyed in 1944, but still feels cheap) where we learn all of the preceding events had been an illusion, and we get a comic piece at the end with Robinson seeing another beautiful woman in front of a shop window who wants a light, and him running in fear from her for fear that the dream will become reality.  I don't like "it was all a dream" sort of plot laziness, but there's too much good here to say that the movie is ruined by its ending.  However, the finale stops it from being the true masterpiece it probably should have been.

Other Articles: Intro to Film Noir Month

12 Best Actors Without an Oscar Nomination

Okay, here we go!  This isn't going to mean much to you, probably, since it's just another article, but this is the first day of NaNoWriMo for me!  Right now I am probably, frantically, wondering how on earth I am going to write 50,000 words in a month, and fretting about my writerly process, or perhaps (I can occasionally be an optimist) I'm knee-deep in my book, writing to my heart's content because I've spent the past month heartily preparing and am ready for this adventure (I'm writing this on October 7th, so who knows what's happened in the world in the past few weeks).

As a result of this being NaNoWriMo, you're going to be noticing some things might be a little unusual on the blog, namely that I'm not going to be reacting to the events of the day as often as I usually do, and the focus is going to be more on timeless issues (like movies, reviews, OVP, and history) than the events of the day.  Hopefully you don't mind, as this is me trying to do something new and exciting in my life, while also maintaining TMROJ to the best of my abilities.  If there's something truly groundbreaking in the news (something I feel I would be remiss to comment on like a major political/entertainment announcement or where I need to write an obituary), I might come back from my sabbatical early, but otherwise the only current event I'm allowing myself time to discuss on the blog is the election (you'll get a recap of what happened in Virginia, New Jersey, and across the country).  Otherwise, all of these articles will have been written in advance for the next thirty days.

One of the fun things about doing this is that I get to create a lot of lists, as those are the easiest to package in advance, and we're going to start out with a doozy, one that I've been sitting on for a while-the actors that I most think deserve an Academy Award nomination, but for some reason never received one.  This is, bizarrely, a list I've never actually put together on this blog before despite my obsession with the Oscars, and I can't exactly explain why (I've done write-ups about people most "owed" an Oscar, but never my personal tastes).  Perhaps it's because, as I've documented in the past, I don't think there's a lot of actors who really cry out in a major way "why haven't they ever been nominated?!?"  I'm sure there are performers who are giving me side eye right now (if somehow one of them came across this blog), but while it's easy to list actors who have never won an Oscar who should deserved one, most of the major, critically-acclaimed actors at some point in their careers have won at least a nomination.  Even actors who are principally known for commercial work like Doris Day and Harrison Ford wound up in Oscar's good graces during their careers.

It's also because most long lists of actor's who deserved an Oscar nomination in the past end up being written as if there are an unlimited number of nominations in a year-there aren't.  Yes, it's very, very easy to come up with occasional nominations that were undeserved, but those aren't always in the right year to warrant a nomination.  If you're going to call someone out as a "snub," you need to also be willing to get rid of some of the nominees that made it instead, and most writers won't do that.  Frequently on lists like this I see a name like John Cusack, a major movie star who probably, collectively, deserved a nomination at some point, but for what, exactly?  Was John Cusack ever actually one of the five best nominees in a year?  The people below I include because I think they had careers that were/are huge in the motion pictures AND because they have given at least one performance that I'd argue was one of the five best of that year (if not higher), that they would have displaced one of the nominees in my book.  It's genuinely hard for me to find people who fit both of those criteria, but the below twelve are the actors who most make my blood boil when I think about them not having been cited at some point in their careers.  Without further adieu...

