"Delicate, with an innocent stare and an angular body, a wide-eyed Clift takes over his debut film, Red River (1948), from the lumbering John Wayne. Hawks claimed he told Clift that if he quietly watched the action from behind his tin coffee cup, he could steal every scene."
With big tousled hair, unadulterated sinew, and teeth gleaming like a Pontiac grille, Burt Lancaster came to fame in the late 1940s. He belonged to a new cohort of actors quite different from the 1930s Debonairs (William Powell, Melvyn Douglas, Cary Grant) and the Bashful Boys (Cooper, Fonda, Stewart). Yet the new lads were also at variance with the rugged Ordinary Joes (Cagney, Bogart, Tracy, Gable).
For one thing, Lancaster, Victor Mature, Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Charlton Heston were brawny—monsters, in a way. They often took off their shirts. One publicity still for River of No Return shows Mitchum more unclothed than Monroe. Three of them played prizefighters, and Mitchum, himself a boxer, had the broken nose of a brawler.
...
Hired straight from the stage with no film experience, Burt debuted as the Swede in The Killers (1946), on loanout to Mark Hellinger at Universal International. Burt benefited from a galvanizing entrance. Lying on a bed in the dark, refusing to flee the hitmen on his trail, Burt is a shadowed, curiously languid torso in a tight undershirt.
Only after a beat do we see something else: massive hands rubbing a weary head. Soon that head is revealed.
As the killers burst in, the whole image comes together.
Has a Hollywood beginner ever been given such a gift as this opening?
...
Moreover, in his early phase, he mostly plays losers. Not the brightest guy in the room, he’s easily suckered by a femme fatale in The Killers and Criss Cross. He makes amateurish mistakes at crime (Sorry, Wrong Number) and, coming out of prison, he is the last to realize the rackets have gone corporate (I Walk Alone). . . .
Great piece; and I appreciate the personal story that you open with.
I do think that body image pressures for men have gotten worse -- I'm in my late 40s; growing up I was small for my age and that never felt like an issue for me (I was also very much a geek, so I wasn't really trying to compete to be "manly").
Just as a contrast to the (very real) trope you describe, I remember growing up and noticing the pattern in a number of folktales of the youngest brother succeeding.
There would be some dangerous quest; the older brother(s) would think, "I'm big and strong; I can handle it" and ride off and promptly get themselves killed/ensorceled. The younger brother would follow and be a little more careful and (almost always) stop and listen to advice from some person they met along they way and figure out that they could solve the quest not by charging in, but by understanding the threat and knowing how to face it.
"He generally succeeds in tasks after his older brothers have failed, as in The Red Ettin, or all three are set to tasks and he is the only one to succeed, as in Puddocky. He may happen on the donor that gives him his success, as Puddocky has pity on him, but usually he is tested in some manner that distinguishes him from his brothers: in The Red Ettin he is offered the choice of half a loaf with his mother's blessing and the whole with her curse, and takes the blessing where his brothers took the curse, and in The Golden Bird he takes a talking fox's advice to avoid an inn where his brothers decided to abandon their quest."
Not exactly. I'm thinking of the youngest son who, travelling on a dangerous quest will share a crust of bread with the person he meets on the road -- who will end up giving him information that saves his life.
I'm trying to think of specific examples, but I remember there being a lot of folktales in that trope.
Yeah I know what you mean--the other brothers are jerks and get their comeuppance, and the youngest is gentle and wise and succeeds. It's funny, though--the characters that pop into my head that do this are girls: Vasilisa the beautiful, Mufaso's beautiful daughters, Rose and the talking eggs....
It also occurs to me that this trope has a problematic version as well -- equating virtue with forbearance. The version that most resonated with me, the characters are rewarded for paying attention, listening to other people, and treating them with respect (and part of what makes the older brothers jerks is that they have the attitude, "my quest is so important I don't have time to stop and interact with anyone")
One other example of a work that contrasts with the "Go Big or Go Home" trope -- the move Red River: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-red-river-1948
Nicely described in this post: https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2019/04/
"Delicate, with an innocent stare and an angular body, a wide-eyed Clift takes over his debut film, Red River (1948), from the lumbering John Wayne. Hawks claimed he told Clift that if he quietly watched the action from behind his tin coffee cup, he could steal every scene."
