|
|
 |
|
THE ESSENTIAL FILMS TO APPRECIATE THE NEWMAN LEGACY |
 Paul Newman's best performance on film was in Sidney Lumet's 1982 legal drama about a tarnished lawyer in search of redemption. |
 Joanne Woodward with husband Paul Newman. She gave her greatest performance under his direction in "Rachel, Rachel," the 1968 film in which he made his debut as a movie director. |
 Newman, right, with Robert Redford in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," their 1969 western adventure epic that made them the greatest "buddy team" of the decade. |
 Newman as the older Fast Eddie Felson from "The Hustler" Newman won his only Best Actor Oscar in this 1986 film by Martin Scorsese. |
Newman's film legacy: Diverse and Artful
of TheColumnists.com
Because he kept working into his 80s, taking lots of small, featured roles in his last two decades, I think maybe we all started taking Paul Newman a little bit too much for granted as an actor, forgetting how large and impressive a legacy he was building along the way.
For many young moviegoers, for instance, I believe his work is overlooked. He didn't wind up in the sci-fi films and comic book adventures young people dote on today. His westerns may be ignored by the young because that genre seems outmoded and old-fashioned to them. His films as a director aren't shown much today and even some of his most iconic roles in films like "Cool Hand Luke" or "The Hustler" may not resonate with the new generation. Maybe they know him only for his cameo-sized supporting roles in films like "The Road to Perdition," which was based on a graphic novel and starred Tom Hanks, an icon of the younger generation.
But I'm willing to believe young people would react positively to such great films as "Hud," "Somebody Up There Likes Me" or "Sometimes A Great Notion," if somebody could just tie them to kitchen chairs, prop their eyes open with toothpicks and make them sit still long enough to watch a master actor at work.
For my generation, it's a no-brainer. Newman came into movies in the 1950s along with the Marlon Brandos, Charlton Hestons, George C. Scotts and other theater-trained actors who represented a new cutting edge in acting. Newman worked extensively in early live television and quite a few of his early, earnest performances still exist in muted kinescope recordings of those old dramas. When he finally made his movie debut as a handsome hunk in a toga in "The Silver Chalice" in 1954, all of us young movie fans already knew he'd be doing a lot more exciting stuff in years to come.
For those who either want a refresher course in Paul Newman or don't know his work and want to see him at his very best, I've put together a string of "must see" Newman performances, arranged in chronilogical order below:
1. "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956) is the true story of prizefighter Rocky Graziano, who slugged his way from the streets of New York to a world championship back in the days when every other contender was a ring legend. Directed by Robert Wise, who already had made one of the best boxing movies of all time--"The Set-Up" with Robert Ryan--got a bravura performance out of Newman. The film also features the screen debut of another future film idol, Steve McQueen, and a screenplay by Alfred Hitchcock's favorite, Ernest Lehman.
2. "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" (1958) was the first film version of the scorching Tennessee Williams stageplay about a dominant, dying father named Big Daddy (Burl Ives) and the disappointments of his handsome son, Brick (Newman), whose new wife, Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor), is a barn-burner of sexuality. At the time, Newman and Taylor were the hottest imaginable team on the screen and they delivered incandescent performances. Richard Brooks directed.
 |
 |
 |
Elizabeth Taylor in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof;" upper right, Newman in "The Hustler"; left, Newman gives it the cool, hot look in the ad for "Hud." |
3. "The Hustler" (1961) was a grim, black and white drama about the damaging effects of unrestrained ambition by young pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson (Newman) as he gropes for the top, finally taking on the renowned master of the game, "Minnesota Fats" (Jackie Gleason). The performances by Newman, Gleason, Piper Laurie as Newman's crippled girl friend and then little known George C. Scott are awesome. This is a classic film noir, based on the tight little novel by Walter Tevis ("The Man Who Fell To Earth.") Directed by the gifted Robert Rossen ("All the King's Men").
4. "Hud" (1963) presented Newman with his most riveting, but nastiest role to date as the restless and often mean-spirited son of an aging rancher (Melvyn Douglas). Newman's Hud represented a whole generation of young men boiling up in the 1960s, sick of the old ways, eager to make their mark, but struggling to find out their real destiny in life. Patricia Neal, as the ranch housekeeper, won the Best Actress Oscar and Douglas took the Best Supporting Actor trophy. An Oscar also went to the immortal cinematographer James Wong Howe for his dark, somber, realistic rendering of the stark story and setting. Based on the novel "Horseman Pass By" by Larry McMurtry ("The Last Picture Show," "Terms of Endearment," "Lonesome Dove.")
5. "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) cast Newman as a prison camp inmate in the South who becomes the hero of his fellow prisoners, challenging authority much the way Jack Nicholson does in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"--and, likewise, suffering a symbolic crucifixion along the way. George Kennedy won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as a fellow inmate. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
6. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) is one of the most seductive westerns of all time, starring Newman and Robert Redford as the two outlaws of the title, having a grand old time robbing banks on their way to their final comeuppance. Just about all the really hot talent of the 1960s came to work on this film and gave their best--screenwriter William Goldman, cinematographer Conrad Hall, composer Burt Bacharach (whose "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" became a huge hit record), all winning Oscars. Katharine Ross, who made most young American men fall in love with her in 1967's "The Graduate," was also on hand, co-starring with Newman and Redford. Director was George Roy Hill.
7. "Sometimes A Great Notion" (1971) was not a box office success, but it's a film that bears re-screening because of its great performances by Henry Fonda, Newman, Lee Remick and especially Richard Jaeckel in this story of a stubborn modern family in Oregon logging country. Based on the novel by Ken Kesey and directed by Newman himself.
8. "The Sting" (1973) was the Oscar-winning picture of 1973 and its famous for re-uniting Newman and Robert Redford in yet another happy-go-lucky caper movie directed by George Roy Hill. This time they're two very daring con men trying to scam the Chicago gambling bosses. Newman and Redford give great serio-comic performances and the supporting work by Eileen Brennan, Robert Shaw and Charles Durning is magical. The film won seven Oscars and was a box office smash.
9. "The Verdict" (1982) contains my all-time favorite performance by Newman, this time as a disillusioned Boston lawyer who has sold out so many times that he barely remembers why it bothers him. He finally gets a chance for the redemption of his soul with a medical negligence case he desperately wants to win--for all the right reasons. He is absolutely flawless and without any of the mannerisms many of his performances had taken on over the years. Equally good is James Mason as an evil adversary. Directed by Sidney Lumet with a screenplay by David Mamet.
10. "The Color of Money" (1986) was the long-awaited sequel to "The Hustler," this time bringing back Fast Eddie (Newman) as the mentor to a young pool hustler (Tom Cruise) who reminds him, uncannily, of himself at the same age. Newman and Cruise work superbly with each other under Martin Scorsese's direction in this wholly satisfying ending to the story of the tortured young hustler of a quarter century earlier.
©2008 by Ron Miller. This column first posted Sept. 29, 2008.
TO ACCESS RON MILLER'S ARCHIVE OF COLUMNS
ON THIS SITE, CLICK HERE: MILLER
ARCHIVE
You can comment
on this column online. Please address your message to either
"The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click
here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|