Actors 2

A lovely still from Antonioni's L'ECLISSE, 1962, with Alain Delon. The link below, if you copy to your browser, features a terrific page of animated stills of this and other movies like TAXI DRIVER, BLADE RUNNER, 2001, LOLITA etc with brilliant animation of the stills. Enjoy!

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2011/09/cinematographs_living_breathin.html

10 great male performances: (or my favourites at any rate)

Robert De Niro - TAXI DRIVER & RAGING BULL (and his sax player in NEW YORK NEW YORK!)
Dirk Bogarde - THE SERVANT / MODESTY BLAISE / DEATH IN VENICE
James Mason - A STAR IS BORN
Maurice Ronet - LE FEU FOLLET
Peter Finch - SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY / THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE
Anton Walbrook - THE RED SHOES
Ralph Richardson - THE HEIRESS
Montgomery Clift - WILD RIVER
David Hemmings - BLOW-UP
Cary Grant - NOTORIOUS
Gary Cooper - FRIENDLY PERSUASION
James Dean - EAST OF EDEN
and sneaking in Jack Lemmon as Daphne in SOME LIKE IT HOT - Tony ain't bad either!

Anton Walbrook, actor

A moment to remember that debonair, suave Viennese actor Anton Walbrook [1896-1967]. What an impressive legacy he left. His key role for me is of course as Boris Lermontov in Powell & Pressburger's THE RED SHOES in '48. Lermontov is the obsessive head of the dance company who puts art above everything else. We can watch him over and over in this. It was also good to catch up with his demented gambling obsessive in Dickinson's THE QUEEN OF SPADES recently, a classy revival from 1949 introducing Edith Evans as the countess with the secret of winning at cards.

Walbrook began in the 1930s in lots of Austrian and German films including the first version of VIKTOR UND VICTORIA, MICHAEL STROGOFF and as Prince Albert opposite Anna Neagle in those two Queen Victoria films VICTORIA THE GREAT and 60 GLORIOUS YEARS. He is also the evil mastermind in the first GASLIGHT and other classics like THE 49TH PARALLEL and Powell's THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP. I must catch up with Powell's OH ROSALINDA! where he stars. He later appeared in the '50s as Ludwig of Bavaria in Max Ophuls' LOLA MONTES and of course in Ophuls' LA RONDE and in I ACCUSE, and later television work including as Waldo Lydecker in a German version of LAURA!



He has a simple grave in that actors' churchyard at St Johns church in Hampstead, London, a lovely 18th century spot, just opposite Kay Kendall. It says "Anton Walbrook, Actor". How very appropriate.