Side note: The linked post on "the brawny contingent" is an interesting story about the group of larger leading men that entered Hollywood in the late 40s: https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2015/08/03/watch-those-hands-or-burt-jean-luc-and-bill-come-to-cinephile-summer-camp/
-----quote----
With big tousled hair, unadulterated sinew, and teeth gleaming like a Pontiac grille, Burt Lancaster came to fame in the late 1940s. He belonged to a new cohort of actors quite different from the 1930s Debonairs (William Powell, Melvyn Douglas, Cary Grant) and the Bashful Boys (Cooper, Fonda, Stewart). Yet the new lads were also at variance with the rugged Ordinary Joes (Cagney, Bogart, Tracy, Gable).
For one thing, Lancaster, Victor Mature, Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Charlton Heston were brawny—monsters, in a way. They often took off their shirts. One publicity still for River of No Return shows Mitchum more unclothed than Monroe. Three of them played prizefighters, and Mitchum, himself a boxer, had the broken nose of a brawler.
...
Hired straight from the stage with no film experience, Burt debuted as the Swede in The Killers (1946), on loanout to Mark Hellinger at Universal International. Burt benefited from a galvanizing entrance. Lying on a bed in the dark, refusing to flee the hitmen on his trail, Burt is a shadowed, curiously languid torso in a tight undershirt.
Only after a beat do we see something else: massive hands rubbing a weary head. Soon that head is revealed.
As the killers burst in, the whole image comes together.
Has a Hollywood beginner ever been given such a gift as this opening?
...
Moreover, in his early phase, he mostly plays losers. Not the brightest guy in the room, he’s easily suckered by a femme fatale in The Killers and Criss Cross. He makes amateurish mistakes at crime (Sorry, Wrong Number) and, coming out of prison, he is the last to realize the rackets have gone corporate (I Walk Alone). . . .
----- end quote ----
Great piece; and I appreciate the personal story that you open with.
I do think that body image pressures for men have gotten worse -- I'm in my late 40s; growing up I was small for my age and that never felt like an issue for me (I was also very much a geek, so I wasn't really trying to compete to be "manly").
Just as a contrast to the (very real) trope you describe, I remember growing up and noticing the pattern in a number of folktales of the youngest brother succeeding.
There would be some dangerous quest; the older brother(s) would think, "I'm big and strong; I can handle it" and ride off and promptly get themselves killed/ensorceled. The younger brother would follow and be a little more careful and (almost always) stop and listen to advice from some person they met along they way and figure out that they could solve the quest not by charging in, but by understanding the threat and knowing how to face it.
Oh yeah--the seventh son of a seventh son thing, right? Huh. I wonder how those tropes connect, if indeed they do.
Here we go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngest_son
"He generally succeeds in tasks after his older brothers have failed, as in The Red Ettin, or all three are set to tasks and he is the only one to succeed, as in Puddocky. He may happen on the donor that gives him his success, as Puddocky has pity on him, but usually he is tested in some manner that distinguishes him from his brothers: in The Red Ettin he is offered the choice of half a loaf with his mother's blessing and the whole with her curse, and takes the blessing where his brothers took the curse, and in The Golden Bird he takes a talking fox's advice to avoid an inn where his brothers decided to abandon their quest."
Right! Jack or the Ash Lad are these too sometimes, right?
I had to google that, but yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askeladden
Not exactly. I'm thinking of the youngest son who, travelling on a dangerous quest will share a crust of bread with the person he meets on the road -- who will end up giving him information that saves his life.
I'm trying to think of specific examples, but I remember there being a lot of folktales in that trope.
Yeah I know what you mean--the other brothers are jerks and get their comeuppance, and the youngest is gentle and wise and succeeds. It's funny, though--the characters that pop into my head that do this are girls: Vasilisa the beautiful, Mufaso's beautiful daughters, Rose and the talking eggs....
Yes, that makes sense.
It also occurs to me that this trope has a problematic version as well -- equating virtue with forbearance. The version that most resonated with me, the characters are rewarded for paying attention, listening to other people, and treating them with respect (and part of what makes the older brothers jerks is that they have the attitude, "my quest is so important I don't have time to stop and interact with anyone")
Excellent work, as usual.