Favorite Films (lists up to participating site members)

[Caligo Umbrator]

Hi, Mayerling.

I'd like to add Sean Connery to your list if I may. He played very much against type in the harrowing 1972 film 'The Offence', which co-stars Trevor Howard. If you haven't seen it I'd certainly commend it to you.

Your, Caligo.

[Pcdunn]

Jeff, why on Earth did you leave out Cary Grant (aka Archibald Leach), born and raised in Bristol, who has appeared in some British films. I know he did go to Hollywood and become a naturalized citizen of the USA, but we shouldn't hold that against him, should we?

[Mayerling]

Leading Men Film Actors (1930 to 2016)

Karl started an interesting thread under "Pub Talk" regarding two photos of the bust of an ancient Roman whom he felt looked like a British male actor of the 1950s and 1960s. I was thinking of British leading men or leading character actors (extending it back to the 1930s and forward to the present) to see which ones are considered the favorite ones. They should be primarily in British films, although some may end up in U.S. movies or in films made in other countries. They can include actors born in former parts of the British Empire or to British people in other parts of the globe or to non-British people, but born or raised in Britain.

My choices are (not actually ranking them):

Laurence Olivier
Kenneth Branagh
Russell Crowe
Trevor Howard
Alec Guinness
Jack Hawkins
Geoffrey Rush
Peter Sellers
Peter O'Toole
Michael Redgrave
Ralph Richardson
John Guilgud
Paul Schofield
Rex Harrison
Richard Burton
John Mills
Dirk Bogarde
Richard Attenborough
Charles Laughton
Jim Broadbent

There are others.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Hi Pat,

If you see "Verdoux" [the sound film Chaplin made between "The Great Dictator" (also based on someone and his gang who can be called great murderers) and "Limelight"] keep in mind that it is set between 1918 and 1933,
whereas the career of Landru was between 1914 and 1918 (then he was arrested and his trial did not occur until 1921-22, when he was found guilty and executed). Chaplin was trying to make a point about Landru, a little murderer (if you will) who kills for profit and the "grand world" of politics, diplomacy, and warfare, where rulers kill millions for aggrandizement. It is a curious point (and not totally original - I have seen a quote from an 18th Century murderer on the scaffold which says the same thing briefly).

However the film is well done, and has a wonderful performance in it by Martha Raye, as a loud woman who won a fortune (by luck) in a lottery, whom Verdoux, in one attempt after another cannot manage to kill (in fact she survives him). There are nice touches in it, including an unnerving segment involving Verdoux's killing of another wife/victim that is without any humor in it at all, but is basically done straight. It is quite unnatural to see this sequence and recall Chaplin is a great comedian. He was also an effective dramatic actor.

It is not the only film based on Landru's career. In 1960 a film called "Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons" starring George Sanders was made in Great Britain, and is set in the correct period (the Great War years), but was reset to be in Britain in that period. I don't see why, as Sanders (with his wonderful speaking voice) had played French characters in films like "This Land is Mine" and "Bel Ami". He even played the criminal turned detective genius Vidocq in Douglas Sirk's "A Scandal in Paris" (1944). There was a French film called "Landru" that was made in the 1960s as well..

If I can suggest a good spot to begin on reading up on Landru, start with William Bolitho's classic criminal history colleciont of essays, "Murder For Profit", which comprises of essays on Burke and Hare, Troppmann, George Joseph Smith, Landru, and Haarmann, each of which shows Bolitho's ability to somehow bring the killings into their particular periods of history (Edinburgh in the 1820s; Napoleon III's Second Empire in it's seedy last years of the 1860s;
Edwardian / Georgian England of the pre-Great War period; France in the heart of the Great War; and post - Great War Germany, with it's financial and social collapse). The whole book remains a great read. Bolitho (who died prematurely in 1930) would write a similar type of book, "Twelve Against the Gods" about various historical figures in a variety of periods. He had been a newspaper reporter, and covered Landru's trial.

Interestingly enough, Bolitho had wanted to do (in his original scheme) a sixth essay that he never did. If his work on it were still around it might prove very interesting. In his last section he claims his choice of killers were the bottom of the barrel - the worst murderers of the many he lists who were the worst in the two hundred years of the social world he grew up with. The sixth one he could not include was "Jack the Ripper" because of a lack of adequate documation on background (i.e., youth and pre-murder career), and other matters he does not mention. My suspicion is that as in one way or another the killers he documented murdered for the purpose of getting some financial profit one way or another (in Haarmann's case, utilizing the victim's corpses for sale of meat to hungry citizens in his native Hannover), the lack of information on Jack would have included no way of knowing if he got any personal financial gain from his killings. If something like that ever actually was shown, it would be proof of identity.

