The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (385 page)

He had gone over to directing after a successful career as an actor during the 1920s:
Way Down East
(20, D. W. Griffith);
The Gilded Lily
(21, Robert Z. Leonard);
The Face in the Fog
(22, Alan Crosland);
Monsieur Beaucaire
(24, Sidney Olcott);
Lost at Sea
(26, Louis J. Gasnier);
You Never Know Women
(26, William Wellman); with Garbo in
The Divine Woman
(28, Victor Sjöström);
The Garden of Eden
(28, Lewis Milestone);
A Lady of Chance
(28, Leonard);
The Whip
(28, Charles J. Brabin);
General Crack
(29, Crosland); with Barbara Stanwyck in
Ladies of Leisure
(30, Frank Capra);
Mammy
(30, Michael Curtiz);
Midnight Mystery
(30, George B. Seitz);
Oh! Sailor, Behave!
(30, Archie Mayo); as the alcoholic movie director in
What Price Hollywood?
(32, George Cukor).

That last role was typecasting, for Sherman was famous as a laconic drunk, the kind of man who declined to hide his perplexity at being a success in anything as silly as movies. Cukor thought he was brilliant just because of his “slightly odious quality.” Those were the days.

Takashi Shimura
(1905–82), b. Ikuno, Japan
Two years apart, when the actor was in his late forties, Takashi Shimura played Watanabe in
Living
(52, Akira Kurosawa) and Kambei, the leader of the
Seven Samurai
(54, Kurosawa). The one is dying, the other risks death. They both of them manage somehow to look a little like Ward Bond, and of course they are both of them pretending. Brothers. There is something about this proximity, or kinship, that seems to represent acting and its attempt on art. It’s not necessarily that Shimura was a great actor, or even the greatest of Japanese players, but in the arc with which he goes from impairment to being robust we have a piercing portrait of how little those extremes mean in themselves. It is the facility to move from one to the other, just as it is the occasional faltering in John Wayne in
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
or
Rio Bravo
that confirms his mortality and the fact that he is growing older. It is clear in hindsight that Shimura might also have played the role of the father—taken by Chishu Ryu—in
Tokyo Story
.

Think of those three in a row, 1952, 1953, 1954—it’s like Anton Walbrook in 1948 (
The Red Shoes
), 1950 (La
Ronde
), and 1955 (
Lola Montès
). You could pick an American actor, too—Jimmy Stewart in
The Glenn Miller Story, Rear Window, The Man from Laramie
. 1953, 1954, 1955. But American cinema was always more cautious and heroic, and it seldom dared make the stride from being stricken to victorious. Or back again. But sometimes if you do creative work—and if you are lucky—you know there is a moment when all you need to do is stay still and calm and let the current, its inward wind, pass through you. So think of a crosscut from Watanabe sitting in the swing at the end of
Living
to one of those moments when Kambei strolls in the sun on what may be the day of reckoning.

If I were making a film of all these years (our years), I would have Shimura as the face of a man in Dealey Plaza who has just filmed the president passing by. There is the 8mm camera. It lowers and there is Shimura’s face, gazing in anguish and bewilderment at what the viewfinder showed him. It is Watanabe and Kambei together. Yes, Shimura was Japanese and Abraham Zapruder was Russian. But by 1963, in the world and the cinema, that was less an inconsistency than a variant.

As it happens, Shimura was a very skilled actor who worked from 1936 to 1981. He was a regular with Kurosawa—he was the doctor in
Drunken Angel
(48), the detective in
Stray Dog
(49), the woodcutter in
Rashomon
(50), as well as a supporting figure in
The Idiot
(51),
Throne of Blood
(57),
The Hidden Fortress
(58),
The Bad Sleep Well
(60),
Yojimbo
(61), as well as a supporting figure in
Sanjuro
(62). He even had a part in
Kagemusha
(80), though we never knew that because the original release was forced to drop his character. That is what can happen to an actor near the end of his career. That is part of the natural competition for eternity.

At the very start of his career, Shimura had had a role in Mizoguchi’s
Osaka Elegy
(36) and he was a lead in the original
Godzilla
(54, Terry Morse and Ishiro Honda).

