I was talking movies with my friend Amir the other day, and the name Celeste Holm came up. We both agreed that she had a unique personality, and she featured prominently in some true classics, including a film that tackled the then-taboo subject of anti-Semitism. Never the star of the picture, Holm nevertheless made an impression in a number of other supporting parts in several notable films of the post-war years.
Thinking of her solid support led me to writing this post. I gave some thought to the many, many supporting players during Hollywood’s Golden Age, who were usually cast in second lead roles. It was hard, but I narrowed it down to four very different people—two men and two women—who, to my eye, always elevated the material by their sheer presence, personality, and professionalism.
Let’s start with Miss Holm, and go from there.
After making a splash in the original Broadway production of “Oklahoma!” Hollywood beckoned Holm, a new talent who brought a refreshing naturalness to the screen and enhanced a number of high-profile pictures in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She is a distinctly post-war figure in films.
Like many of the women who came before her, she could do comedy as well as drama. In each role she played, though, her wit is prevalent. With Celeste Holm, you always got a strong and smart, yet feminine and refined, woman who was quick with a well-delivered barb. Here are a few of her best films:
“Gentleman's Agreement” (1947) – Gregory Peck plays Philip Green, a writer who is pretending to be Jewish to reveal anti-Semitism in America. He learns how prevalent it is and finds it, along with hypocrisy, in surprising places. After appearing in a couple musicals that leveraged her singing ability and comic ability, “Gentleman’s Agreement” gave Holm an opportunity to show off her subtle dramatic chops; she lends strong support as Philip’s friend Anne (who may or may not be in love with him). Her character is a stylish, warm-hearted sophisticate who is the moral center of the film. It co-stars John Garfield, Dorothy Maguire, and the marvelous Anne Revere as Peck’s mother.
“A Letter to Three Wives” (1948) – Holm is the narrator of this film, a wry satire on post-war suburban mores. As the unseen Addie Ross, the film unfolds as Holm reads the letter that Addie has sent to her three dearest friends. In it, she explains that she has left town with one of their husbands. The balance of the movie focuses on the stories of the three women (Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, and Ann Sothern) and the relationships with their husbands (Jeffrey Lynn, Paul Douglas, and Kirk Douglas, respectively). Who’s hubby did Addie steal? You’ll have to watch to find out. It’s a smart film, and Holm sets the tone at the outset with her dry, droll, cunning narration.
"All About Eve” (1950) – In perhaps her best-known film and role, Holm is Karen Richards, the best friend of Bette Davis’s Margot Channing, a famous, temperamental stage star. Where Davis’s performance is florid and funny, Holm’s Karen is more sedate; she’s the serene leveler to Margot’s self-indulgence, the calm in the midst of a stormy story that’s full of larger-than-life theater types. Everyone gets to chew the scenery at one point or another, including Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Gary Merrill (later Davis’s husband), and even Marilyn Monroe in an early role. Not to be missed.
After 1950, Holm spent most of her career in the new medium of television, including her own sitcom. She made sporadic film appearances, including a few musicals that took advantage of her excellent voice, all the way up to 2012, when she died at age 96.
Jack Carson is a type of man you just don’t see anymore. More often than not, he played an affable, back-slapping type. He was a guy’s guy with a self-deprecating laugh and a comically skeptical sidelong glance to punctuate a line, whether his or someone else’s.
Small parts in nearly 50 A- and B-grade films from 1937 through the early ‘40s had him in lots of small or unbilled blue collar roles as cab drivers, truck drivers, and cops, with occasional bigger parts that revealed his comic timing. He lent light support in comedies starring such big names as Bette Davis, James Cagney, Ginger Rogers, Edward G. Robinson, Carole Lombard, and others.
After WWII, he landed at Warner Brothers, where he became one of their most dependable players. Although not all from Warners, here are a few of his notable titles:
“Love Crazy” (1941) – This is one of my favorite comedies, in which William Powell pretends to be insane so he can get back into his wife’s (Myrna Loy) good graces. The movie is fast-paced slapstick, and has some very funny moments. It’s one of the many early roles that stereotyped Carson as a guileless dunderhead. Here, he’s Loy’s neighbor (“The name’s Willoughby, Ward Willoughby”) who has designs on her even as Powell tries to make amends. Carson’s patented double-takes and quizzical looks make every scene he’s in a riot.
