So here we are, 26 December 2014, what would have been Richard Widmark's 100th birthday. At about 6pm UK time I'll be raising a glass to the memory of a man whose acting talents brought so much pleasure to so many people and who, through the various fan clubs, has united people from all over the world who come together in friendship because of that common ground - we admire and like Richard Widmark.
Like seems too weak a word but 'love' can be overused and misunderstood. I'm reminded of an interview where he commented once that he hadn't slept around with other women "because I happen to like my wife a lot." I think that use of the word 'like' says so much more than 'love' would; implying a deep relationship based on friendship and respect.
I've had some comments that it's a bit sad to be celebrating a dead actor's 100th anniversary; sad in the derogatory sense and applied to those celebrating that is! In one sense it could be sad; sad that he's no longer with us, sad that he didn't do more films, sad that he didn't do things that we'd have particularly liked to see - (my wish would be for him in Shakespeare, as Richard III, Iago, Caesar) - sad that he wasn't recognised with an Oscar as he certainly should have been, an omission which seems egregious to his fans. But the politics of Oscars are what they are and their decisions are not always based on the talents of those getting an award.
So instead of being sad, let's celebrate. There's a huge range of films and radio work that we can enjoy and many bear repeating several times over. Let's enjoy it all, celebrating a long life well lived, a great actor admired by many, and by all accounts from those who knew him, a truly lovely person as well.
The Great
Lakes have a big influence on the climate of the surrounding landscape, acting
like a giant heat sink, moderating the temperatures of the summers and winters.
This results in a milder climate in portions of the basin compared to other
locations of similar latitude. The lakes also act as a giant humidifier,
increasing the moisture content of the air throughout the year. In the winter,
this moisture condenses as snow when it reaches the land, creating heavy
snowfall in some areas, known as "snow belts" on the downwind shores
of the lakes. The shores of Lake Superior are prone to this "lake
effect" snow and have recorded up to 350 inches of snow in a single year.
The weather can go from one extreme to another.
There was
a record high of 62 degrees in the St. Paul, Minn., area on Nov. 26, 1914, but
this was a full month later, Dec. 26 now, with 4 inches of snow on the ground,
a gray overcast sky, and temperatures back down to the normal of zero and
below, with more snow to come. "Wait a day and the weather will
change" is an apt description of weather in the Lake Superior region. The
small community 50 miles northeast of St. Paul, along the St. Croix River
had the same conditions that day, and wouldn't see the sun peak through until
just past the midday Meridian, its highest point on the horizon. The area was
along the eastern Minnesota border, 100 miles south of the southern tip of Lake
Superior. It had grown from a farm established in the 1850s, followed by a
store, hotel, sawmill, a post office and a church that still exists today. In
1857, a large colony of settlers from western New York state arrived and began
establishing farms, homes and businesses. On Oct.26, 1858, it was organized as
a township — Sunrise Township, Chisago County,
Minnesota.
The
buildings in Sunrise, in 1914 were all wooden structures, many with false
fronts to make them look taller. One of the largest establishments, using no
false front, was Elias Nordgrens Mercantile Store. It was a two-story building
on two lots. It had a wooden storefront walkway, like an uncovered porch, and
four large display windows, two in each of the twin buildings that made up the
mercantile. There were living quarters on the second floor for the owner and a
large livable lean-to attached to the store for hired help. The mud streets and
rooftops were covered with snow. Smoke lazily drifted up from the chimneys of
the buildings, carrying particles that sparkled and glistened in the emerging
rays of the sun.
A young
man and woman, married Jan. 16, 1914, had been living with family in Sioux
Falls, S.D. In the early part of the year they then moved almost 300 miles to
Braham, Minn., where the husband found work, until a more inviting opportunity
became available in Sunrise Township. It was just another 30 miles from Braham
to Sunrise Township, for a clerking job in Elias Nordgrens Mercantile Store,
with living quarters provided. It was like a shining star in the sky,
employment with lodging included. The couple were expecting their first child,
a wonderful gift to each other at this special time of the year.
