Paul Newman @ 100: "Sometimes a Great Notion"

By Ben Miller

Whatever your feelings of Paul Newman as an actor, movie star, matinee idol or philanthropist, his directorial achievements are never high up on the list. Who's to say why he only directed five feature films in his distinguished career? In the case of Sometimes a Great Notion, it was out of necessity.

While signing on as star and producer of the adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel, original director Richard A. Colla left due to the classic "artistic differences" clash. Whether it was Newman or someone higher up, Newman attempted to recruit longtime collaborator George Roy Hill, who declined. With no other options, Newman took on the job himself...

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Paul Newman @ 100: "Cool Hand Luke"

by Nick Taylor

I'm not sure when I first became aware of Paul Newman. Much like how Nathaniel described in his write-up of The Hustler, he's been a ubiquitous figure without a clear entry point into my consciousness. My big introductions to him as an actor came with the one-two punch of Hud - which Juan Carlos paid great tribute to - and Cool Hand Luke (on referral from Nick Davis's excellent write-up of both films). I also went springboarding from my love of Law & Order reruns straight to The Verdict and was completely awed by the whole film, but that's for later. Newman's career is so impressive that even with so much time to catch up with his filmography, try his sauces, learn more about his activism, and read his incredible biography from last year, I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what he contributed to the world.

But today, we're here for one man. A cool man with a cool hand. A man working hard to retain his individuality against folks determined to flatten him into whatever paragon best serves them. Set in the post-war Florida of the early 1950s, our next dive into Paul Newman's decorated career is his rebellious, discontent war veteran in Stuart Rosenberg's Cool Hand Luke...

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Paul Newman @ 100: "Hud"

By Juan Carlos Ojano

Martin Ritt’s 1963 revisionist Western Hud is remembered these days for mainly two things: for Patricia Neal’s Best Actress-winning performance (one of the shortest in Oscar history) and for hailing one of Paul Newman’s seminal works as an actor, two years after his Oscar-nominated turn in The Hustler. Hud further solidified Newman’s film star persona, now with indelible iconography within an all-too American genre. However, Newman’s performance as well as the film’s overall prickliness help the film transcend surface-level memorializing...

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Gun Crazy @75: "All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun."

by Cláudio Alves

A boy loves guns, he's obsessed with them, thrilled by them, given purpose by their dangerous nature. He grows up, and the love persists. One day, the boy finds a girl who shares the same fascination. A match made in hell, they come to love each other as much as they're besotted by the firearms, falling headfirst into a romance bound to become a tragedy. Even as they embark on a life of crime, the boy refuses to kill while the girl is all too eager. It doesn't end well, but it's a horny good time while it lasts. Guns and sex, sex and death, death as love, and love is the American way – and you know what? That's cinema, baby. That's also Joseph H. Lewis' Gun Crazy, also known as Deadly Is the Female, a B-movie masterpiece that often feels like the urtext of film noir, chronologically displaced as it might be.

Today, it celebrated its 75th anniversary – there are disputes over Gun Crazy's first release, but we're going with the January 20th, 1950 date – so let's explore what makes this violent tale such vital, essential cinema…

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Paul Newman @ 100: "The Hustler"

by Nathaniel R

Paul Newman's second Oscar nomination came for THE HUSTLER (1961). All screenshots sourced from FilmGrab.

A smiling illustration on salad dressing bottles, a serious visage on movie posters, a guest on television talk shows? I can't recall when I first became aware of Paul Newman. He was always there, an unmoving fixture of popular culture. When I was a kid he'd already been in the movie business for 30 years. For most stars, two back-to-back lead Oscar nominations in your late 50s (Absence of Malice and The Verdict) would be a winding down or a swan song but Paul Newman was the definition of "enduring". When I started hitting movie theaters on the regular he was just 30 years into a career but there was still tank in the gas. He'd be back to the Oscars as a nominee thrice more, four if you count the Honorary statue.

For today's celebration, we're travelling way back to his second Oscar nomination to meet "Fast Eddie" Felson in The Hustler (1961)...

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