The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (167 page)

I have to confess that I would shed few tears if most of that cargo sank. How could anyone who has read Emily Brontë take the movie
Wuthering Heights
seriously? And why would anyone pleased with the film read the book? Danny Kaye and Eddie Cantor were discoveries reliant on Goldwyn’s faith. There are good pictures
—Dodsworth, Stella Dallas, Ball of Fire, The Letter
, and some that are very entertaining (
Come and Get It, The Little Foxes, My Foolish Heart
), but anything great?
The Best Years of Our Lives
is undeniably honest and touching, and it’s easy to see why it had such an impact in its tender time. It brought Goldwyn his best picture Oscar, and a lot of money. It is also one of those few movies that alludes to (and adores) an enormous, middle America scarcely seen in pictures. And—may I suggest—as seldom encountered in America itself. In other words,
Best Years
is a sweet, conservative dream, a longing to return to peaceful sleep after the war, very ably abetted by Wyler, the director who made a career out of reckoning himself “above” Goldwyn.

Alejandro González Iñárritu
, b. Mexico City, 1963
2000:
Amores Perros
. 2001:
The Hire: Powder Keg
(s). 2002: 11′ 09 ″ 01 (s). 2003:
21 Grams
. 2006:
Babel
. 2010:
Biutiful
.

21 Grams
is
Magnolia
grown on hemlock, perhaps, and has far fewer lives than Paul Thomas Anderson dared play with. Nor are the people as likeable or as humane. And that may be a crucial difference so far in this most intriguing career. There are implausibilities in
Magnolia
that we ride over. In
21 Grams
they are holes we fall into. How much of that is because of the determined gloom that hangs over
21 Grams
and makes the fine acting seem a little tortured? Still, the move from
Amores Perros
to north of the border is fascinating and it leaves one feeling that Iñárritu is more inclined to work in the United States.

Babel
—set in three continents—was a key work in the vision that sees all stories as part of one great narrative. It was painful, earnest, and sometimes revelatory—but it also seemed overburdened with its very schematic message.

Michael Gordon
(1909–93), b. Baltimore, Maryland
1943:
Crime Doctor; One Dangerous Night
. 1947:
The Web
. 1948:
Another Part of the Forest; An Act of Murder
. 1949:
The Lady Gambles; Woman in Hiding
. 1950:
Cyrano de Bergerac
. 1951:
I Can Get It for You Wholesale; The Secret of Convict Lake
. 1953:
Wherever She Goes
. 1959:
Pillow Talk
. 1960:
Portrait in Black
. 1962:
Boys’ Night Out
. 1963:
For Love or Money; Move Over, Darling
. 1965:
A Very Special Favor
. 1966:
Texas Across the River
. 1968:
The Impossible Years
. 1970:
How Do I Love Thee?
.

The gap in Gordon’s career is the blacklist. Only two years after the prestigious
Cyrano
, and its Oscar for José Ferrer, he was forced to go to Australia to make
Wherever She Goes
. When he returned, it was as bedmaker in Ross Hunter’s lush apartments.
Boys’ Night Out
and
Texas Across the River
have pleasant moments, but the rest is dross. Gordon had, already, come to the cinema a little late, delayed by drama studies at Yale, before he joined Columbia as an editor. The best of his early films is a version of Lillian Hellman’s
Another Part of the Forest
, with Fredric March, Edmond O’Brien, Ann Blyth, and Dan Duryea.

Ruth Gordon
(Ruth Gordon Jones) (1896–1985), b. Wollaston, Massachusetts
Even Garson Kanin trod warily with Ruth Gordon, and she was his wife. She was famous in the business for being … very difficult and rather horrible. If you feel tempted to regard her as a sweet old lady, or a sprightly “character,” then beware the sudden swoop of witch or mystic. She is neither cozy nor sentimental; she has the authority of a woman who knows she has grown perversely sexy and commanding with age. The “secret” to Ruth Gordon is that her macabre confidante in
Rosemary’s Baby
(68, Roman Polanski) and the fairy godmother hippie in
Harold and Maude
(71, Hal Ashby) are made of the same rare metal, and are just as serenely willful. Indeed, I wonder if the actress could not have taught Polanski to be more matter-of-fact and Ashby more outrageous, with advantage to both films. If Maude screwed, there would be no doubt about her being as awesome as the Manhattan harpy. It is an error to find Ruth Gordon quaint or eccentric. She is the Queen of Hearts, Electra, and Lilith all crammed into one small frame.