There is
no movement on the street until a man, the young husband in shirt sleeves,
bursts from the lean-to looking for another person, any person. He has great
news to share and dashes for the house next door and pounds on the door. The
owner cautiously opens it just wide enough to identify his caller, his
neighbor, the clerk from the mercantile. “I have a son,” the man in shirt
sleeves announces with excitement, “His name is Richard.” The young father was
Carl Henry Widmark and his wife was Ethel Mae (Barr). Their new son was Richard
Widmark, born at 12:45 p.m., on Dec. 26, 1914, in Sunrise Township, Minn. A Christmas
gift that would entertain the world on the silver screen for 40 years and many
Christmases still to come.
It is
almost 31 years later, the middle of June 1945, and Christmas is months away.
Richard Widmark is in New York City starring in "Kiss Them For Me" at
the Fulton Theater. He had married Ora Jean (Hazlewood), April 5, 1942, and was
soon to be a new father himself. The play opened on March 20 at the Belasco
Theater but moved to the Fulton on May 14. It would have a run of 110
performances and close June 23, 1945. The cast included Judy Holliday, Richard
Davis and Jane (Cotter) Meadows, soon to be the wife of Steve Allen.
Carl and
Ethel Widmark had a second son, Donald, born July 25, 1918. He is a bomber
pilot during World War II and is shot down three times, never failing to go
back into the fray. Donald suffers a head injury during his final flight in the
summer of 1943, is captured and interned as a POW by the Germans at Stalag 13
in Barth, Germany. Germany surrenders in the early summer of 1945, and American
prisoners are liberated. The war ends Sept. 2, 1945. Richard and his family
have had a tense unhappy time for two years since receiving word that Don was
missing in action, and another Christmas loomed as being no better than the
last two.
Richard
Widmark remembered it this way, telling of his most memorable Christmas.
"We'd lost hope of ever seeing Don again," he recalled, "Then
months before Christmas, I had a short third act exit in the play ("Kiss
Them For Me") and went into the wings. I had to go on stage again within
minutes. When I turned around I was stunned. There stood my brother. Don had
returned home completely unannounced. I only had time to shake his hand before
going back on stage. I never talked so fast in life to get through the rest of
the third act. With Don back, that coming Christmas was the happiest in my
life." Don was home to celebrate with his brother when daughter, Anne, is
born on her uncle's birthday, July, 25, 1945. The Christmas of 1945, the best
that Richard Widmark could have hoped for, a new daughter and a brother thought
lost.
The first
story on Richard Widmark's birth took root, somewhat, from an article by Carol
Dahlquist, in a 2006 issue of Heritage, a publication of the Chisago County
Historical Society.
The
second story is based on a story published December 25, 1954, in the Brownwood
Bulletin, Brownwood, Texas, by Vernon Scott. Research on this story led me to
disagree with its author on some of what he wrote. He may have taken a little
too much artistic license, so I rewrote it from what I found. Scott writes that
"Kiss Them For Me" at the Foulton Theater, was in 1944, but it opened
March 20, 1945, and closed June 23, 1945. He has Widmark saying, "it was a
few days before Christmas" but it was in June. As Jean Widmark tells in a
story in "Silver Screen," January, 1949, Donald Widmark was there for
the birth of his niece and to celebrate with his brother in July. Scott had his
facts skewed, but he had the sentiment right.
Happy
100th Birthday, Richard Widmark, and thanks for the many years of great
entertainment. Have a "Christmas To Remember," and I'll continue next
year with Classmates - Tom Best, Gail Castner and Lester Peterson. There's
still time for your last-minute shoppers to get entered into my Widmark Framed
Prints Give-Away and get a free Richard Widmark DVD Movie. Stop by and take a
look.
Three titles which could mean completely different things!
I suppose what brought this to mind was recently getting my telly reattached to an aerial and being able to watch live TV for the first time in several years. I hadn't really missed it but was glad to be able to watch the rugby international game between Wales and New Zealand, especially the sheer excitement of a player running to get a try, the physicality of the hard tackles (surely that has to hurt?), the eyeball-to-eyeball contact of the scrum, and the ruck and maul. I don't pretend to understand the rules, but I can't help but watch if it's on.
