Take Three: Gloria Grahame

Craig here with Take Three. Today: Gloria Grahame.

Take One: The Big Heat (1953)
When you think of Film Noir, you think of hard-boiled anti-heroes in fedoras, smoking, permanently with gun. But in some noirs it’s ladies first. Fritz Lang’s dirty, masterful noir par excellence The Big Heat has a first-rate femme fatale in Grahame’s Debby Marsh. Thank 20th Century Fox for replacement pleasures then: Grahame stepped in when original pick Marilyn Monroe’s fee became too high, giving the the film an extra sprinkling of salty sass. She excelled in each moment, whether heartfelt or hardened; I can only hazard a guess that Monroe might have made Debby’s eventual desperation too pleading. Under Grahame’s control Debby’s desperate dilemma was frenetic and wrenching. Never has the rapid flush of devastation been so well conveyed on screen as when she runs to Glenn Ford’s apartment to beg for cover.

Grahame’s transformation, from carefree nonchalance to scornful grittiness is more readily noticeable after a second viewing of the film. Indeed, The Big Heat deserves two watches for Grahame’s performance alone. She flips drastically in a scene wherein Lee Marvin (as Vince, her criminal beau) throws hot coffee in her face. It occurs off screen and we are withheld the image of her scarred visage until... well, let’s say she gets her revenge in an apt way. But her face, now fuelled with anger and half covered with bandages, tells us everything we need to know about what she’s thinking. It’s a beautifully judged and performance. No wonder Stephen Frears insisted on her influence for his Grifters ladies. Grahame had the film’s best line too. “Hey, that's nice perfume.” Vince says. “Something new,” Debby replies, “it attracts mosquitoes and repels men.”

Take Two: In a Lonely Place (1950)

As with The Big Heat, Grahame wasn’t the first choice for Nicholas Ray’s 1950 masterpiece In a Lonely Place. She was third in line to play Laurel Gray. This being a Humphrey Bogart film, the obvious choice at the time would have been Bogart’s wife, Lauren Bacall. But, under contract, Warner Bros. refused to loan Bacall out; Ray, who was married to Grahame (though they subsequently separated during filming) managed to get her cast over Ginger Rogers, too.

Laurel Gray is a struggling actress, living across the courtyard in an adjacent apartment to Dixon Steele (Bogart). In fact, this is how she comes to be embroiled in his affairs and ends up falling in love with him. We see her go from cool, aloof social gal to a woman in dire need of a supportive shoulder to spill her woes to; "is-he-isn’t-he a killer?" conundrums are tough to sort out. Grahame takes obvious pleasure in the spiky moments of dialogue between herself and Bogart, leaving the air in recently-vacated spaces pungent with tease. Referring to Bogart’s face she says

I said I liked it. I didn’t say I wanted to kiss it.

Off she walks, daring us to scuttle after her.

Her performance gives way to darker edges as the plot sinks further into muddy emotional territory, but throughout the entire film Grahame is on full actressing alert. Her last lines find their way out of her conscience at the close. “I lived a few weeks while you loved me...” She adds a sad “Goodbye Dix” at the end. In a lonely place, indeed.

Take Three: Crossfire (1947)

Grahame’s is the first name after the title in Crossfire, but she shares the screen caption with four others, a trio of Roberts: Mitchum, Young and Ryan, aptly sounding like a private detective firm. The Roberts³ head this 1947 noir from Edward Dmytryk. Grahame only really has two scenes in the film. But what a pair of scenes. Each is nearly ten minutes long and crucial to the plot. She dominates both with a characteristically captivating allure, leaving us wanting at least another half dozen more. We first see her emerge from a blurred dissolve: she enters the film as she enters the recollection of Ryan’s soldier. She’s in the Red Dragon, the “stinking gin mill” out of which she procures her men folk. She’s Ginny “because [she’s] from Virginia”, lit by cinematographer J. Roy Hunt as a seductive blonde vapour, only her showy attributes are spotlit: the hard glint in her eyes matches the gleam from her bling.

It’s her second scene, much later in the film, where she gives good talk to match the face. It’s surely the scene that earned her the Supporting Actress Oscar nomination (she would win the award in The Bad and the Beautiful five years later). The shimmy has dimmed - she’s dowdy in a housedress - but she's no less captivating. Here we see another side to Grahame, a defiant irritation, as Ginny is questioned on Ryan’s whereabouts the night of the anti-Semitic murder that propels the narrative. Dmytryk’s camera searches her for the answers the plot demands. Grahame’s greatness in the role becomes all the more evident because of this scrutiny.