Her movie career was intermittent, as if there were often more compelling things on her mind. She spent rather more time acting on and writing for the stage. In the thirties, she was a very striking stage actress, drawn into a bizarre affair with producer Jed Harris, by whom she had a child. Two of her plays have been filmed:
Over 21
(45, Charles Vidor) and
The Actress
(53, George Cukor). Legend has it that she had a bit part in
Camille
(15, Albert Capellini), and only returned to the screen in 1940, a sharp-faced middle-aged woman:
Abe Lincoln in Illinois
(40, John Cromwell);
Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet
(40, William Dieterle);
Two-Faced Woman
(41, Cukor);
Edge of Darkness
(42, Lewis Milestone); and
Action in the North Atlantic
(42, Lloyd Bacon).

She married Kanin, her second husband, during this flurry of work, and they became a very successful comedy writing team, notably for Cukor, Spencer Tracy, and Katharine Hepburn:
A Double Life
(48);
Adam’s Rib
(49), among the most urbane studies of belligerent marriage;
The Marrying Kind
(52); and
Pat and Mike
(53).

Whereupon, she disappeared from films for another dozen years and returned for a grand gallery of elderly nymphs:
Inside Daisy Clover
(66, Robert Mulligan);
Lord Love a Duck
(66, George Axelrod); a supporting actress Oscar for
Rosemary’s Baby; What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?
(69, Lee H. Katzin);
Where’s Poppa?
(70, Carl Reiner);
The Big Bus
(76, James Frawley);
Every Which Way But Loose
(78, James Fargo);
Boardwalk
(79, Stephen Verona);
Any Which Way You Can
(80, Buddy Van Horn);
My Bodyguard
(80, Tony Bill);
Don’t Go to Sleep
(82, Richard Lang);
Jimmy the Kid
(83, Gary Nelson);
Mugsy’s Girl
(85, Kevin Brodie); and
Maxie
(85, Paul Aaron).

Heinosuke Gosho
(1902–81), b. Tokyo
1925:
Nanto no Haru; Otoko Gokoro; Seishun; Sora wa Haretari; Tosei Tamatebako
. 1926:
Hatsukoi; Musume; Itoshino Wagako; Kanojo; Machi no Hitobito; Honryu; Haha-yo Koishi; Kaeranu Sasabue
. 1927:
Karakuri Musume; Shojo no Shi; Okame; Sabishii Ranbomono; Hazukashii Yume; Mura no Hanayome
. 1928:
Suki Nareba Koso; Doraku Goshinan; Kami Eno Michi; Hito no Yo no Sugata; Gaito no Kishi; Yoru no Meneko; Shin Joseikan
. 1929:
Jonetsu no Ichiya; Ukiyo Buro; Oyaji to Sonoko
. 1930:
Dokushin-sha Goyojin; Dai-Tokyo no Ikkaku; Hohoemo Jensei; Shojo Nyuyo; Onna-yo Kimi no Na o Kegasu Nakare; Dai Shinrin; Kinuyo Monogatari; Aiyuko no Yoru; Jokyu Aishi
. 1931:
Madamu to Byobo; Wakaki Hi no Kangeki; Shima no Ratai Jiken; Yoru Hiraku; Gutei Kenkei
. 1932:
Niisan no Baka; Ginza no Yanagi; Satsueijo Romansu-Renai Annai; Hototogisu; Koi no Tokyo
. 1933:
Hanayome no Negoto; Izu no Odoriko; Tengoku ni Musube Koi; Juku no Haru; Shojo-yo Sayonara; Aibu
. 1934:
Onna to Umareta Karanya; Sakuru Ondo; Ikitoshi Ikerumono; Hanamuko no Negoto
. 1935:
Hidari Uchiwa; Akogare; Fukeyo Koikaze; Jinsei no Onimotsu
. 1936:
Okusama Shakuyosha; Oboroyo no Onna; Shindo
. 1937:
Hana-kago no Uta
. 1940:
Mokuseki
. 1942:
Shinsetsu
. 1944:
Goju no To
. 1945:
Izu no Musumetachi
. 1947:
Ima Hitotabi no
. 1948:
Omokage
. 1951:
Wakare-Gumo
. 1952:
Asa no Hamon
. 1953:
Entotsu no Mieru Basho/Where Chimneys Are Seen
. 1954:
Ai to Shi No Tanima; Niwatori wa Futatabi Naku; Osaka no Yado
. 1955:
Takekurabe
. 1956:
Aru yo Futatabi
. 1957:
Kiiroi Karasu; Banka
. 1958:
Hotarubi; Yoku; Ari no Machi no Maria; Hibari no Takekurabe
. 1959:
Karatachi Nikki
. 1960:
Waga Ai; Shiroi Kiba
. 1961:
Ryoju; Kumo ga Chigierru Toki; Aijo no Keifu
. 1962:
Kaachan Kekkon Shiroyo
. 1963:
Hyakuman-nin no Musumetachi
. 1965:
Osorezan no Onna
. 1966:
Kaachan to Juichi-nin no Kodomo
. 1967:
Utage
. 1968:
Onna to Misoshiru; Meiji Haru Aki
.