Richard Widmark played football at college, as any biography with any detail will tell you. Most will also add that at 5'10" and with a slight build, he certainly wasn't one of the biggest guys on the team and indeed must have had to be pretty persistent - and tough - to get there at all. The thought behind the Wales/NZ analogy is that American football seems closer to rugby than it does to what we usually call football (soccer) - which is supposed to be relatively contactless. You certainly don't expect the head-on tackles there that you see in American football and in rugby.
But even in our national game of good old rugby football, there's a place for the smaller and lighter guys who are quick on their feet, so I suppose it must be the same for the game they play on the other side of the pond, even if they do get to wear a lot more body armour when they do it. (Though you have to wonder if that makes the game tougher. If you think you are protected, would you not tackle a lot harder than if you just have a couple of bits of electrical tape holding your ears in place, or your knee together? Maybe.)
This is a pretty circuitous way of saying that Richard Widmark was quick on his feet. Well watch any of his early films and you know that. In a lot of them, there's often an awful lot of running, most famously of course in 'Night and the City' where near the end, there's that long shot of him running across a bridge and along the Embankment - all filmed in one shot with several cameras, a first for its time. And since he often played the bad guy, he must have had a lot of hard falls too as his character got his come-uppance and was gunned down by the law.
But what came to mind most was a certain scene from Warlock, rather than all that running around. You know the one; where Johnny Gannon visits San Pablo at incredible personal risk to himself in order to warn off McQuown and to stop him coming into town. (This scene, incidentally, is lifted almost verbatim from the Oakley Hall novel which I can't recommend highly enough even though some characters got changed (most notably Dad McQuown) and their words were given to others . If you like this film but haven't read the novel, I seriously recommend it - it adds so very much.)
This scene works better in the film version actually, as it's less wordy but keeps the essential action. And the bit I always bring to mind is when Gannon (Widmark) sees where things are going, takes the initiative to attack, puts his head down and just charges at McQuown. In one sense it looks like what small boys do in fights at school - and apparently both Widmark brothers had plenty of those too, whilst growing up. But it also looks like a classic rugby football tackle, head down, all the power and strength behind the shoulders. It's hard and fast and certainly effective and it throws McQuown nearly off balance, right back into the kitchen and against the stove. You can imagine Widmark taking himself back to his football days with that move.
Yep, given that time machine, I'd like to have seen Richard Widmark play football. I have absolutely less than zero per cent interest in American football, but I'd have gone to watch him.
And by the way, Wales lost, 10-33, losing it in the second 40 mins after an extremely close and hard-fought first half. That's the way it goes, sometimes. In Real Life, sadly the underdog doesn't always come good.
Surprising as it may seem, there are things about Richard Widmark that it's possible for even the most die-hard fan to dislike; though this is, of course, a far shorter list than the 'likes'!
1. The smoking
You can argue that the smoking is of its time, which of course it is, but there's an awful lot of it going on in most of those old films and the further we go from the twentieth century when smoking was very much the norm into the 21st where it's regarded more and more as an unhealthy aberration, the more striking it seems. Widmark seems to have been a pretty heavy smoker - one interview describes him as chain-smoking - though it seems that in later life he progressed from ciggies to a pipe. You have to admit that he used smoking to great effect in his acting, most often throwing down his cigarette in anger or disgust; but also taking it as time to pause and give a considered reply, or to annoy - notably blowing smoke in the face of Captain Tiger in Pickup on South Street! I believe there's only one character that states he's a non-smoker (Jim Slater, Backlash) though there are many films where he doesn't have the opportunity to light up. Probably the worst thing about it is that he makes it so damn attractive it even makes me want to take it up, and I'm a lifelong anti. You can see why it was banned for that reason if for no other.
Given his habit, I'm amazed both that he managed to stay so physically fit - there's a huge amount of running in a lot of what he does - and also that he kept free of the cancers which claimed so many showbiz lives, probably most notably Yul Brynner, who, when dying of lung cancer, produced an anti-smoking commercial. I guess Widmark was one of the lucky ones, for which we can be extremely thankful.
2. Singing
Given that Widmark was in the choir at his college and that he was musical - he played the piano after all - his singing is not something you'll look out for in his films. You can argue that whilst singing, his character is usually roaring drunk and therefore it's not going to be a notable performance. From that point of view, it's masterly. Three instances spring to mind; Where the Legends Die, Sltattery's Hurricane (I find it highly amusing that he got a soundtrack credit for his rendition of 'Home on the range') and of course Camptown Races in the short film from O Henry's Full House: Clarion Call which he did do straight (another soundtrack credit for that one). And Clarion Call leads us to ....
