Re: R.I.P. Paul Newman :(
Newman was in a few great movies, some good-to-mediocre ones, and some real stinkers.
His absolutely best performance ever was in the title role of Hud (1963), based on Larry McMurtry’s novel Horseman, Pass By and filmed primarily in Claude, Tex. It had a great cast including Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal, both of whom won Oscars for their roles, and was shot by James Wong Howe. It was also Neal’s best role ever, but Hollywood chickened out in casting her in that part. You see, in the book the cook who befriends the Brandon De Wilde character and is raped by Hud was a black woman.
Newman’s second greatest role was in The Hustler (1961) with Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats, Piper Laurie, and George C. Scott. However, Newman was upstaged by both Gleason and Scott in that film. Gleason was known and loved as a comedian, and this was one of the first—if not the first—dramatic roles he had played since becoming famous, and everyone was talking about how well he made that transition. Scott, on the other hand, just plain acted the pants off of everyone else in the movie, including Newman. He should have won an Oscar for that part.
I recall reading somewhere that after the success of Hud and The Hustler, Newman insisted that author Ross Macdonald’s famous private detective Lew Archer be renamed Lew Harper for his title role in Harper (1966). But as a mystery movie it was a mess, with Lauren Bacall in a small part stealing scenes from Newman. Hombre (1967) was even worse—a film where a man lives his whole life one certain way and then in the last few minutes of it does something totally out of character for a bunch of people who despise him. Richard Boone, Cameron Mitchell, and Martin Balsam were good in their roles, and James Wong Howe shot the film. But the best take on the whole film was a Mad Magazine parody in which the lone surviving bandit, the one sent up into the hills to close “the back door” of escape by the former coach passengers, comes back down and robs the survivors. So Hustler and Hud, thumbs up; Harper and Hombre thumbs down.
Newman’s very worse film of all, however, was The Towering Inferno (1974) featuring everybody in Hollywood who could get to a casting call that week. They should have burned the film instead of the set. Terrible movie with unrealistic scenes and a plot thinner than toilet paper.
Of course, everybody raves about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). They were OK movies, good even, The Sting more so than Cassidy (lord, I got so tired of “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head!”) but neither would make my top 100 movies list. Instead, I like a film that few have seen and even fewer liked--The Outrage, the 1964 Hollywood remake of Rashomon with Paul Newman as outlaw Juan Carrasco and a cast including Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson, Howard Da Silva, Albert Salmi, Paul Fix, and a very young William Shatner. I just like how the story unfolds from so many different points of view and yet the truth is so different. I’m not saying it’s a great film, but it caught my interest, and it was interesting seeing Newman playing so many different versions of his Mexican bandit.
I remember seeing Newman in his first film appearance, The Silver Chalice (1954) but the only thing I noticed about him was that he had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen on any person of either sex. Still, for me, the actor who dominated that movie was Jack Palance as Simon Magus; it also featured another of my favorite villains, Joseph Wiseman.
As for other good but not great to mediocre Newman films, he was very good opposite Woodward and sharing the screen with Orson Welles in The Long, Hot Summer (1958) and in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), with blue-eyed Liz Taylor, Jack Carson, and Burl Ives. He was especially good opposite Geraldine Page in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) since the two of them earlier had created their leading roles in the Broadway play. The movie had a great cast including Ed Begley, Rip Torn, and Mildred Dunnock, but it was Page’s film all the way. On screen, both Bird and Cat were watered down versions of the stage plays, since Hollywood back then couldn’t say anything about venereal disease and castration in Bird or homosexuality in Cat.
I liked Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958) primarily because it was based on Max Shulman’s very funny novel of the same name. I think Woodward was better at comedy than Newman.
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) was another extremely good performance. Newman as middleweight Rocky Graziano could have taken Robert De Niro as middleweight Jake LaMotta (interestingly, LaMotta later played the bartender in The Hustler).
The Left Handed Gun (1958) with Paul Newman as Billy the Kid and fine character actor John Dehner as Pat Garrett touched all the bases of the legend while Newman portrayed Billy as primarily an overgrown child who sometimes became deadly dangerous.
I really liked the premise and story of The Prize (1963), a good spy film with Edward G. Robinson. Very entertaining and much, much better than the very boring Torn Curtain (1966). I also enjoyed What a Way to Go! (1964) although Newman’s role wasn’t as good as Mitchum’s or Gene Kelly’s. Slap Shot (1977) was good. Blaze (1989) was, well, interesting. Newman was good in primarily small parts in The Hudsucker Proxy (1993) and Road to Perdition (2002). He was too good for Where the Money Is (2000). Until They Sail (1957) was strangely interesting.
Exodus (1960) was his epic movie, but looks very dated today. I don’t recall much about The Young Philadelphians (1959) and From the Terrace (1960), and the only thing memorable about Paris Blues (1961) is that Woodward and Sidney Poitier also were in it. Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man is a complete wash: liked the Hemingway stories on which it was based, but can’t recall a thing about the movie. I have an impression of A New Kind of Love (1963) as vaguely silly. Sometimes a Great Notion (1971) was overrated. The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968) was definitely mediocre.
Cool Hand Luke (1967) was a good ensemble film with a good cast and was especially enjoyable after an immediate succession of Harper, Torn Curtain, and Hombre. But it’s not one of my favorites.
I strongly disliked Torn Curtain (1966), Winning (1968), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Pocket Money (1971), Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976), The Drowning Pool (1975). Other films not named here, good or bad, I have never seen.
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