The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (155 page)

There was a refreshing comic edge in
Red Dust
(32, Victor Fleming, a Gable buddy). He played with Jean Harlow there for the first time and he was her most natural screen partner (as well as her lover at the Château Marmont). In
No Man of Her Own
(32, Wesley Ruggles), he played with Carole Lombard, who would become his third wife in 1939. He was opposite Norma Shearer in the Eugene O’Neill adaptation
Strange Interlude
(32, Leonard). He was also in
The White Sister
(33, Fleming);
Night Flight
(33, Brown), a notable failure; and with Crawford in
Dancing Lady
(33, Leonard).

He was fighting Metro for better roles. But he was having to defend a disordered private life. Then he killed a woman in a drunk driving accident. While a Metro executive took the blame and went to jail, Gable was loaned out to Columbia for what became
It Happened One Night
(34, Frank Capra). He was unhappy about the deal, but the comedy warmed him up, he changed the nation’s ideas about undershirts, and he got an Oscar. So somehow Metro had to reappraise their wild boy.

These were the years of his greatest fame and ease: he seemed to love making movies, and his smile became an institution: a doctor in
Men in White
(34, Richard Boleslavsky); sparring with William Powell in
Manhattan Melodrama
(34, W. S. Van Dyke)—the last film seen by Dillinger; with Crawford once more in
Chained
(34, Brown) and
Forsaking All Others
(34, Van Dyke);
After Office Hours
(35, Leonard); doing Jack London with Loretta Young in
Call of the Wild
(35, Wellman); as Fletcher Christian (nominated for an Oscar) in
Mutiny on the Bounty
(35, Frank Lloyd);
China Seas
(35, Tay Garnett);
Wife vs. Secretary
(36, Brown); with Spencer Tracy in
San Francisco
(36, Van Dyke); with Crawford in
Love On the Run
(36, Van Dyke); with Marion Davies in
Cain and Mabel
(36, Lloyd Bacon); in the flop
Parnell
(37, John M. Stahl); with Harlow—who died in the middle of filming—in
Saratoga
(37, Conway); with Tracy and Loy in
Test Pilot
(38, Fleming);
Too Hot to Handle
(38, Conway); and
Idiot’s Delight
(39, Brown).

Gable was no keener to make
Gone With the Wind
(39, Fleming) than he had been to do
It Happened One Night
. But Selznick was prepared to trade away distribution rights for Gable and some cash, and in years to come that became the controlling rights in the film. Gable would not do a Southern accent for Rhett Butler, and he turned up late so that George Cukor had begun to cultivate and favor the bloom of Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett. Gable was not happy with Cukor, and he let that be known. But Cukor was fired because the film was going badly, and slowly. His replacement was Vic Fleming, and that helped accelerate and rebalance the film. Rhett was always secondary to Scarlett, but Gable made him the best-liked character in the film. His last words, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” made men proud and women agitated. Yet he was one of the few people on
Wind
who missed an Oscar.

Back at MGM, he made
Strange Cargo
(40, Frank Borzage), escaping from a penal colony, with Crawford;
Boom Town
(40, Conway), with Colbert and Tracy;
Comrade X
(40, King Vidor), with Hedy Lamarr;
They Met in Bombay
(41, Brown);
Honky Tonk
(41, Conway), with Lana Turner—the next generation of actresses;
Somewhere I’ll Find You
(42, Ruggles), in which he and Turner play war correspondents. This run of films after
Gone With the Wind
hardly befitted a national idol, and they began Gable’s decline. The death of Carole Lombard in a plane crash, in 1942, was an extra burden: Gable seemed sadder all of a sudden and once merriment left his smile, age set in. He joined the Army Air Corps and though there were stories about his war being all for show, he did do work for Army Intelligence.

But he was never the same again. The pictures that followed the war were lackluster, and Gable hardly seemed to realize that for the public he was still a great star. It may help explain what happened to see that as Gable sank so Bogart came into his own. Gable was with Greer Garson in
Adventure
(45, Fleming); trying to preserve his integrity in
The Hucksters
(47, Conway)—once upon a time Gable’s integrity had been natural and as quick as the grin;
Homecoming
(48, Mervyn Le Roy);
Command Decision
(49, Sam Wood);
Any Number Can Play
(49, Le Roy);
Key to the City
(50, George Sidney);
To Please a Lady
(50, Brown);
Across the Wide Missouri
(51, Wellman);
Lone Star
(51, Vincent Sherman);
Never Let Me Go
(53, Delmer Daves);
Mogambo
(53, John Ford), an enjoyable remake of
Red Dust;
and
Betrayed
(54, Gottfried Reinhardt), his last picture at MGM.