12. Jeanne Moreau

Why She Was Never Nominated: With this sole exception, I largely stuck to actors who worked primarily in English-language films, as those are overwhelmingly the ones favored by Oscar.  This list could entirely have been made up just of brilliant actors who didn't work in English-language films that have been amongst the year's bests in the past (Lu Chen, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Toshiro Mifune...).  But considering that Isabelle Huppert finally broke the mold this past year, it seems a shame that Jeanne Moreau, the great French actress, never joined those who had similar crossover appeal and insane talent (Huppert, Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, Anouk Aimee, Isabelle Adjani) in winning just one dance with Oscar.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Moreau won the BAFTA Award for Viva Villa!, and was nominated for Jules and Jim.  She also took Best Actress at Cannes for Seven Days...Seven Nights, and grabbed the Cesar for The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea.
When She Should Have Been Nominated: I certainly would buy an argument for La Notte or Bay of Angels, but honestly-how did she not make it for Jules and Jim?  I get that 1962 was a tough year for Best Actress, but I'd probably be willing to displace pretty much anyone for what Moreau accomplishes as Catherine, a careless, cruel, intensely beautiful and magnetic presence in Francois Truffaut's greatest masterpiece (and one of my personal favorite pictures).
Chances in the Future: Moreau died earlier this year, meaning that we'll never get to hear her name while an envelope is announced (and somehow she never took the Governor's Award).

11. Ann Miller

Why She Was Never Nominated: Ann Miller's career has always perplexed me.  Despite talent, beauty, and tap dancing skills that were pretty much unrivaled in Hollywood, she was never really a leading lady.  In fact, I couldn't find a single movie that she was ever the headliner of, which is strange because she wasn't your typical "character actress."  This is perhaps why she was never cited-she didn't play the doting mother or wife in a drama all that often (denying her the ability to be someone like Thelma Ritter or Claire Trevor), instead providing the comic relief in musicals and insane dancing ability.  Perhaps her career was too comical, and she was too shapely, to be taken seriously?
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Other than a spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Miller's only reward was a long tenure in Hollywood.
When She Should Have Been Nominated: Some may go with Miller's most serious role, and the one that she is most well-known for to modern audiences as Coco in Mulholland Drive (she, is, indeed a strange link to the failed dreams of Hollywood in that film), but I'd go with something flat-out marvelous like her work in Kiss Me Kate.  Miller steals the entire movie away from Kathryn Grayson, and is, well, spectacular.
Chances in the Future: Miller passed away in 2004, so we'll never have the opportunity.  Perhaps the best reward is that she is still seen regularly on Turner Classic Movies nearly every month, something some of her leading lady costars can't even claim.  #Revenge?

10. Jim Carrey

Why He Was Never Nominated: Carrey is that classic conundrum of the comedian who has talent, and yet can't make it work with Oscar.  Similarly to others like Danny Kaye or Bob Hope, Carrey went from being a comedic leading man to showing that he had real ability in the late 1990's and early 2000's, but Oscar never seemed interested.  As a result, he's actually the most Golden Globe-nominated film actor EVER to never land an Oscar nomination.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Carrey has been cited for six Golden Globes, winning two back-to-back trophies (he made the wisecrack that he was now "the Tom Hanks of the Golden Globes,"), as well as a BAFTA nomination and a Grammy nomination.  Plus, he had one of the best "Loser Moments" ever when he showed up at the 1998 Oscars after just missing.
When He Should Have Been Nominated: Carrey deserved two nominations (I've never seen Man on the Moon, so quite frankly he might be the most overdue actor, period, if you look at just actual nominations and their collective careers): The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  1998 was admittedly a very good year, and someone worthy was bound to miss, but 2004 wasn't, and there's really no excuse for his losing as Joel Barish-he should have won the damn thing.
Chances in the Future: Probably not.  Carrey isn't an actor that does this sort of work anymore-quite frankly.  He kind of stopped working in major movies after he bad-mouthed Kick-Ass 2 publicly (he did have a hit the following year, but that was already in the can at that point, and was a sequel to one of his biggest pictures).  His interviews have grown increasingly erratic in recent years, as has his off-screen behavior, and at this point even an Honorary Oscar would be a surprise.