“The Hard Way” (1943) – Helen Chernin (Ida Lupino) pushes her younger sister Katherine (Joan Leslie) into show business as a way of getting out of their dingy steel town. As part of that plan, she urges Katharine to marry Albert Runkel (Carson), an old-school Vaudevillian who’s down on his luck. Katharine eventually becomes a Broadway star, but Helen’s conniving takes its toll on everyone, especially herself. This is prime grade-A Warner Brothers melodrama, and Carson gets a chance to add some shading to his shabby song-and-dance man.
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| Carson made three movies with Doris Day and 11 with Dennis Morgan (at right). |
“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958) – By the late ‘50s, Hollywood had changed, as had filmgoers’ tastes. Now Carson could turn his affable-guy persona into someone less than sympathetic. In this somewhat watered-down film adaptation of the play by Tennessee Williams, Carson is Gooper Pollitt, the scheming older brother of the tortured Brick (Paul Newman). Carson’s is an excellent performance in a stellar ensemble that also includes Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson, and the venal Madeleine Sherwood. Carson’s work here is worth seeing as a counterpoint to his persona of the previous decade.
During his heyday of the mid-to-late 1940s, audiences preferred Jack Carson in light fare, and he always delivered. While most of the many comedies and musicals he made after WWII are forgotten today, he kept busy all the way up to 1963, when he succumbed to cancer. By then, most of his male contemporaries—Bogart, Gable, Cooper, and many others—were already gone, thus confirming that the Golden Age of Hollywood was over.
Mary Astor started out as a leading lady in silent films and successfully made the transition to talking pictures. Throughout the 1930s, she played mostly high society ladies in sophisticated parlor comedies, romances, and even an adventure film or two. But she really came into her own in the 1940s by playing a range of fascinating characters that were quite distinct.
Astor could be sweet or sour, or sometimes both. She could be tender and pathetic, arch and austere, haughty or heroic, hilarious or nefarious. In fact, her most famous role was Brigid O’Shaughnessy, the film noir femme fatale archetype, in 1941’s “The Maltese Falcon.” But just three years later, there she was being Judy Garland’s understanding mother in “Meet Me in Saint Louis.”
Whether playing a villainous vixen or a Midwestern mother, she did it all with subtle shading. Where, for example, Jack Carson delivered a reliable sameness, Astor's work varied remarkably, especially from the mid-1930s to the late 1940s. Here are a few of the titles in a long film career that stand out:
“Dodsworth” (1936) – This film was the subject of my first blog post at “In a Movie Place.” It’s a great movie, a potent slice of the American character of the mid-1930s. While Walter Huston, as rich industrialist Sam Dodsworth, is the film’s namesake, I think the heart of the movie belongs to Astor. As Edith Cortright, a slightly jaded divorcee who falls for the unhappily married Sam, she is the grounded one among a cast of characters whose heads are in the clouds. Her natural and affecting performance feels real, especially when compared to Ruth Chatterton, who, as Dodsworth’s pretentious, philandering wife, is comparatively tinny and artificial. Astor owns the heartbreaking finale.
“The Great Lie” (1941) – Five years after her sympathetic portrayal in “Dodsworth,” Astor turns the bitch factor up 100 notches as a temperamental, selfish concert pianist who gets pregnant by a married man and has to flee to the desert to have the baby in seclusion. (Only in a movie from the 1940s would this be the case.) Despite its absurdity, the film is grandly entertaining; Astor manages to steals the show from, of all people, Bette Davis, who graciously underplays, leaving the histrionics to Astor.
“The Palm Beach Story” (1942) – Just when her career seemed to be tilting to the heavy, what with all the drama and film noir treachery, Astor lightens up considerably in this hilarious comedy. She’s Princess Centimillia, the flighty, flirty sister of zillionaire J.D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee), who’s after Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert), who’s being chased by her husband Tom (Joel McCrae), on whom the Princess has set her eyes. Everyone in this fast-paced movie is funny, but as a clueless society dame, Astor shows a deliciously unbridled side.
Like many of her contemporaries, Astor spent the 1950s and early ‘60s in television, with the occasional small movie role. She had a single, but important, scene in her last film, 1964's “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte” (which re-teamed her with Bette Davis, although they have no scenes together). After an eventful private life that included a sex scandal, three divorces, the death of her first husband by plane crash, alcoholism, heart problems, and more, she died in 1987 at age 81.