He moved to Fox, first for
Soldier of Fortune
(55, Edward Dmytryk) and then for one of his best pictures,
The Tall Men
(55, Raoul Walsh)—he hadn’t looked so relaxed for years. Two more with Walsh followed, contented reminiscences of Gable’s own past—
The King and Four Queens
(56) and
Band of Angels
(57). But after a conventional war picture,
Run Silent, Run Deep
(58, Robert Wise), he became trapped in flat comedies—
Teacher’s Pet
(58, George Seaton) and
It Started in Naples
(60, Melville Shavelson)—with yet another generation of female stars, Doris Day and Sophia Loren.

His last film,
The Misfits
(60, John Huston), with Marilyn Monroe, gave him the chance for a tender, veteran cowboy. He was brave and patient in the heat of Nevada, waiting for Monroe and doing tough scenes with horses. He had a fatal heart attack shortly thereafter, just before the birth of his only son by a fifth wife. Thus he never saw
The Misfits
or the look on Monroe’s face, radiant at being with so huge a star.

Sir Michael Gambon
, b. Dublin, 1940
“The Great Gambon” (it was Ralph Richardson’s label) has a renown these days not much short of that of Laurence Olivier (the man who hired him in to the National Theatre). In truth, Gambon is a more honest actor on stage, deeper maybe, and with a great baritone voice. He has played Lear and Volpone, yet he took the lead in David Hare’s modern
Skylight
, too. In movies, he seems capable of anything: he clearly relishes the Olivier-like range of a master impersonator. But he has not yet delivered the towering performance, such as was threatened in
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
(89, Peter Greenaway), a movie where his power is simply terrifying.

He is Irish, and often leans towards Irish projects—he has done two Elizabeth Bowen novels—and he is still content to do quite modest pieces on British television, as well as a rich LBJ for
Path to War
(02, John Frankenheimer). It’s all very well to be an institution, but he still needs one or two classical structures.

One of his first notable TV works was in
Eyeless in Gaza
(71, James Cellan Jones), and other TV pieces included
Cows
(72, John Gorrie);
Catholics
(73, Jack Gold);
Tiptoe Through the Tulips
(76, Claude Whatham); and
Forbidden Passion: Oscar Wilde
(76, Henry Herbert) before his breakthrough, as Philip Marlowe in Dennis Potter’s
The Singing Detective
(86, Jon Amiel).

After that, he was Pastor Manders in
Ghosts
(86, Elijah Moshinsky);
Paris by Night
(88, David Hare);
The Rachel Papers
(89, Damian Harris);
A Dry White Season
(89, Euzhan Palcy);
The Heat of the Day
(89, Christopher Morahan); a villain al dente in
Mobsters
(91, Michael Karbelnikoff); as Inspector Maigret in a BBC series;
Clean Slate
(94, Mick Jackson);
The Browning Version
(94, Mike Figgis);
A Man of No Importance
(94, Suri Krishnamma);
Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale
(94, Xavier Koller);
Two Deaths
(95, Nicolas Roeg);
Nothing Personal
(95, Thaddeus O’Sullivan);
The Innocent Sleep
(96, Scott Michell).

He was the very nasty father to
Mary Reilly
(96, Stephen Frears);
Samson and Delilah
(96, Roeg);
Midnight in St. Petersburg
(97, Douglas Jackson);
The Wings of the Dove
(97, Iain Softley); as Dostoyevsky in
The Gambler
(97, Károly Makk);
Dancing at Lughnasa
(98, Pat O’Connor);
Plunkett
& Macleane
(99, Jake Scott);
The Last September
(99, Deborah Warner); a voice in
Le Château des Singes
(99, Jean-François Laguionie).

He was a lovely, languid Virginian cigarette baron in
The Insider
(99, Michael Mann);
Sleepy Hollow
(99, Tim Burton);
Longitude
(00, Charles Sturridge);
Endgame
(00, Conor McPherson);
Gosford Park
(01, Robert Altman);
Charlotte Gray
(01, Gillian Armstrong);
Ali G Indahouse
(02, Mark Mylod); as Edward VII in
The Lost Prince
(03, Stephen Poliakoff);
The Actors
(03, McPherson);
Open Range
(03, Kevin Costner);
Sylvia
(03, Christine Jeffs);
Angels in America
(03, Mike Nichols); and succeeding Richard Harris as Dumbledore in
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(04, Alfonso Cuarón).