9. Meg Ryan

Why She Was Never Nominated: Ryan never had quite the luck that her fellow 90's "America's Sweethearts" did with Oscar (Julia Roberts & Sandra Bullock both of course have their own statues). This is a pity as Ryan is a superb actress and arguably starred in the best actual films during her heyday as a Rom-Com queen.  That said, she couldn't land it for her dramatic turn in Courage Under Fire, and her career got destroyed after she was caught cheating on Dennis Quaid with Russell Crowe (sexism of course rears its ugly head here, as Crowe went on to become a major movie star and an Oscar-winner in the wake of such publicity).  Since then, she's never really landed a major role and has largely disappeared from Hollywood, particularly after The Women was universally-panned (though it did better than you remember at the Box Office).
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Ryan picked up a trio of Golden Globe nominations for her rom-com triumvirate When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You've Got Mail.
When She Should Have Been Nominated: The critic in me wants to say When Harry Met Sally, perhaps her breeziest performance, but the ardent fan in me will stick to one of my all-time favorite movies Sleepless in Seattle.  Her Annie is wonderfully-felt, charming, lived-in, lonely, heartbreaking, relatable, and layered-it's one of my favorite romantic performances, and I literally watch it every year at Christmas.  That she couldn't make it for either is a crime.
Chances in the Future: Doubtful-she's not famous enough anymore to get an Honorary Oscar, and she hardly works at all.  She seems to want to move into direction-maybe she'll have a knack for that?  It is how Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and Mel Gibson finally started getting nominated after being skipped over for commercial acting fare.

8. Joseph Cotten

Why He Was Never Nominated: Cotten was that leading man who never really caught on as an icon, despite starring in some of the biggest films of all-time, and being a favorite of two of Hollywood's best directors (Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock).  This wasn't for a lack of talent, though, as Cotten always delivered with his characters, bringing forward complicated men who blurred the line between righteous & sinister.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Like Ann Miller, he got a spot on the Walk of Fame, but really that was it for this leading man, whose greatest trophy might be the place that Citizen Kane ended up taking in the history of the movies (not many people get to have second billing on the "greatest film of all-time").
When He Should Have Been Nominated: Citizen Kane is a perfect movie, truly one of the cinema's greatest, but Cotten's performance there isn't why he should have been nominated.  Instead, he should have been cited for his work in The Third Man, an achievement also over-shadowed by Welles (who should have made Supporting Actor that year), but Cotten himself is marvelous as the complicated, slow-march-into-hell man at the center of Harry Lime's plot.
Chances in the Future: Cotten passed away in 1994, leaving behind a laundry list of great film credits but no Oscar.

7. Oscar Isaac

Why He Was Never Nominated: His performances have so far been the right kind, wrong picture.  Isaac is emerging onto the stage of superstardom with the Star Wars franchise giving him the kind of exposure that turned Harrison Ford from a player in low-budget movies decades ago into an action superstar.  Isaac, though, seems to care a lot more about arthouse fare than Ford ever appeared to, starring in complicated movies like Inside Llewyn Davis, A Most Violent Year, and Ex Machina.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Picked up a Golden Globe for Show Me a Hero, as well as a second nomination for Llewyn Davis.  He's also won the position as my future husband, truly the greatest prize of all.
When He Should Have Been Nominated: I genuinely would have nominated him for all three of those performances.  Honestly-Isaac is such a good and exciting actor it's staggering to me he hasn't gotten more traction yet; the only reason he's not higher on this list is that he's so new to the public consciousness & that I'm sure he'll make it eventually, so I'm less perturbed than I am for the next six.  I think his best performance may well have been Ex Machina, a movie that seems destined to gain stature as the years go by, it's like a cross between Elon Musk and John Huston in Chinatown.
Chances in the Future: Solid.  Isaac is too good of an actor and working too often to stay off of Oscar's shortlist for a long.  The better question is, though, whether he is cited for work as good as what he's done before now (ala Michael Fassbender) or is eventually cited for a performance that's not nearly as fascinating (ala Andrew Garfield).