3. Accents
Happily there are only two examples which are fairly jarring. I have no idea what accent is going on in Clarion Call but it sounds horrible; perhaps it's just 1910s gangster but it's fairly unnatural (though Tommy Udo's in Kiss of Death was occasionally similar, thinking about it). The other is of course the attempt at a Deep South voice in Alvarez Kelly. Widmark was from a place Americans refer to as the Midwest (though to a Brit it looks closer to the right hand side of the map than the left) but certainly nowhere near any of the Southern States. Fortunately the accent mostly fades away over the course of the film.
4. Riding style
This may just be the difference between the English riding style and Western style; I know the saddles are very different but really, where did he learn to ride like he does? My teacher would have shouted at him to sit up straight, get his heels down, his elbows in and particularly drop his hands. That thing he does, riding with his hands holding the reins nearly up to his chest ... argghhhh... Having said that, he certainly picked up riding late in life and well enough to handle his horses too, whereas I never got above a rising trot. What do I know, eh?
That's it. I would have liked to have come up with a nice round number, but just can't do it. There is far far more to like, love and admire than there is to dislike and take exception with, and even the dislikes are part of what made him who he was.
For once, not films, but favourite physical features; an idea kickstarted by Katherine's comment on the Backlash page (that it wouldn't be his throat she'd go for)!
Well, keeping it clean in the spirit of 1950's Hollywood, here are my favourite bits of Mr Richard Widmark.
1. The voice.
Has to be, doesn't it? Deep, resonant, every word laden with meaning, often with those long pauses in between - you could practically listen to him reading the phone book and it'd be wonderful. No wonder he started a successful career in radio drama - and thank goodness a lot of those episodes are still available. Strangely, the voice doesn't seem to fit his physical looks. Last Wagon was the first film of his I watched, and for the first few viewings I was always caught out by how deep his voice was in the first words he spoke - about 20 minutes into the film! And I love the scene in Warlock when Clay Blaisdesdell is talking to Gannon in the deputy's office, just before the expected shoot-out with McQuown. At the end of his talk Blaisdell asks Gannon: You know what I mean, Deputy? And Gannon takes a long time to reply and it's as if his answer is being dredged up from the deepest depths before emerging in a low, deep affirmation: I know. Lots more examples, but let's leave it there.
2. The face
Specifically, cheekbones (wonderful, you could strop a knife on them). Eyes (blue in good light, otherwise slate grey and very dark-looking in the b/w films) but always used to great effect; either hooded and distant, angry, soft with longing or filled with hurt. He could put so much into his eyes, even when he only had one to work with - just look at Alvarez Kelly when Kelly tells him about Liz.
Mouth - I've often thought he had the most perfect mouth, curving into a ready smile or a sinister sneer, but it's let down (IMO) by a too-pendulous lower lip, especially in later age. Apparently in Pickup on South Street they had to do the really smoochy kissing scenes at the unromantic time of nine in the morning. Volunteers for kissing RW at any time of the day, please form an orderly queue ..... I'm sure it'll be a very long one!
As to ears, of course RW was quite deaf; Jean Widmark mentioned in an interview that he'd had a mastoid operation when he was young and it seems to have made his left ear permanently damaged. He was barred from military service in WWII due to a perforated eardrum, but he said in a later interview that in effect, he had a hole in his head and it need to be drained every six months. This must have been pretty nasty - and also painful apparently. Often in movies his character was slapped across the face and he almost got into a fight with Dorothy Malone in Warlock after she slapped his bad ear too often in rehearsal. (I think if they ever recorded that scene it was cut; there's nothing like that in the final film).