Three more key films for the taking: The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Oklahoma! (1955), Human Desire (1954)

Take Three: Anthony Mackie

Craig here with Take Three, a weekly look at a character/supporting actor's career through three movies. Today: Anthony Mackie. Mackie’s had a sprinkling of leads so far (Spike Lee’s controversial She Hate Me, the period drama Night Catches Us, and the upcoming biopic Bolden!), and he’ll undoubtedly get a star-making role of his own someday soon. But in the meantime he’s working hard to create a still very-much-on-the-rise profile as an exemplary supporting player in a variety of fine films.

Take One: Half Nelson (2006)
Mackie puts in a vital sincere performance in 2006 indie drama Half Nelson. He’s Frank, a former friend of Drey’s (Shareeka Epps) jailed brother and a Brooklyn drug dealer, who is intent on dragging Drey into his orbit as a local drug mule. That's an idea that her teacher Dan (Ryan Gosling) takes umbrage with, especially in one riveting scene where Dan confronts Frank on the street, warning him to leave her alone. Mackie avoids the overplayed clichés in portraying drug dealers on screen. He’s calm, charming and actually feels he’s helping by keeping Drey near. He wins Dan around, in a way, too. He’s just someone making his way, just like everyone else in Ryan Fleck’s sombre, thoughtful film.

It’s Gosling’s film, obviously, and he’s great in it. But Mackie adds the kind of concrete support that's essential to the emotionally intricate structured character dramas. Frank is as key to Drey’s understanding and growth as Dan is, just in a different, more dubious way. The regard evident in Frank’s demeanour throughout suggests a tricky back-story to their friendship. It’s an essential detail for our understanding of the story, too. 

Take Two: The Hurt Locker (2009)
There’s a trio of solid actors dominating Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-winner The Hurt Locker. Leading from the front is lead Jeremy Renner as reckless firebrand Sergeant William James. Backing up his ostensible one-man deactivation outfit two up-and-coming actors, Bryan Geraghty as Specialist Owen Eldridge and Mackie as Sergeant J. T. Sanborn. All three are making waves in the film world (twice Oscar-nominated Renner is the best known); their respective roles added exposure and gravitas to their résumés. Mackie was subtly commanding in the film as the operation leader, trying desperately to keep everthing running smooth and fine-tuned whilst maintaining a clear head.

Though it initially seemed that he'd be merely an antagonistic presence for Renner’s vented spleen, Mackie is so persuasive that he is never merely a guide and an obvious audience identification figure. He makes Sanborn the guy we trust to interpret for us the searing heat, hurt and hellishness of modern-day warfare. He transferred to the audience a measured perspective on it all; not the kinetic, compulsive thrill – is that the right word? – of it all (Renner owned that), but the responsibility, the discursive aspect and the drudgery, the stifled panic – the things that aren’t always first on the list of desired attributes for a sergeant in a war film. Mackie was, in a small way, quite revelatory. His presence cemented the film for me as much more firmly thought-provoking for a long period after I saw it.

Take Three: The Adjustment Bureau (2010)
In The Adjustment Bureau (now playing) Mackie looks just fine in a snazzy hat and trench coat combo – dashing through illogically mind-bending doorways across a rain-drenched New York. I’ll hold off on suggesting he’s Matt Damon and Emily Blunt’s personal guardian angel, as some reviews have offered up, as this seems to stretch the point a bit. But who this mysterious bureau “employee” Harry Mitchell is is left teasingly open. But he’s more a bespoke Deep Throat, an anonymous Mr. X silently assisting our political-wannabe hero in his time-loop of need. Harry can do crazy-mad magic sci-fi stuff like, er, tip coffee on people on buses and, um, creep up on you during wet weather. Ok, so he may be the least dynamic otherworldly entity currently on our screens -- a low-fi sci-fi shy guy --  and he may inexplicably fall asleep on park benches (thus, rather oddly, setting in motion the entire film’s plot), but Mackie more than makes up for it for the duration of Bureau’s running time. And I do mean its running time.

It’s a shame that Mackie is temporarily replaced halfway through by Terence Stamp as the dominating shadowy figure intent on giving Damon a run for his money. (Mackie is the best casting in the film and it rankles when he’s sidelined.) He disappears for a large chunk of the action, but there’s a game amiability to his performance. As an actor he pays keen attention to what makes such workaday genre hybrids as this tick. He plays his part amid the inscrutable daftness finely.