Elisabeth Shue
, b. South Orange, New Jersey, 1963
How tempting it is in Hollywood to see turning points. Yet how hard it can be, even with the energy of transformation, to be in charge of one’s own career. Elisabeth Shue had been around for over ten years. She was blonde, pretty, and apparently one of that large gang. Nothing she had done had really suggested unusual depth or force. Then she got the role of Sera, the hooker, in
Leaving Las Vegas
(95, Mike Figgis), and delivered one of the great performances in modern American film, one so rounded that the reawakened passion and honesty in her role left room for us to see all the weakness and dishonesty that have got Sera where she is. She was nominated as best actress, and though she lost—to Susan Sarandon in
Dead Man Walking
—there was the hope that she moved at a different level now.

Alas, not so. The only change was that she was regarded as sexier now, and soiled. She could not assert herself enough to change direction or organize a career. And so the films before
Las Vegas
and the films after it are sadly consistent:
The Karate Kid
(84, John G. Avildsen); with Terence Stamp and a lot of monkeys in
Link
(86, Richard Franklin);
Adventures in Babysitting
(87, Chris Columbus), a modest hit; Tom Cruise’s girlfriend in
Cocktail
(88, Roger Donaldson);
Back to the Future, Part II
(89, Robert Zemeckis);
Back to the Future, Part III
(90, Zemeckis); dumped for Kim Basinger in
The Marrying Man
(91, Jerry Rees);
Soapdish
(91, Michael Hoffman);
Twenty Bucks
(93, Keva Rosenfeld);
Heart and Souls
(93, Ron Underwood);
The Underneath
(94, Steven Soderbergh);
The Trigger Effect
(96, David Koepp);
Deconstructing Harry
(97, Woody Allen);
The Saint
(97, Phillip Noyce);
Cousin Bette
(98, Des McAnuff);
Palmetto
(98, Volker Schlöndorff);
Molly
(99, John Duigan);
Hollow Man
(00, Paul Verhoeven);
Amy & Isabelle
(01, Lloyd Kramer) on TV;
Leo
(02, Mehdi Norowzian);
Tuck Everlasting
(02, Jay Russell);
Mysterious Skin
(04, Gregg Araki);
Hide and Seek
(04, John Polson);
Dreamer
(05, John Gatins);
First Born
(07, Isaac Webb); a celebration of women’s soccer,
Gracie
(07, Davis Guggenheim), which she helped produce;
Hamlet 2
(08, Andrew Fleming); and two indie films still looking for the light,
Waking Madison
(Katherine Brooks) and
Don McKay
(Jake Goldberger).

M. Night
(Manoj Nelliyattu)
Shyamalan
, b. Pondicherry, India, 1970
1992:
Praying with Anger
. 1998:
Wide Awake
. 1999:
The Sixth Sense
. 2000:
Unbreakable
. 2002:
Signs
. 2004:
The Village
. 2006:
Lady in the Water
. 2008:
The Happening
. 2010:
The Last Airbender
.

A few years ago, it would not have seemed possible that a young Indian (under thirty) might go to the citadel and get $10 million as a fee for directing a film like
Unbreakable
. Of course, there was a reason for this:
The Sixth Sense
, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, was a boxoffice sensation, the second biggest grosser of its year. It was also one of the most touching and surprising ghost stories ever put on screen, a tender portrait of a child’s pained imagination (and thus the start of Haley Joel Osment), and a very welcome sign that there might yet be a way of reclaiming soul or spirit in the defiled horror genre.

Now,
Unbreakable
(it seemed to me) was awful, obscure, and as private as
Sixth Sense
had been expansive. But
The Sixth Sense
repays further viewings; it is very well acted (not least by Bruce Willis); and it remains one of those pictures that give one hope for Hollywood.

That said, Shyamalan is still very young. He came to the United States as a child, the son of two successful doctors. So he was raised in comfort (in the Philadelphia area—still his beat), and educated at Episcopal Academy in Lower Merion and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He had a Super-8 camera as a child. He churned out homemade movies, and he set his goal as being the next, unexpected Steven Spielberg. There are resemblances: the genuine interest in imagination and children—he also scripted
Stuart Little
(99, Rob Minkoff).
Praying with Anger
describes a trip back to India, while
Wide Awake
is a good picture about a boy coming to terms with the death of his grandfather.