If you watch the 'What's my line' episode from 1954, you can see him turn his whole body in order to hear - http://tinyurl.com/pdevvv9
3. Hair
The hair should get a special mention all of its own, as very often it seemed to have a life of its own. Most of the time it was perfectly groomed and barbered and perfectly in place but then something violent would occur and BAM the hair was all over the place in a most engaging way. When Karyl brushes the hair out of his eyes in Backlash I'm sure there's a world of people wanting to do it too. He seems to have had pretty much the same hairstyle through most of his career, though sometimes a bit shorter for the military (Frogmen and Take the High Ground! in particular) and rather longer in later life. There are a few exceptions to the standard hairstyle: Down to the Sea in Ships - I don't know what they did with it; curled it perhaps, cut it short, layered it, I don't know but it looks engagingly cute and helps make him look quite young. Another is Cobweb where it's dyed a most unconvincing grey. When his hair's shorter it looks a lot darker, again, especially so in the b/w films.
4. Hands and feet
He had lovely large, and very expressive hands, with long fingers. Often he'd be poker-faced, either unable to express his anger or reining it in, but his hands would do the talking, clenching and unclenching as if he wanted to thump whoever it was standing in front of him. (Good examples are from Last Wagon and The Trap.) Or, when he was talking about something very personal, he'd look away and pick at something with his finger. (Last Wagon again, Warlock). He played the piano (see Street with no name) andthere's also a nice real-life family photo of him sitting at his piano with his daughter Anne. His hands made it more real, somehow, especially when he's in prison in Backlash and holding the bars; just the way his thumb's upright against the bars makes that moment come alive.
His feet were equally elegant, if far less expressive and far less seen. You get a good shot of the uncovered Widmark foot in Frogmen when he's being treated for coral poisoning and also in The Secret Ways when he's been picked up and taken home by the street girl./informer. I'd like to point out that I don't have a foot fetish, he really did just have rather beautiful feet.
5. Elbow
Yes I know, odd much, but bear with me. It all fits in with the 'being real' thing and it's only in Warlock. Blaisdell's asked Gannon to demonstrate that he can draw, and the camera shot is from his back as he puts the gun away, and then holds his injured hand. Suddenly the elbow shows through the shirt and and it's as if he's just there ....
6. Height
Any biography of RW you read will probably mention that he played football in college despite being the smallest and lightest member of the team, and only making the team through sheer tenacity and determination. As to height, he was 5'10", not exactly short, but not as tall as most of the leading men of the era who tended to top 6' and who were usually dark haired to boot. Being slight and slender nearly lost him his first job in Kiss of Death but Widmark proved that you don't need size to be menacing. I don't think it's accidental that very often his character is surrounded by taller and bigger men, but that he is always the toughest. (Backlash, Alamo and The Law and Jake Wade spring to mind). He famously lost weight during each movie, probably due to the sheer amount of running around he had to do, and none more so than on Night and the City where he lost about two stone during filming. It worked well though, as his next film (No Way Out) featured him as Ray Biddle, a psychotic, violent, racist thug - made more intense by his extreme slenderness. Being on the thin side also adds to his air of vulnerability, particularly in Halls of Montezuma. Widmark kept his figure all through his career and though he put on some weight, he certainly never got fat and he was still fit enough to throw golf clubs around in his last film True Colors in 1991.
7. Shoulders.
He had small shoulders, which again helped make him look small and vulnerable, a look usually set against a very tough-guy character. There's nothing like a tension like that to keep a viewer interested :-) In Westerns the waistcoat showed his frame as it was, whereas the 1950's/contemporary suites had padded or overlarge shoulders that disguised it. You can guess which I prefer.
8. Speed
Damn, that man could move fast. Just look at him stamp on the gun in Law and Jake Wade, or draw first against the badman (Alamo, Clarion Call, Backlash, Death of a Gunfighter ... ) and he had a real intensity too that often broke out in what could seem like nervous movement. Again - Clarion Call or Kiss of Death where he's often practically jigging on the spot at one point. For facial expressions, you can't beat Tunnel of Love where his facial expressions play like sunlight on moving water. Compare with ...
9. Stillness
Amazing, the contrast. I don't think it comes up better than in Backlash where Slater is sitting on the Sheriff's desk and just looking steadily at him. The camera cuts away and then back again, but Widmark hasn't actually moved a muscle; that's not the only example but possibly one of of the best.
The Ebola news has made me think about Elia Kazan’s crackling and moody Panic in the Streets,a 1950 thriller about a deadly bacterium that has entered New Orleans and threatens to spread. On a recent re-viewing, it definitely left me quavering — and gave me a nightmare chill I hadn’t experienced on previous occasions.
