http://newcritics.disqus.com/the best in web criticismenSun, 02 Aug 2009 07:34:14 -0000http://newcritics.com/blog1/2008/04/06/brad-braden-all-man/#comment-13806152<p>"The Agony and the Ecstasy during Easter week one year-was virility and passion incarnate" talking about masculinity!</p>virilitySun, 02 Aug 2009 07:34:14 -0000http://newcritics.com/blog1/2008/04/06/brad-braden-all-man/#comment-1384440<p>Marabunta! I am with you on The Naked Jungle. As you say, great electricity between the two. (Thanks for pointing out my Powell/Parker name confusion, which has been corrected.)</p>M.A. PeelMon, 07 Apr 2008 23:50:46 -0000http://newcritics.com/blog1/2008/04/06/brad-braden-all-man/#comment-1384439<p>Sad his death. I am no movie critic, but I just want to comment that he played a nice variety of roles. Near the beginning of today's Washington Post obituary, they say, "Rarely a doubter, never a coward, inconceivable as a shirker, he played men of granite virtue no matter the epoch." However the was a doubter (and changed his views) in the two movies of his I am particularly fond of -- "The Naked Jungle" (co-starring beautiful Eleanor Parker) and "The Big Country" (co-starring Gregory Peck). In the latter he spent most of his time belittling Peck's character; changed that view at the end. In "The Naked Jungle," which is very entertaining (it's the one where he is a South American jungle plantation owner fighting a vast army of red army ants), he has some memorable, risque scenes with Parker that are at odds with his 100% heroic, always right image. I heartedly recommend the movie. He plays the plantation owner who has spent his whole life fighting the jungle to build his plantation. He is the only white person in the area, and it is mentioned that it was "taboo" to cohabit with the native women. So he ordered a mail-order bride (who turned out to be Parker). Anyway, the great scene that I, a boy then, will always remember is the great electricity between him and Parker when he is crushed to find out that she is not a virgin (was married to a man who committed suicide). Earlier he had been bragging that all the furnishings of his plantation were brand new imports, such as his piano. Parker throws this comment back in his face -- that many things like pianos are better having been used a lot, and that his new piano (that he was so proud of) was a bad piano. Obviously, being a virgin himself, he felt uncomfortable --to say the least-- with the more experienced Parker. Eventually he came around, of course.</p>Robert EisenstadtMon, 07 Apr 2008 02:22:20 -0000