The son of a rich father and a geisha, Gosho illustrates the possibility for breaking down the class barriers of Japanese society. Legitimized, he went to Keio University and became one of the most successful and hardworking directors in the Japanese film industry. In fact,
Madamu to Byobo
was the first full sound-on-film movie made in Japan. An immense, popular success, it launched Gosho on carefully acted film adaptations of plays and novels. Very little of his work is known in the West, and we must be content with the standard two-or three-line reference to a director in the school of, if rather less than, Mizoguchi. But Gosho made ninety-nine films, and he could be several degrees inferior to Mizoguchi yet still a thoroughly worthwhile director. The film enthusiast still lives in a vaguely charted world—Gosho is proof of the current reliance on “Here be dragons” terminology.

Michael Gough
, b. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1917
As I write, Michael Gough is ninety-three years old, and vigorous enough to be miffed when he was replaced with that upstart, Michael Caine, in the role of Alfred in the
Batman
films as made by Christopher Nolan. No, the recasting did not apparently affect the success of the franchise. But the very idea of Caine as Alfred is a regrettable sign of the times and their neglect of social proprieties. For Alfred Pennyworth is clearly a manservant and a kind of fond uncle born to the aristocracy himself.

In truth, we do not really have a young Gough in movies: he was past thirty before he had his screen debut in an age when most English actors acted and sounded as if they’d been to public school. Gough had something extra—it may have been his experience in the outposts of empire; it may have been a face that was a little too severe to be good-looking. Above and beneath it all, he had a voice of infinite gentleness and depth—it was a baritone, waiting for the dark room of Batman’s home.

After military service, he launched himself on what would be well over a hundred and fifty credits:
Anna Karenina
(48, Julien Duvivier);
Blanche Fury
(48, Marc Allégret); Prince Charles in
Saraband for Dead Lovers
(48, Basil Dearden); noticed by Michael Powell on
The Small Back Room
(49, Powell), where he has a good, flirty scene with Kathleen Byron;
Blackmailed
(51, Allégret); a company boss in
The Man in the White Suit
(51, Alexander Mackendrick); a nasty Duke of Buckingham in
The Sword and the Rose
(53, Ken Annakin); Montrose in
Rob Roy
(53, Harold French); a murderer in
Richard III
(55, Laurence Olivier); a flying instructor in
Reach for the Sky
(56, Lewis Gilbert);
Ill Met by Moonlight
(57, Powell); and as the hero in
Dracula
(58, Terence Fisher).

He was in
The Horse’s Mouth
(58, Ronald Neame), and he began to do a lot of British television. He was the butler in
What a Carve Up!
(61, Pat Jackson); Lord Ambrose in
The Phantom of the Opera
(62, Fisher);
Tamahine
(63, Philip Leacock);
The Skull
(65, Freddie Francis); the March Hare in
Alice in Wonderland
(66, Jonathan Miller); he was in episodes of
The Avengers
and he was Mr. Bennet in the 1967
Pride and Prejudice
(Joan Croft);
Un Soir, un Train
(68, André Delvaux);
Women in Love
(69, Ken Russell);
A Walk with Love and Death
(69, John Huston); as his first great lord of the manor in
The GoBetween
(70, Joseph Losey); Livingstone in
The Search for the Nile
(71, Christopher Ralling); Norfolk in
Henry VIII and His Six Wives
(72, Waris Hussein); Gaudier in
Savage Messiah
(72, Russell);
The Boys from Brazil
(78, Franklin J. Schaffner); as Eden in
Suez
(79, Michael Darlow);
Smiley’s People
(82, Simon Langton); in
Doctor Who
(83); Mr. Ramsay in
To the Lighthouse
(83, Colin Gregg).

He was in
The Dresser
(83, Peter Yates);
Oxford Blues
(84, Robert Boris);
The Biko Inquest
(84, Graham Evans); as Delamere—the head of British East Africa—in
Out of Africa
(85, Sydney Pollack);
Caravaggio
(86, Derek Jarman);
The Fourth Protocol
(87, John Mackenzie);
Strapless
(89, David Hare); his first Alfred in
Batman
(89, Tim Burton); Lord Goddard in
Let Him Have It
(91, Peter Medak);
Batman Returns
(92, Burton); as Bertrand Russell in
Wittgenstein
(93, Jarman); as the head of New York society in
The Age of Innocence
(93, Martin Scorsese);
Batman Forever
(95, Joel Schumacher); as Tolstoy in
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones
(96, Michael Schultz and Deepak Mehta);
Batman & Robin
(97, Schumacher); Feers in
The Cherry Orchard
(99, Michael Cacoyannis);
Sleepy Hollow
(99, Burton).