The style of put-‘em-up scuffles erupting from time to time in The Strawberry Blonde, directed by Raoul Walsh, is a glove-like fit for the belligerent character assigned to the impressive, balletic, and pent-up James Cagney, who had a background as a dancer segueing into his film career that shows in his powerful, tightly coiled movements. That character, Biff Grimes, is supposed to be a dentist in turn-of-the-century New York ready at any moment to fling himself into a fight as if to avenge the last scraps of his dwindling dignity—but we don’t really believe it. This man is neither lover nor dentist. He’s a fighter. A street fighter to be…
-
-
In the fourth part of Albert Camus’ humane and heartfelt masterpiece, The Plague, taking place in the French port of Oran on the Algerian coast, there is a moment of quiet surprise following a scene where an innocent child lets out a final, death-rattling wail as he expires in a hospital ward, tortured to the end by the deadly bacillus that is overtaking the town like a wildfire tearing into the heart of a forest. Wringing his hands and importuning God to the save the child, a lowly but faithful man of the cloth, the priest stands beside the cot helpless and abject as the doctor, Rieux, later discovered to…
-
The close-set and benign features on the face of the Italian actor Ninetto Davoli seem to incarnate stupidity more completely than in any other actor that I’ve ever seen. It is almost uncanny, the perfect embodiment of a trait not always easy to bring out—and not always gratifying to bring to life as an actor, to be sure. But Davoli does it, and so utterly that I’ve moved beyond seeing in his performance that of a jester, an idiot, or a freak, so that now this magical feat has become impressive more than anything else. And impressive is what it is. To have that caliber of character acting can garner…
