Leading Men shorter than Richard Widmark

I saw this the other day on Twitter.

Really? That's a fact? I don't buy it. Okay maybe it's the case with Panic in the Streets (1950) where Richard Widmark is placed against all 6' 4" of Jack Palance but I refuse to believe that most leading men were over 5' 10". In fact, there were a lot of really short leading men who starred along even shorter leading women. Alan Ladd was paired with Veronica Lake and Mickey Rooney with Judy Garland for a reason people!

Here is a list of 30 classic film actors who were under 5' 10". I'm not even including those stars who were exactly 5' 10"! If you can think of any more, do let me know.

Mickey Rooney 5' 2"

Alan Ladd 5' 6-1/2"

James Cagney 5' 6-1/2"

Edward G. Robinson 5' 5"

Humphrey Bogart 5' 8"

Tony Curtis 5' 9"

Ernest Borgnine 5' 9"

Marlon Brando 5' 9"

Tony Randall 5' 8"

Jack Lemmon 5' 9"

Frank Sinatra 5' 7"

Gene Kelly 5' 7"

Bobby Darin 5' 8-1/2"

Dean Stockwell 5' 6"

Richard Barthelmess 5' 8"

Ramon Novarro 5' 6"

Paul Newman 5' 9-1/2"

James Dean 5' 8"

Steve McQueen 5' 9-1/2"

Peter Lorre 5' 5"

Buster Keaton 5' 5"

John Garfield 5' 7"

Kirk Douglas 5' 9"

Charles Boyer 5' 9"

Dirk Bogarde 5' 8-1/2"

George Raft 5' 7"

Peter Sellers 5' 8"

Claude Rains 5' 6-1/2"

Charlie Chaplin 5' 5"

Groucho Marx 5' 7-1/2"

Images shamelessly stolen from TCMDB and stats stolen from IMDB. Thanks to my Twitter friends for suggestions and to Carlos for helping me round out the list to an even 30.

A [Love] Letter to Elia and Panic in the Streets (1950) at the Brattle

Last Tuesday, Kevin and I got to see the Martin Scorsese documentary, A Letter to Elia, at the Brattle followed by a screening of Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950). I really wanted to write this post last week but I didn't have a chance. I especially wanted to write about it before PBS showed the documentary (last night), but alas life got in the way. If you didn't get a chance to see the documentary last night, no worries. It'll be available in the super ultra mega sexy Elia Kazan Collection that's coming out in November (which I will plonk down hard cash for). And I'm sure PBS will show the documentary again.

In A Letter to Elia, Martin Scorsese delivers a beautiful and touching tribute to Kazan, the director who inspired him and whose work moved him. Scorsese and Kazan became close friends towards the end of Kazan's life. Scorsese made sure that he was by his side when Kazan was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Oscar award at the 1999 Academy Awards. If you remember that ceremony, Kazan got a lot of grief from people in the audience who were still not too happy about his involvement in the HUAC and for ratting out other communists. At this point in the documentary, I got a bit teary eyed. The fact that Scorsese stood by Kazan's side and gave him a big embrace publicly supporting his controversial friend moved me. I really believe that this documentary should have been called A Love Letter to Elia because that is what it was: a love letter directed by Scorsese for Kazan.

Click here for some video goodness

Scorsese's love for Kazan and his work goes back far into Scorsese's childhood. As a teenage, he followed Kazan's East of Eden (1955) from cinema to cinema. Scorsese takes the audience through one scene in which the James Dean character visits his mother at a brothel. Having seen this film some time ago, I didn't remember the scene, or even the film, as anything special but when Scorsese broke down the complex layers of the scene, the lighting, the cinematography, the acting, the significance to the plot, all elements that a director would choreograph with his crew, it made East of Eden seem nothing short of genius!

Scorsese's passion for East of Eden made me wonder about what it meant to be a fan of a single film. I mean truly a fan. Then I thought of the films that I "follow". There is Metropolis (1927) which I have seen in various versions, at the HFA, at the Coolidge Corner Theater, at home, on my computer and soon I'll be seeing it again and this time with live musical accompaniment. It's a film I want to keep watching over and over and over again. Then there is Out of the Past (1947). The reason I'm a classic film fan. The inspiration for this blog. The main source of my love for Robert Mitchum. The most confusing yet enchanting film I've ever seen. I've counted the number of cigarettes in the movie, I gave the main character a Match.com profile, I've shared it with friends, I've kept it to myself, it's the foundation upon which I build my love for movies.