6. Peter Lorre

Why He Was Never Nominated: Lorre's that strange supporting player who never really took off in the supporting categories.  His best shot may have arguably been for his work with Humphrey Bogart in classics like The Maltese Falcon, but for some reason noir was very hit-or-miss when it came to actual acting nominations (Bogart himself was never even nominated for his work in one of these films), and his star in the 1930's wasn't strong enough to grab the Academy's attention during its formative years.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Aside from his Walk of Fame star (a gimme for major actors of his generation), Lorre's only other public honor was being nominated for the Golden Lion at Venice, but this was a director, not an actor.
When He Should Have Been Nominated: I would have cited Lorre for The Maltese Falcon, as his work as Joel Cairo was spectacular, and considering the film's Best Picture nomination, he should have joined costar Sydney Greenstreet as a nominee.  But Lorre's best performance was one of his first, as a child killer in M, a seismic achievement in acting and one of the most powerful performances of the 1930's.
Chances in the Future: Lorre died in 1964, leaving behind several film classics, the largest of being his small role as Ugarte in Casablanca.

5. Scarlett Johansson

Why She Was Never Nominated: Some of the actors on this list I'm postulating as to why they were never nominated, and would invite those who are more associated with these actors' past Oscar campaigns to weigh in, but here's a case where I'm old enough to remember why Johansson missed, and it was greed.  In 2003, ScarJo had two major roles competing for Best Actress (Girl with a Pearl Earring and Lost in Translation), and while it seemed probable that the surging LiT was the better shot at a nomination, the studios didn't want to get into each other's way and so they commit massive category fraud moving her to supporting in LiT, likely killing her traction in the race and leaving room for surprise nominees Samantha Morton and Keisha Castle-Hughes instead.  Had they just stuck with a lead campaign, I think her work for Sofia Coppola probably would have snuck her in in one of the most bizarre Best Actress fields I remember seeing.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Johansson has yet to score with Oscar, but she's a favorite of the HFPA, boasting four nominations at the Golden Globes.
When She Should Have Been Nominated: Her work in Lost in Translation remains, in my opinion, her best, and better than most of the nominees that year (and I'd even argue, the winner).  I also would have cited her for Under the Skin, a film that was never going to catch on with Oscar but was proof that a decade of lounging in bad rom-com's and action flicks didn't dim her star when it came to acting talent.
Chances in the Future: If she's going to get it, it's going to have to be soon.  She's a major star, obviously, but she's 33 now and while that's not an acting death knell for Oscar, it is a time when you need to start making your move on a trophy.  I still think she makes it at some point though-she feels too famous not to land at least once.

4. Myrna Loy

Why She Was Never Nominated: Loy's best performances were always light comedy, and she made them look incredibly easy.  While the early Academy wasn't nearly as allergic to comedy as later generations of voters, they still had a propensity to favor melodrama, which wasn't Loy's strong suit (even her best dramatic performance, in The Best Years of Our Lives, is arguably the 4th or 5th best performance in that movie).  Even so, it's a pity that one of the finest performers of the 1930's never joined women like Carole Lombard or Jean Arthur with at least one nomination.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Loy actually does have an Oscar even if she never won a nomination, due to an Honorary trophy she won at the 63rd Academy Awards.  Her victory was actually a result over an uproar when Sophia Loren, who already had a trophy, picked up a statue despite numerous longtime performers like Myrna Loy who had never won an Oscar.  The Academy agreed with those complaining and gave them both statues.
When She Should Have Been Nominated: It seems truly bizarre to me, even in a year where Best Actress was pretty competitive (just ask Bette Davis!) that Loy couldn't get in for her pitch-perfect work in The Thin Man while her leading man William Powell was included.  This would have been the perfect moment to cite her gifts.
Chances in the Future: Thankfully Loy won as a result of that petition, as she would die just two years later.

