Wow, that's great you got to meet him, Tom. And what a nice post you wrote here, in his honor. It's great.
Canid
· 2 years ago
Tom, I'm so glad you listed *In Harm's Way*! One of my favorite Kirk Douglas movies, and it's too often dissed at a seagoing soap opera or whatever. Douglas is excellent, as is John Wayne, and Pat Neal is totally hot.
Tom Watson
· 2 years ago
Yeah, though a black and white 50s war yarn - that flick drips with sex and violence - south pacific war noir. And Wayne is excellent, you're right - it's in the portion of his films where his character has some depth. Douglas, though, with his twisted, represessed hatred in the movie steals the show.
Viscount LaCarte
· 2 years ago
I have to echo BG's comments - what a great tribute. I already liked him, and hearing the story about him de-blacklisting Trumbo only increases my respect.
Paths of Glory is not only my favorite Kirk Douglas film - it also consistently makes my top 10 list of all-time favorites.
Excuse me while I go make some additions to my Neflix rental queue.
Dan Leo
· 2 years ago
Just about the last of the old school stars. One thing that makes a star: Is he or she one of a kind? Kirk was that, like Mitchum, like Wayne, like Stanwyck, like Bette Davis, like Glenn Ford for Christ's sake.
And by the way his autobio, "The Ragman's Son", totally rocks. He had a great anecdote in there about John Wayne taking him aside after a screening of "Lust For Life" and saying something like, "Kirk, what are ya doin' playing a weakling like Van Gogh? We're supposed to be tough guys!"
Some other good ones:
Seven Days in May Last Train From Gun Hill The Bad and the Beautiful Man Without a Star Champion Out of the Past The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
They don't even make titles like most of these any more.
Self Styled Siren
· 2 years ago
Don't forget A Letter to Three Wives (he got the biggest laugh of the picture, when I saw it, by correcting the grammar of a Philistine radio boss). And Two Weeks in Another Town, which film blogger Girish also admires. You can read that one as a sort of sequel to The Bad and the Beautiful.
He is such an intense actor that at times he is almost feral, and he occasionally would overdo it. (He was also famous for driving directors and costars batty.) But I look at the movies we're all listing here, and few actors can boast of such a wide-ranging and superlative filmography.
And kudos to him for still speaking out about the blacklist. There is a worrisome effort to rehabilitate the blacklist these days, and it is good that we still have people who, like Douglas, lived through it and are still willing to remind us of what it was.
Tom Kissane
· 2 years ago
Three points:
1. Kirk Douglas had a fine acting career: not the most versatile of actors, but forecful and distinctive.
2. He was right to insist on Trumbo getting the screen credit he deserved. Trumbo was a gifted writer, and there is no reason that anyone should be excluded from the entertainment industry based on their politics.
3. Trumbo was a communist, and blatently insincere in using his gifts as propaganda for Moscow. He wrote the famous anti-war book "Johnny Got his Gun", during the brief interval of the Russo-German pact, when the party line was anti-war. One Hitler invaded Russia, he was just as strenuously pro-war.
4. There was a disproportion of people like that in Hollywood at the time. The blacklist was wrong, I believe, but there was nothing wrong, in my view, in letting people know the agendas of those who are telling them their stories.
Tom Kissane
· 2 years ago
Hmmmm. Come to think of it, that's four points, isn't it. Or more, if you look beyond the numbering.
You oughta have a preview/edit feature on this site, like on the Tom W blog, to protect people like me from themselves.
"Trumbo was ... and blatently insincere in using his gifts as propaganda for Moscow."
Tom Kissane
· 2 years ago
Try the sentence following the proposition in my post where the charge is made. I don't mean that he wasn't sincere in his pro-Moscow feeling: I mean he was insincere in using his gifts to summon powerful anti-war sentiments when that was the line from Mosocow, and doing a complete 180 on the subject when the Soviet line changed.
George Orwell has written a great deal on this phenomenon, which unfolded before his eyes to his obvious dismay. (Though, to my knowledge, he hasn't written about Trumbo specifically.)