There are obvious threats ahead, wrapped up in dollars: Shyamalan could yield to sentiment and horror (he took on the name Night himself). On the other hand, he could be a director of unique stature and force.
Signs
was a setback hard to credit, and made under the heavy hand of Mel Gibson.
The Village
and
Lady in the Water
grew increasingly foolish. As a result,
The Happening
was turned down by many studios—but when it was made, it earned a lot of money. Still, in a country desperately eager for some mix of horror and uplift, it’s risky to write Night off. He’s only forty!

George Sidney
(1916–2002), b. New York
1941:
Free and Easy
. 1942:
Pacific Rendezvous
. 1943:
Pilot No. 5; Thousands Cheer
. 1944:
Bathing Beauty
. 1945:
Anchors Aweigh; The Harvey Girls
. 1946:
Holiday in Mexico
. 1947:
Cass Timberlane
. 1948:
The Three Musketeers
. 1949:
The Red Danube
. 1950:
Annie Get Your Gun; Key to the City
. 1951:
Show Boat
. 1952:
Scaramouche
. 1953:
Kiss Me, Kate; Young Bess
. 1955:
Jupiter’s Darling
. 1956:
The Eddie Duchin Story
. 1957:
Jeanne Eagels; Pal Joey
. 1960:
Who Was That Lady?; Pepe
. 1963:
Bye Bye Birdie; A Ticklish Affair
. 1964:
Viva Las Vegas
. 1966:
The Swinger
. 1967:
Half a Sixpence
.

Sidney’s work was seldom distracted from fond portraits of showbiz glamour. As well as biopics, he liked backstage stories, as witness the traveling theatricals of
Scaramouche
and
Show Boat
, the nightclub of
Pal Joey
, the show within the show of
Kiss Me, Kate
. There is no depth to his movies, but a variable surface dazzle and vivid coloring.

The child of actors, he played small film parts as a child, and in 1932 joined MGM as a second-unit director. He made shorts for most of the 1930s and was promoted to major musicals during the war, often starring Gene Kelly. His most important projects
—Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat
, and
Kiss Me, Kate
—are not the most enjoyable. Much better are
The Harvey Girls, The Three Musketeers
, and especially,
Scaramouche, Jeanne Eagels, Pal Joey
, and
Who Was That Lady?
If he has a special characteristic, it is his skill at deriving an extra, animated voluptuousness from such as Lana Turner, Esther Williams, Kim Novak, and Ann-Margret.
Half a Sixpence
, his last film, was as competent as his best work.

But consider the real pleasures of “My Funny Valentine” in
Pal Joey
, Elvis and Ann-Margret shaking together in
Viva Las Vegas
, and the “On the Atcheson, Topeka, and Santa Fe” number in
The Harvey Girls
.

Sylvia Sidney
(Sophia Kosow) (1910–99), b. Bronx, New York
The daughter of a Romanian father and a Russian mother, Sylvia Sidney studied at the Theater Guild School and made her stage debut in 1926. She flourished and Fox gave her a part in
Thru Different Eyes
(29, John Blystone). But it was Paramount that really took her up, originally as a replacement for Clara Bow in Mamoulian’s
City Streets
(31). She followed this with the pregnant girl in the rowing boat in Von Sternberg’s
An American Tragedy
(31) and Goldwyn borrowed her for a similarly anguished role in King Vidor’s
Street Scene
(31). She was also in three pictures for Marion Gering:
Ladies of the Big House
(32),
Pick-Up
(33), and a second Dreiser dramatization,
Jennie Gerhardt
(33).

Although one of Paramount’s most prized properties, she was unhappy with the number of “victim” parts she was given: for example, in the remake of
The Miracle Man
(32, Norman Z. McLeod). The fact remains that she is most memorable in such films, partly because her eyes so readily pictured dismay and shed glowing tears. Her lighter films are less striking: Dorothy Arzner’s
Merrily We Go to Hell
(32); two more Gering films,
Madame Butterfly
(33) and
Thirty Day Princess
(34); Mitchell Leisen’s
Behold My Wife
(35); and Wesley Ruggles’s
Accent on Youth
(35).