What I enjoyed about the documentary what that this was Scorsese's personal perspective on the life and work of Elia Kazan. Because this little blog of mine, is all about the personal perspective so I really love it when people share their own. We get to see Kazan through Scorsese's eyes. And because Scorsese had such admiration for the man, we start to develop some admiration for him too. It was fitting that I went to see this with my good friend Kevin who just happens to be a Kazan expert. He gave a lecture about Kazan back in 2007, which I attended and prepared for by doing a marathon of Kazan film viewings. And even though I met Kevin during his Film Noir class, it was really after the Kazan lecture when we started to bond and become friends.

The documentary was followed by a screening of Panic in the Streets (1950), one of my favorite noirs. Keeping in mind some of what Scorsese said about Kazan in the documentary, I paid close attention to details in the film that I could possibly attribute to Kazan. The pacing, the camera angles, the set-up of the shots, the choreography of the final chase scene, etc. Something I noticed in this viewing that I hadn't in past ones, was how the gigantic Jack Palance was positioned over very small and diminutive characters. The contrast exemplified his character's power and the level of control he exerted over everyone around him. Everyone looks up to him, not because he's a good person but because he physically and symbolically towers over them.

I learned recently was that Panic in the Streets is now in the public domain. Which means you can watch the entire film on your computer thanks to Internet Archive. But between you and me, this film, and any other Kazan classic, begs to be seen on the big screen. It's the way Scorsese fell in love with Kazan films and it's really the best way to watch any classic movie.

Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) at the Coolidge Corner Theater

Last week I got a chance to see the Buster Keaton classic Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) on the big screen, at the Coolidge Corner Theater (a pretty amazing Art Deco cinema) with live musical accompaniment by Peter Blanchette. It was a great experience. This was the second of a series called Sounds of Silents that the Coolidge Corner Theater is presenting with the help of several very generous sponsors. They are bringing silent films onto the big screen with live music. How cool is that? Unfortunately, I missed their first event which was the Alloy Orchestra performing with Metropolis (1927).  I really love Metropolis and was very impressed with the Alloy Orchestra when I saw them perform with Phantom of the Opera (1925) on Halloween.

I was not having the best of nights when I went to this. I had gone with a group of friends but I was in a very anti-social mood. After my friends gave me a hard time about seating (I have a weak bladder, I need an aisle seat and they weren't making things easy for me), I escaped for a breather and to go to the bathroom. The lobby was crowded and being in my anti-social mood I wanted to avoid as many people as possible so I tried sneaking into the handicapped bathroom which was away from the lobby. Unfortunately, there was a lovely old couple already occupying the bathroom and I had interrupted an older gentleman helping his wife off the toilet. I was mortified. When I closed the door and I turned around, another man (who may or may not have noticed that I interrupted the couple in said bathroom) saw me and mentioned something about there being other bathrooms downstairs (through the lobby). After a while, I realized that the man who spoke to me was the musician himself. D'oh! Another embarrassment, in a long series of embarrassments and humiliations that had plagued me that day, wasn't making this experience all it could be.

Once the film and the music started, I relaxed a bit. Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) is a hilarious film with Buster Keaton at the top of his game. It would be the last film in which Keaton had full creative control. The music was superb, a complex mix of Americana and honky-tonk with everything from electric guitar to mandolin to piano to banjo (this made me think of John & Eberle!). Blanchette mixed recorded music along with live performance (all of the music he performed in one way or another). It was great to watch a silent film in it's original form but accompanied with a whole new and different type of musical style. Before the show started, Blanchette told the audience that when he composes his music for a silent film he thinks about instruments and sounds for each of the characters but he also tries to give the music a unifying theme.

I can't wait to go to future Sounds of Silents and see how other musicians interpret silent films with their music.

If you want to experience Peter Blanchette's musical interpretation of Steamboat Bill, Jr. in your very own home, he's graciously put up some clips on his YouTube channel. Check them out!