Jeff

[Pcdunn]

The incident is mentioned in Chaplin's Autobiography, as is his walking by the home of a family that was murdered by one Edgar Edwards, who found this a novel way of acquiring property for sale purposes. Agains Chaplin felt queasy while staring at the house (the killings had not yet been uncovered).

Chaplin, of course, played the French wife murderer "Monsieur Verdoux" in 1946, which was based on French wife murderer Henri Desire Landru.

Jeff

Perhaps Chaplin had a bit of a sixth sense about murderers.

Landru is another name I've encountered hanging around these forums, yet know very little about. May need to look up that movie.

My favorite biographical film about Charlie Chaplin is "Chaplin" starring Robert Downey, Jr. Highly recommended to those who think Downey can only play superheroes in iron flying suits.

[GUT]

How about this one of Charlie

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZX6TUsuUQo

[Aldebaran]

Chaplin, of course, played the French wife murderer "Monsieur Verdoux" in 1946, which was based on French wife murderer Henri Desire Landru.Jeff

That's right! I've seen that one, too, but forgot all about it.

[Mayerling]

Hi Jeff

I think it was during their 1954 tour.

Thanks Robert, I believe you are right.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

This talk of old actors reminds me of this: In a series called "Murder Maps", I believe still playing on Netflix, various 19th Century homicides of England are profiled. One villain is our old friend, alias George Chapman, whose wife was dying of poison in a room above the pub that Chapman was operating. Charlie Chaplin, just a lad at the time, went into the pub and asked Chapman for a glass of water. He got it but, for some reason, couldn't bring himself to drink it. Presumably, there was something about Chapman that bothered young Charlie. BTW, I love the film "Limelight" with Chaplin and Claire Bloom.

The incident is mentioned in Chaplin's Autobiography, as is his walking by the home of a family that was murdered by one Edgar Edwards, who found this a novel way of acquiring property for sale purposes. Agains Chaplin felt queasy while staring at the house (the killings had not yet been uncovered).

Chaplin, of course, played the French wife murderer "Monsieur Verdoux" in 1946, which was based on French wife murderer Henri Desire Landru.

Jeff

[Robert]

Hi Jeff

I think it was during their 1954 tour.

[Aldebaran]

This talk of old actors reminds me of this: In a series called "Murder Maps", I believe still playing on Netflix, various 19th Century homicides of England are profiled. One villain is our old friend, alias George Chapman, whose wife was dying of poison in a room above the pub that Chapman was operating. Charlie Chaplin, just a lad at the time, went into the pub and asked Chapman for a glass of water. He got it but, for some reason, couldn't bring himself to drink it. Presumably, there was something about Chapman that bothered young Charlie. BTW, I love the film "Limelight" with Chaplin and Claire Bloom.

[MrBarnett]

Ha! He was very good, wasn't he.

He was.

[Mayerling]

An English ventriloquist called Ray Alan told the story of how as a very young man he'd appeared in the same show as Stan and Ollie. He was near the bottom of the bill so his room was near the top of the building. One evening there was a knock on his door and Ollie came in. Ollie asked him if he'd please sign his book, explaining that he asked all the people he worked with to sign it. The thing that struck Alan was that he himself was a comparative nobody, and yet Ollie, whose health was none too good, had walked up all the stairs with his bad legs just to get his autograph.

It must have been around 1948 when Stan and Ollie did a tour of the British Isles that was very well received.

I just watched the YouTube video from 1986 - and it is very funny.

Jeff

[Robert]

Ha! He was very good, wasn't he.

[MrBarnett]

An English ventriloquist called Ray Alan told the story of how as a very young man he'd appeared in the same show as Stan and Ollie. He was near the bottom of the bill so his room was near the top of the building. One evening there was a knock on his door and Ollie came in. Ollie asked him if he'd please sign his book, explaining that he asked all the people he worked with to sign it. The thing that struck Alan was that he himself was a comparative nobody, and yet Ollie, whose health was none too good, had walked up all the stairs with his bad legs just to get his autograph.

Don't, tell me, Rob, when Alan picked up his pen, Ollie said, 'I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to His Lordship.'

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Zn3M-WMzM