And so it seems to have occurred to Gambon that more filmwork would serve his pension better than new things onstage. So he works a lot: in a short,
Standing Room Only
(04, Deborra Lee-Furness);
Being Julia
(04, István Szabó);
Layer Cake
(04, Matthew Vaughn);
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
(04, Wes Anderson);
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(05, Mike Newell);
The Omen
(06, John Moore); very good as the literature professor in
The Good Shepherd
(06, Robert De Niro);
The Good Night
(07, Jake Paltrow);
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
(07, David Yates);
Joe’s Palace
(07, Stephen Poliakoff);
Cranford
(07, Simon Curtis and Steve Hudson); Lord Marchmain in
Brideshead Revisited
(08, Julian Jarrold);
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
(09, Yates); a voice in
Fantastic Mr. Fox
(09, Anderson);
Emma
(09, Jim O’Hanlon).

Abel Gance
(1889–1981), b. Paris
1911:
La Digue; Le Nègre Blanc
(codirected with Jean Joulout);
Il y a des Pieds au Plafond
. 1912:
Le Masque d’Horreur; Un Drame au Château d’Acre; L’Enigme de Dix Heures; Les Morts Reviennent-Ils?
. 1915:
La Folie du Docteur Tube; Fioritures; Le Fou de la Falaise; Le Périscope; Ce que les Flots Racontent
. 1916:
Barbereuse; L’Héroïsme de Paddy; Strass et Compagnie; Les Gaz Mortels; La Fleur des Ruines; Le Droit à la Vie; La Zone de la Mort
. 1917:
Mater Dolorosa
. 1918:
La Dixième Symphonie; J’Accuse!
. 1922:
La Roue
. 1923:
Au Secours!
. 1926:
Napoléon Vu par Abel Gance
. 1928:
Marines et Cristaux
. 1931:
La Fin du Monde
. 1933:
Mater Dolorosa; Le Maître des Forges
. 1934:
Poliche; La Dame aux Camélias; Napoléon Bonaparte
. 1935:
Le Roman d’un Jeune Homme Pauvre; Lucréce Borgia
. 1936:
Le Voleur de Femmes; Un Grand Amour de Beethoven; Jerome Perreau, Héros des Barricades
. 1937:
J’Accuse!
. 1939:
Louise; Paradis Perdu
. 1940:
La Vénus Aveugle
. 1941:
Une Femme dans la Nuit
(codirected with Edmond Greville). 1942:
Le Capitaine Fracasse
. 1944:
Manolete
(unfinished). 1953:
Quatorze Juillet
. 1954:
La Tour de Nèsle
. 1956:
Magirama
. 1960:
Austerlitz
(codirected with Roger Richebé). 1963:
Cyrano et d’Artagnan
. 1971:
Bonaparte et la Révolution
.

Gance is the hero of those who regret the loss of purity when the cinema gained sound. In
The Parade’s Gone By
—a book dedicated to Gance and culminating in a breathless tribute to him—Kevin Brownlow says of Gance that “with his silent productions,
J’Accuse, La Roue
, and
Napoléon
, he made a fuller use of the medium than anyone before or since.”

Such extravagance could prejudice the actual claims Gance has on our attention. Much silent cinema now looks primitive, melodramatic, and naïve—Gance’s especially. To claim that it is superior, artistically, to the intelligence and emotional depths of, say,
La Règle du Jeu, Citizen Kane, Ugetsu Monogatari
, or
Viva l’Italia
is to prefer Dumas to Proust. Most foolish of all is the self-imposed need to sacrifice one for another. As with Griffith, it is more than ever necessary to assess the importance of Gance within the historical perspective. Epic heroism, technical ingenuity, a sense of visual spontaneity, and raw melodrama are too easily made the stuff of martyrdom. Thus it is preposterous of Brownlow to paint this vivid picture of Gance’s fate—“The motion-picture industry, in France or elsewhere, was alarmed by Gance’s monumental talents, and frightened by his revolutionary ideas. They determined to control him, and to limit the length of his artistic leash. Unfortunately for all of us, they succeeded”—and not realize that the wit, poetry, and farsightedness of Louis Feuillade exceed the merits of Gance’s films.