Practically the first word we hear is bubonic plague, with visions of skeletons. The bacteria turn out to be pneumonic plague, the pulmonary variant of bubonic plague, discovered in a bullet-ridden male corpse at the docks. Richard Widmark plays the dashing and troubled hero, Lt. Commander Clinton “Clint” Reed. A doctor in the U.S. Public Health Service, Reed is fighting to convince the city brass that any man who touched the victim must be found in 24 hours — or the plague would spread.
The parallels to the Ebola outbreak are creepy: the feeling of helplessness before an unprecedented natural scourge; the concern about finding and quarantining victims; city officials arguing over how to contain it.
The differences between the current situation and the film are enormous, too — no cell phones, no GPS, no omnipresent surveillance cameras and a muzzling of the press (!) embodied by a lone journalist — but not enormous enough to reassure.
The movie begins with a group of lowlife criminals, headed by Jack Palance, playing poker with the sick man — a stowaway into the port whom Palance thinks is cheating them. The man takes his big winnings and staggers out of the room, sweating and stumbling. But his death by fever is preempted when he is gunned down by Palance and his henchmen (Zero Mostel and Guy Thomajan).
At the morgue, the alert coroner — considerably faster on the trigger than the doctors in Dallas — immediately detects the bacteria. Widmark goes into action, conferences are held and the fear begins.
Every time characters touched each other in the movie, I flinched — and there was constant touching in the film. Did Kazan deliberately amp up the physical contact — the back pattings, the in-your-face threats and faux-sympathetic brow-wipings of a menacing Palance (his first film) — to raise the terror level? Or was that just Group Theatre camaraderie?
Kazan, who would go on to direct A Streetcar Named Desire (stage and screen versions), was known for high-intensity performances and emotional naturalism. He discovered Marlon Brandoand James Dean and Warren Beatty.
Widmark, with his slow-burn stubbornness, is a moving figure. Reed is the white knight of a doctor at a time when we believed medicine could cure everything. He has his anxieties, but they are more about low pay and status than professional insecurity. He knows without a quiver of uncertainty the path that must be taken.
Reed’s relationship with police Captain Tom Warren, played by Paul Douglas (also a benign figure, though now we would immediately suspect him), is at the center of the film. They bicker, argue, score one-liners, dismiss and then come to deeply admire one another — the ideal bromance.
The movie’s sense of foreboding is not global, however. The United States is still vast enough, and a world shrunk by air travel is still in the future. When Widmark cries out that it’s now possible to get to any city in 10 hours, he’s thinking primarily about American cities.
His concern, not shared by the local aldermen, dramatizes a familiar movie trope — the social divide between those who represent greed or self-interest versus truth-sayers. This elemental conflict never loses its currency (see Jaws), probably because we often find criminal indifference or self-interest lie at the bottom of many real calamities, including oil spills, dangerously flawed cars and slipshod construction oversight.
The victim, thought to be Armenian or Czech, turns out to be a stowaway who contracted the disease through shish kebob at a Greek restaurant. (Oops, stay away from those for a while). We see how different the situation is today by the characters’ neutrality when considering this point. The words “illegal”and “immigrant,” now a flashpoint for fulminations from both political parties, are never paired. The man is designated a foreigner, with no slur intended.
By contrast, in our current adversarial atmosphere, conservatives have eagerly used the Ebola crisis to raise the specter that Latino immigrants will bring the virus over the U.S. borders.
Unusual for its time, the movie was shot on location in New Orleans, and uses non-acting locals in the cast. It gets its noir credentials — and frisson — from the atmospheric nocturnal cinematography of Joe MacDonald, occasionally relieved by the sunny-through-it-all face of Barbara Bel Geddes as Widmark’s supportive wife. While others are sending their children out of state, she’s blithely unconcerned about her son — confident that her hubby can vanquish the enemy. The troubles that beset them — Widmark’s self-pity, his sense of not being quite man enough — would probably take on a more ominous shading today, hinting at acrimonious future fights, and probably divorce.