3. Edward G. Robinson

Why He Was Never Nominated: For the most part, Robinson's career as a leading man wasn't in the sorts of films that won Oscars, but instead just made oodles of money.  Though longtime player as a tough-guy gangster in pictures like Little Caesar and Kid Galahad, he was apparently a kind and sensitive man off-screen (who fell victim to the McCarthy-era political climate when he was forced to name names before HUAC), his tough guy exterior and the public demand for it meant that he only occasionally did the sort of movies that AMPAS loves, even though he was always a deeply-talented actor.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Robinson won an Honorary Oscar in 1973 for his lifetime of movie-making, as well as the SAG Life Achievement Award in 1970.  He also won the Best Actor prize from both the National Board of Review (for Tales of Manhattan) and the Cannes Best Actor prize (for House of Strangers).
When She Should Have Been Nominated: Robinson not being nominated for his spectacular work in Double Indemnity is, in my opinion, one of the biggest snubs in Supporting Actor Oscar history.  It would have been such a fine time to honor a man who had made most of Hollywood rich, and it's easily his best performance.  A crime.
Chances in the Future: Robinson sadly died in 1973, two months before he was able to win his Academy Award.

2. Mia Farrow

Why She Was Never Nominated: Mia Farrow's lack of a nomination is more perplexing than literally any other person on this list.  It's hard to understand right now (Farrow has become synonymous with her ex-partner Woody Allen and their decades-long public feud more than her actual career as a performer at this point), but Farrow was a major star in Hollywood for decades, and starred in a number of classic pictures.  Plus, Allen has a gift for getting actresses nominated for an Oscar like few others, and Farrow has starred in more of Woody's movies than literally any other actor (and she was the lead in most of them).  All-in-all, I have no explanation other than bad luck.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Farrow won the Golden Globe for Best Newcomer in 1965, and during her career would win 9 nominations from the HFPA, five of which were for individual film performances.  She was also nominated for the BAFTA three times.
When She Should Have Been Nominated: This is where I have to admit that I'm not as familiar with Allen's filmography during the Mia Years as I am pre and post that time period (it's an issue I'm hoping to rectify), though I've heard The Purple Rose of Cairo and Broadway Danny Rose are the standouts.  What I CAN vouch for is that Farrow surely deserved a nomination for her brilliant work in Rosemary's Baby, which even in the standout 1968 lineup deserved mention.
Chances in the Future: Doubtful.  Farrow would make a worthy recipient of the Honorary Oscar or the Jean Hersholt, but Hollywood seems to want to forget the entire Woody/Mia feud, and unlike Woody, Mia would probably show up to grab her Oscar and remind them of it.

1. Rita Hayworth

Why She Was Never Nominated: How do you pick the most Oscar-worthy actor ever who's never won a nomination?  Simple-you pick a woman who deserved two trophies and yet wasn't nominated for any.  Hayworth was insanely beautiful and took on glam-doll roles, but Oscar has proven in the past to be fine with giving beautiful women Academy Awards without issue.  Why it was that Hayworth, a box office star who regularly worked with serious directors, couldn't get this nomination is beyond me.
Award-Worthy in Other Ways: Hayworth would be named one of the 25 Greatest Actresses of All-Time by the American Film Institute (a posthumous honor, but still), and would be nominated for the Golden Globe one time, for the dramatic western Circus World with John Wayne & Claudia Cardinale.
When She Should Have Been Nominated: 1946 and 1947.  I admittedly still have a few performances before I say this officially (and YEARS until we tackle these in the OVP, unfortunately), but I feel absolutely confident that Hayworth would have gotten nominations from me for Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai, polar opposite roles that bring out her best traits as an actress.  Give or take Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter and Gloria Grahame in Crossfire, they may well be the best performances given by a woman in either of those years, regardless of category. That she missed for both-I just can't stand it.
Chances in the Future: Hayworth died in 1987 at the sadly young age of 67.

Those are my list-how about yours?  I know you have quibbles or people you can throw "but what about..." at me, so let's have it.  And which of these do you think was the biggest snub or has the best shot in the future (my money's on Oscar Isaac)?  Share below!

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!