Belated Thursday Great Acting Blogging: Jose Ferrer and Dan Duryea
Two character actors in classic Hollywood that were true artists and bold explorers of the dark side of humanity: Dan Duryea and Jose Ferrer. Both highly cultured and well-educated (Duryea at Cornell, Ferrer at Princeton), both stuffed into character roles that they worked for all those roles were worth, both true class acts. Ferrer is a overlooked director, too - I particularly like his The High Cost of Loving and Great Man. Duryea is the forgotten "Other" of film noir and Anthony Mann, without which our Jimmy Stewart or our Ray Milland or our Burt Lancaster play off of. If you can find it, seek out Paul Wendkos' film version of David Goodis' novel The Burglar, where Duryea got a rare chance to star (Jayne Mansfield's....uh, "talents", don't hurt either).
posted by Alex | 7:02 PM
2 Comments:
Duryea was, in retrospect, one of the best things about Too Late for Tears and I regret giving him such short shrift in my blog post about that movie. He manages to show a guy who's a terrifyingly violent thug, but has real vulnerability and a bizarre kind of romantic center. He does essentially the same thing in Criss-Cross, and it's equally amazing.
He's also great in Black Angel, my favorite Cornell Woolrich adaptation. Duryea and the film convey both the seedy noir and the doomed romanticism of Woolrich.
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