Tom Kissane
· 2 years ago
I should add, I didn't mean the charge to extend to all his career or work. I was focusing on that particular incident. I am agonstic as to the extent to which he functioned as a propogandist for Moscow apart from that: though I would argue that, having done so once, he fairly opened himself to inquiry, by those inclined to inquire about such things (particularly those outside of govt.), as to whether he was doing so subsequently.
Kit Stolz
· 2 years ago
In today's LATimes, a Tinseltown correspondent named Patrick Goldstein interviews a Hollywood veteran named Mel Shaverson, who happens to tell a wonderful anecdote about Kirk Douglas:
"Shavelson and Kirk Douglas fought so incessantly during the making of "Cast a Giant Shadow" that Shavelson at one point walked off the set, letting his assistant shoot the film for a day. After the film was released, Douglas sent Shavelson a letter, which still hangs on the wall of his office. "Mel, I think it was a good picture," it reads. "It could have been better if I had paid more attention to you."
Shavelson says he shares blame for their clashes. "It was very tough to argue with Kirk because he was very intelligent and very often he was right. He had to be the boss and I had to be the director, and there's no in-between ground.'"
There will never be another as good as Kirk Douglas.. He has done well with his children.. I wish him well, and we were so glad to hear his interview on television.. what a great man.. You were so lucky to meet him. Wish we all had the opportunity to know him personally.
phone credit card processing
· 2 months ago
Yeah, though a black and white 50s war yarn - that flick drips with sex and violence - south pacific war noir. And Wayne is excellent, you're right - it's in the portion of his films where his character has some depth. Douglas, though, with his twisted, represessed hatred in the movie steals the show.
All Comments
Paths of Glory is not only my favorite Kirk Douglas film - it also consistently makes my top 10 list of all-time favorites.
Excuse me while I go make some additions to my Neflix rental queue.
And by the way his autobio, "The Ragman's Son", totally rocks. He had a great anecdote in there about John Wayne taking him aside after a screening of "Lust For Life" and saying something like, "Kirk, what are ya doin' playing a weakling like Van Gogh? We're supposed to be tough guys!"
Some other good ones:
Seven Days in May
Last Train From Gun Hill
The Bad and the Beautiful
Man Without a Star
Champion
Out of the Past
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
They don't even make titles like most of these any more.
He is such an intense actor that at times he is almost feral, and he occasionally would overdo it. (He was also famous for driving directors and costars batty.) But I look at the movies we're all listing here, and few actors can boast of such a wide-ranging and superlative filmography.
And kudos to him for still speaking out about the blacklist. There is a worrisome effort to rehabilitate the blacklist these days, and it is good that we still have people who, like Douglas, lived through it and are still willing to remind us of what it was.
1. Kirk Douglas had a fine acting career: not the most versatile of actors, but forecful and distinctive.
2. He was right to insist on Trumbo getting the screen credit he deserved. Trumbo was a gifted writer, and there is no reason that anyone should be excluded from the entertainment industry based on their politics.
3. Trumbo was a communist, and blatently insincere in using his gifts as propaganda for Moscow. He wrote the famous anti-war book "Johnny Got his Gun", during the brief interval of the Russo-German pact, when the party line was anti-war. One Hitler invaded Russia, he was just as strenuously pro-war.
4. There was a disproportion of people like that in Hollywood at the time. The blacklist was wrong, I believe, but there was nothing wrong, in my view, in letting people know the agendas of those who are telling them their stories.
You oughta have a preview/edit feature on this site, like on the Tom W blog, to protect people like me from themselves.
I'd like more substantation of this charge:
"Trumbo was ... and blatently insincere in using his gifts as propaganda for Moscow."
George Orwell has written a great deal on this phenomenon, which unfolded before his eyes to his obvious dismay. (Though, to my knowledge, he hasn't written about Trumbo specifically.)
"Shavelson and Kirk Douglas fought so incessantly during the making of "Cast a Giant Shadow" that Shavelson at one point walked off the set, letting his assistant shoot the film for a day. After the film was released, Douglas sent Shavelson a letter, which still hangs on the wall of his office. "Mel, I think it was a good picture," it reads. "It could have been better if I had paid more attention to you."
Shavelson says he shares blame for their clashes. "It was very tough to argue with Kirk because he was very intelligent and very often he was right. He had to be the boss and I had to be the director, and there's no in-between ground.'"
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et...