Richard Widmark may have come in towards the end of film noir, but the other great names of that genre didn't just disappear. Like him, as film changed, they changed, taking on other roles in other genres, some fitting to their previous work and characters, and some not. The degree of success may have been down to audience appreciation as much as their own adaptability.
Take, for example, Lee Cobb. The first time I came across him was as Mafia-type gangster Masionetti in The Trap, a part for which he was perfectly cast. But in a previous existence he also starred in one of the more well-known noir films Boomerang, based on a true story, and (rather ironically for anyone who knows him best as a gangster) he played the cop. Not only that, but his hair was an improbable, wavy, blond. Cobb was a big fellow, a heavyweight, with a raspy bass voice and so, like Widmark, he could play either a rough good guy or a real bad guy and do either with conviction. The only oddity was that hair colour!
Another such was Gary Merrill. I saw him first in what was to become my favourite war film - The Frogmen starring Richard Widmark as the UDT specialist and a real martinet, a stickler for the rules and for discipline, no matter what the cost. Merrill in that film was a real nice guy, an older man with far more experience, willing to extend a degree of leniency rather than harsh enforcement of Navvy rules and regs. In Frogmen, he seems far older than Widmark's young Commander Lawrence - though in reality they were nearly the same age - in fact Merrill was the slightly younger man. But see him in the noir classic Where the Sidewalk Ends and you see a very different character; a real Mafia type shyster, a gambler, a chancer. Someone in fact, rather reminiscent of some of Widmark's occasional roles...
Last but not least, a mention for the only lady to feature in two very well known noirs; Gene Tierney. She appeared in Where the Sidewalk Ends and also had a fairly major role in Widmark's most famous noir Night and the City, being given another chance by director Jules Dassin as she was by then already showing signs of the depression which would haunt her throughout the late 1950s. But she made a lot of films, from 1940 through to the 1960s. She was a beautiful woman with a lovely singing voice and deserves to be remembered.
Take, for example, Lee Cobb. The first time I came across him was as Mafia-type gangster Masionetti in The Trap, a part for which he was perfectly cast. But in a previous existence he also starred in one of the more well-known noir films Boomerang, based on a true story, and (rather ironically for anyone who knows him best as a gangster) he played the cop. Not only that, but his hair was an improbable, wavy, blond. Cobb was a big fellow, a heavyweight, with a raspy bass voice and so, like Widmark, he could play either a rough good guy or a real bad guy and do either with conviction. The only oddity was that hair colour!
Another such was Gary Merrill. I saw him first in what was to become my favourite war film - The Frogmen starring Richard Widmark as the UDT specialist and a real martinet, a stickler for the rules and for discipline, no matter what the cost. Merrill in that film was a real nice guy, an older man with far more experience, willing to extend a degree of leniency rather than harsh enforcement of Navvy rules and regs. In Frogmen, he seems far older than Widmark's young Commander Lawrence - though in reality they were nearly the same age - in fact Merrill was the slightly younger man. But see him in the noir classic Where the Sidewalk Ends and you see a very different character; a real Mafia type shyster, a gambler, a chancer. Someone in fact, rather reminiscent of some of Widmark's occasional roles...
Last but not least, a mention for the only lady to feature in two very well known noirs; Gene Tierney. She appeared in Where the Sidewalk Ends and also had a fairly major role in Widmark's most famous noir Night and the City, being given another chance by director Jules Dassin as she was by then already showing signs of the depression which would haunt her throughout the late 1950s. But she made a lot of films, from 1940 through to the 1960s. She was a beautiful woman with a lovely singing voice and deserves to be remembered.