This quote from Astor humorously indicates that she knew full-well the trajectory of her career: “There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?"
Melvyn Douglas could not be more different than Jack Carson, in build, looks, style, or temperament; but like Carson, you knew what you were getting when he appeared in a film. During the 1930s and ‘40s, Douglas was always the urbane gentleman. His was a popular archetype at that time, accented by the pencil-thin mustache shared by many of his contemporaries (think William Powell, Ronald Colman, John Barrymore, Adolphe Menjou, etc.)
Looking back on his career, Douglas appeared in many genuinely unimportant movies, studio fare typical of the time. The studios leveraged his good looks but usually demanded little from him. He did get the occasional change of pace with two classic comedies that stand out: “Theodora Goes Wild” (1936) and “Ninotchka” (1939), unique in that they also gave his co-stars, Irene Dunne and Greta Garbo, the chance to loosen up and be funny for a change.
What's most interesting about Douglas is that his work during the studio era actually led up to his greatest roles in the 1960s. Here are a few key roles in his career, spanning 30 years:
What's most interesting about Douglas is that his work during the studio era actually led up to his greatest roles in the 1960s. Here are a few key roles in his career, spanning 30 years:
“A Woman's Face” (1941) – Although you might dismiss this movie as standard soapy MGM fare, it’s actually quite well-made and includes one of Joan Crawford’s best performances. She plays Anna Holm, a criminal with a horribly disfigured face (and a really bad attitude). When Dr. Gustaf Segert (Douglas) operates to fix her disfigurement, she must choose whether to continue her life of crime or to turn over a new leaf. I include this movie here because it’s one of the better films in which Douglas appeared at this time. He acquits himself convincingly opposite Joan. (Side note: The same year, Douglas starred in another “face” movie, “Two-Faced Woman”; it was "Ninotchka" co-star Greta Garbo’s last movie.)
“Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” (1948) – This cute, homey little comedy could only have been made in the years after WWII. It concerns Jim and Muriel Blandings (Cary Grant and Myrna Loy), a city couple who buy a fixer-upper in the country and are presented with one calamity after another. (Kind of like Tom Hanks and Shelley Long in “The Money Pit,” but better.) Douglas is their avuncular friend Bill Cole, who wryly observes (and narrates) the zany goings-on as the Blandings try to find suburban bliss. This film demonstrates Douglas’s pivot into character parts, which would define the remainder of his career.
Again, it seems that the first two decades of Douglas's film career seemed only to set the stage for the greatness to come. In the 1960s, he re-established himself as a character actor of the first order. His performances in the next two films sometimes seem like they came from a different man altogether.
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| As the grizzled rancher Homer Bannon in "Hud." |
“I Never Sang for My Father” (1970) – Gene Hackman plays Gene Garrisson, a professor who wants to move from New York to California, but feels beholden to his aging, widowed father (Douglas). This film is a devastating character study of two very different men—different in generation, in temperament, in attitudes—and it captures the ambivalence of its time very well. The look and tone of the film indicates a societal and generational shift. Douglas’s performance is magnificent; he captures the sadness, bitterness, and bewilderment of getting old and feeling as though one is no longer in control. Hackman excels in an early role as the dutiful but noncommittal son.
Douglas continued acting in television and an interesting variety of films all the way up to 1981, when he was cast in the spooky “Ghost Story” with several other old-timers, including Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and John Houseman. After a very long career, he died later that year.
Making your mark as a supporting actor was difficult to do in the 1930s and ‘40s, when there were so many strong leading actors who often stole the show. Supporting actors, however, often have a chance to really spread their wings much later in their careers, after they've broken out of their initial "box," as these four actors demonstrate.
As different as they are, I feel that Celeste Holm, Jack Carson, Mary Astor, and Melvyn Douglas are excellent, underrated performers who often made a bigger impression than the people they were supporting, and their work deserves a closer look. Each claims a legacy of indelible screen work that seems fresh and compelling so many years later.
As different as they are, I feel that Celeste Holm, Jack Carson, Mary Astor, and Melvyn Douglas are excellent, underrated performers who often made a bigger impression than the people they were supporting, and their work deserves a closer look. Each claims a legacy of indelible screen work that seems fresh and compelling so many years later.