His appearance also makes you wonder: what if he had been cast as the hero? Isn’t it about time Mackie was upgraded to leading man? Move over Matt, Mackie’s next in line for star status.

Three more key films for the taking: She Hate Me (2004), Freedomland (2006), Night Catches Us (2010)

Take Three: Marisa Tomei

Craig here with the start of the second season of Take Three. Today: Marisa Tomei

Take One: Cyrus (2010)

Tomei is a pure delight in last year’s Cyrus. Her performance demonstrated yet again that great comic turns sometimes pass awards bodies by. But one Oscar win (for My Cousin Vinny, see below) and two other nominations ain’t too shabby. In Cyrus Tomei, at this glorious mid-stage in her career, showed her peers how unblemished by cliché a modern, mature romantic woman should be played. She’s tried more conventional rom-com roles previously – What Women Want, Only You, Someone Like You – but here, with an unstudied attractiveness, she succeeds where others often fail.

There’s no It’s Complicated-style pandering to "maturity" nor feebly vacuous youthful platitudes to her character Molly, a single mother of awkward teen Jonah Hill. She treads finely between One Hot Mama and motherly protection. Her karaoke assistance for drunken John C. Reilly on the Human League’s "Don’t You Want Me Baby" is a miniature, playfully daft act of mature solidarity. But Tomei’s always been good at making her characters feel fully-functional within mere minutes of screen time. She's still a vibrant comic tonic, but now the swig is sweeter for being long-practiced. She looks and performs better than ever in Cyrus. It's a wonderfully carefree performance.

Take Two: My Cousin Vinny (1992)

In this hit comedy, she's Mona Lisa Vito, an attorney’s moll in rural hell. She’s far from the small-time Brooklyn she knows – as evidenced by her array of designer outfits loud enough to set off car alarms. She’s the eventual key, surprise witness in the trial Joe Pesci’s fudging his way to success on, her recollection of extensive automotive trivia saves The Karate Kid and his chum from death row. Fancy that. She pulls a Mona Lisa sneer from the time she enters small town Alabama and communicates her twenty-four hour indignation with a comically-unamused authoritative pout. More often than not she takes the top spot on Vinny’s comedy scoreboard and ends up owning the film outright.

This early role thrust an Oscar (Supporting Actress ’92) in Tomei's lap. Her career went into the stratosphere, quite briefly, before it went into the stratobscure. The sound of the words ‘Wrong Name Read Out’ and ‘Undeserved Oscar’ surely rang in her ears. How unfair to her solidly good supporting turn was that? So boo-hiss-boo to the naysayers. Several performance highlights stand out – bailing Pesci out of jail, the argument over a dripping faucet, her “biological clock ticking” veranda foot stamp – but it’s her delightfully knowing, sass-filled sarcasm that’s most memorable. That and her staunch refusal to do anything other than play her and Pesci’s relationship problems out on the stand for all to bear witness to. She’s the film’s treasure so it's fitting that she was rewarded with (Oscar) gold.

Take Three: The Wrestler (2008)

If it wasn’t enough that Tomei had to snog Joe Pesci in Vinny all those years ago, she had to lock lips with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler for her sins. Add in Reilly in Cyrus and William H. Macy in Wild Hogs and it seems Tomei gets landed often with the, er, more unconventional leading men. In The Wrestler she plays Pam (stage name: Cassidy), the New Jersey stripper worried about her age in relation to her profession. She befriends Rourke's title character for sensual healing and emotional solace. Romancing a heavily surgery-augmented co-star is one thing, but she appeared fitfully deflated on screen. Ever the acute professional, Tomei smartly extinguished her usual inner spark to play the weary part.The Wrestler was the film that nabbed her a third Oscar nomination. (The second was for In the Bedroom in 2002.)

Cassidy’s life, like Randy's, is a sad song half sung. She's his tender yet damaged flipside, just with baying, paying hecklers flinging dollar bills instead of barb-wired deckchairs. Both lived on the periphery of normal society, just holding on to the tattered coattails of the American Dream. The attentive regard she shows Randy – which Tomei cleverly conveys through minute actions and a gentle, knowing expressiveness – speaks volumes about who Pam is and why she shouldn’t ever be fully consumed by “Cassidy”. The control Tomei exerts in the film is almost invisible. She’s a consummate professional and Pam/Cassidy is a supporting performance of the highest order.

Three more key roles for the taking: Chaplin (1992), The Perez Family (1995), In the Bedroom (2001)