Possibly the biggest difference between that era and now is the treatment and perception of the media. The public’s right to know be damned! Kazan’s newspaperman is thrown into jail by Douglas for safekeeping before he can spread the alarm about the plague. Now, however, it’s the media who lead the panic in the streets and living rooms. You can see it 24/7 in their eyes: The unseemly relish with which they report each new crisis and, when the story flags, replay footage with minute variations, finding new twists.
Nor would most of us want it any other way. We are afraid of Ebola — but at the same time, excited, even stimulated by it. We don’t really believe it can happen to us, and it conveniently distracts us from the real problems of ageing and mortality.
PHOTO (TOP): Trailer for 1950 Elia Kazan film, Panic in the Streets. YouTube
PHOTO (INSERT 1): Theatrical release poster for Panic in the Streets. WIKIPEDIA/Commons
PHOTO Screen-capture from Panic in the Streets. City officials meet to discuss how to assure public safety. Richard Widmark plays Dr. Clinton Reed (in uniform on left side of table.).
PHOTO (INSERT): Screen capture of film Panic in the Streets, featuring Zero Mostel (L), Jack Palance (C).
Screen: 'The Long Ships':Widmark and Poitier in Viking Adventure
HOWARD THOMPSON.
Published: June 25, 1964
TAKE it from us, "The Long Ships" is a big one for the eye, if not the mind. With Richard Widmark's Viking raiders and Sidney Poitier's Moorish hordes in bloody combat over a huge, golden bell, this adventure whopper arrived at the Paramount and other theaters yesterday splashing color, gore and enough action to rattle five Westerns. Nobody is going to sleep through this one.
The supreme irony of this Columbia release, photographed along the coast of Yugoslavia, is the stunningly artistic canvas encasing the commotion. From start to finish, the picture is visually rich and tasteful, as the camera scans craggy Norse villages alabaster Moorish facades and, above all the briny course of Mr. Widmark's slim boat, with its dragonhead prow nosing the rugged coastlines. Better still, the director, Jack Cardiff (photographer of "The Red Shoes") often interlaces artistry and action with real sweep and zing. A hollow movie and a loud one — but it moves.
The very tempo, furthermore, cushions the somewhat contemporary edge of the dialogue supplied by Berkely Mather and Beverley Cross, whose harmless adaption of a Frans Bengtsson novel is hardly affecting. As the two wily, warring leaders, Messrs. Widmark and Poitier glare at each other reasonably in surface characterizations laconically returned to the writers (and the audience).
Russ Tamblyn makes a limber sidekick for Mr. Widmark. Oscar Homolka, Edward Judd and Lionel Jeffries are capable sword-swingers themselves. Beba Loncar is a toothsome Nordic princess, and Rossanna Schiaffino, as the Moor's head wife, shares with Mr. Widmark one of the film's most telling conversations. There are few.
In general, Mr. Cardiff takes the picture over the beautifully tinted landscape like a spiked bulldozer. And beware, all, of one hair-raising execution scene — that of a man set astride a "steel mare."
Big, empty, gory—yes. But flavored with a floridly apt musical score, this Irving Allen production simply boils with locomotion, some of it fine movie stuff. Mr. Cardiff's best battle scene is a tingling beach foray, with the Norsemen crouched beside their wrecked boat. And the cliff scene where the bonging bell is gouged from the ruins of a monastery is a sharp, thrilling sight.
"The Long Ships" is not for young or sensitive eyes. It should fill the bill for those who can take it.
The Cast THE LONG SHIPS, screenplay by Berkely Mather and Beverley Cross, based on the novel by Frans Bengtsson; directed by Jack Cardiff; produced by Irving Allen for Warwick Avala Productions; presented by Columbia Pictures. At the Paramount Theater, Broadway and 43d Street; the Murray Hill Theater, 34th Street east of Lexington Avenue; and other theaters. Running time: 125 minutes. Rolfe . . . . . Richard Widmark Aly Mansuh . . . . . Sidney Poitier Orm . . . . . Russ Tamblyn Aminah . . . . . Rosanna Schiaffino Krok . . . . . Oscar Homolka Sven . . . . . Edward Judd Aziz . . . . . Lionel Jeffries Gerda . . . . . Beba Loncar King Harald . . . . . Clifford Evans
