For The Birds: Elizabeth Wilson and Charles McGraw

It can be challenging sometimes to come up with an idea for this blog; for some months, it’s easy to fall back on holiday-themed movies (Christmas movies in December, spooky movies for Halloween in October). But I feel like I’m taking the easy way out when I do that!

So this time, I decided on an idea that seems kind of far out, since the two actors I’m discussing have nothing in common except for a single movie. And really, just a single scene.

I recently discovered an actor named Charles McGraw, who starred in a series of underrated but excellent film noir thrillers in the late 1940s and early ‘50s. I was intrigued by his presence, so did a little research.

After having seen some of his earlier movies, I was surprised to discover that he later appeared in a small role in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1962 classic “The Birds,” one of my favorite movies.

When character actress Elizabeth Wilson died this year at 94, I did some digging about her, too. I was familiar with her as an older player in movies from the last 30 years or so, but I wondered what her earlier filmography featured. Sure enough, she also had a small part in “The Birds.” And it was in the same sequence as Charles McGraw.

McGraw in "The Birds"

If you know the movie, you’ll recall Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor stopping in a diner to use the telephone, as the birds continue to behave strangely. McGraw, as a cantankerous fisherman, enters the diner to order a cup of coffee and grouse about the birds’ behavior. Wilson plays the wife of the diner owner, the picture of frazzled efficiency as she tries to juggle multiple orders as the diner’s patrons become increasingly worried about what they’re hearing from Hedren and Taylor.

Now, when I watch “The Birds,” I look forward to seeing McGraw and Wilson in their single scene together. It’s not that their acting here is remarkable on its own, but they both bring a momentary naturalness that stands in contrast to Taylor’s hunky heroics and Hedren’s icy coolness.

Wilson in "The Birds"

It may be a stretch, but in this post I’m going to look at these two disparate actors who had very different careers, but who are united by a single film. Even though Charles McGraw and Elizabeth Wilson aren’t household names, they still make an impression in anything in which they appear.

Elizabeth Wilson: Stealing the Show

What makes Wilson’s connection to “The Birds” even more interesting in retrospect (to me, anyway) is that her very first film appearance, as an uncredited party guest, was Hitchcock’s “Notorious” in 1946. 

After that she went straight into the new medium of television. She had sporadic film appearances throughout the 1950s, most notably in “Patterns” (1956), which I discuss in my September 2014 post as one of the most notable films of that decade. It was a small but important role as a dedicated secretary in a large corporation going through internal upheaval.

Wilson as Dustin Hoffman's mother in 'The Graduate."

She finally broke through as a character actress in a couple of classic, touchstone films of the 1960s. Fans of Mike Nichols' “The Graduate” (1967) will remember her as the unctuous mother of Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock. She was dryly funny as a privileged woman who has completely bought into the materialistic world in which she exists—the very world that eventually drives her son to take drastic measures to escape.

Throughout the '60s and ‘70s, Wilson appeared in dozens of roles in television movies and series, including soap operas (‘Another World,’ ‘Dark Shadows’) and sitcoms (‘All in the Family’).

As Roz Keith in "9 to 5,"
with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin

Her film appearances were fairly sporadic, with parts in reputable movies (“The Prisoner of Second Avenue”) and not-so-reputable (“The Happy Hooker”), but she had a terrific comic role as the hilariously irritating office snoop Roz Keith in 1980's feminist comedy “9 to 5." (It's possible that her characterization is a send-up of her role in 1956 in the similarly office-based film “Patterns.”)

Wilson is one of those faces you recognize, but are never sure from where. She brought a touching humanity to even her least sympathetic characterizations, elevating even the slightest material with her professionalism and presence. And she never seemed interested in being the star of the show, even though she invariably stole it anyway.

Charles McGraw: Film Noir Threat

A sedate portrait of tough-guy
Charles McGraw

Certain actors belong to a certain time. Charles McGraw belongs to the late 1940s and early 1950s, when gritty black-and-white crime dramas were plentiful.

I didn’t really learn about him until I recently saw several of his movies in a row, and began an instant appreciation.

After some bit and uncredited parts in war films and horror movies in the early '40s, he began getting cast in a series of B-movie melodramas in the post-war years. Always playing a tough character, he alternated between policemen and detectives, or gangsters and hoods. And sometimes he was even a good guy gone bad.

McGraw had a square-jawed look, and his face was handsome yet grizzled enough to indicate a hard life, so he brought an authenticity to these roles. Plus he had a distinctively gravelly voice that made him suited to the film noir genre.

He appeared in small parts in a series of classics, including “The Killers” (1946), which made stars out of Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. In 1947 alone, he’s on both sides of the law in a long list of typical melodramas of the era: “The Long Night,” “The Big Fix,” “T-Men,” “The Gangster,” and “Brute Force.” All solid films, made better by his presence.

As a brutal killer in 'The Threat."

But it wasn’t until “The Threat” in 1949 that McGraw really broke out. In this brittle, hard-edged, but little-known thriller, he plays a notorious, violent killer who gets out of prison and attempts to get revenge on everyone who put him there.

McGraw followed this role with a string of similar movies. They all had great noir titles; sometimes he was the bad guy (as in “Border Incident” as a vicious henchman); but more often a hard-nosed man of the law: A detective in “Side Street” (1949) and “Armored Car Robbery” (1950); an insurance fraud investigator in “His Kind of Woman” and “Roadblock” (both 1951); and a cop with a chip on his shoulder in “The Narrow Margin” (1952). This last title has emerged as an influential classic, and shouldn’t be missed.

McGraw’s star waned fairly quickly and, like Elizabeth Wilson, he moved predominantly into television. However, he still had a few opportunities to put his toughness to good use in feature films.

As the vicious Marcellus
in "Spartacus."

Notably, he made Kirk Douglas’s life miserable as the slave-driver Marcellus in Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 masterpiece “Spartacus.” His arrogance and viciousness is memorable.

In 1967, while Wilson was appearing in “The Graduate,” McGraw had a small but important role in Richard Brooks’ outstanding adaptation of Truman Capote’s true-crime book “In Cold Blood.” After that, he spent most of the remainder of his career in television. The series in which he appeared read like a lexicon of iconic TV programs of the era: ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,’ ‘The Wild Wild West,’ ‘Mod Squad,’ ‘Gunsmoke,’ and ‘Ironside,’ to name a few.

In his heyday of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, McGraw was always a magnetic presence, whatever the material. He made even flimsy scripts better just by being in the movie, and managed to bring out the best from the battery of contract players he was teamed with. Watching him in these films, you see a sadness in his eyes, a world-weariness that is quite compelling and relevant in today's weary world.

McGraw’s story ends on a tragic note. The year in which Wilson triumphed in "9 to 5," McGraw died after slipping in the shower and falling through the glass door. It was an ironic end to an actor who had specialized in playing hard-boiled guys—good or bad—who were capable of withstanding almost anything. 

My guess is, had he lived, he would have followed a trajectory similar to his one-time co-star, creating even more indelible and interesting characterizations well into old age, as she did.