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Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
(Preminger, 1957)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs (OOP)
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Slither
(Zieff, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Girlfriends
(Weill, 1978)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
(Petrie, 1980)
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

January 8

Bitch Slap

Waiting for Armageddon

Wonderful World

Youth in Revolt

January 15

January 22

Drool

Extraordinary Measures

The Girl on the Train

Karl's Seven Films

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The legendary Karl Malden died today at age 97. We should all be around so long and look back on such a full and accomplished life. Malden was a solid and believable presence in 70 films on top of his run in that 1970s TV cop series, called Streets of San Francisco. But he earned major artistic esteem in only seven films, three of them with Marlon Brando and spanning an 11 year period, from 1951 to '62.

Malden's first blue-ribbon, brass-ring film was A Streetcar Named Desire ('51), in which he played the beefy momma's boy Mitch, the best friend of Brando's Stanley Kowalski. The next Brando pairing came with On The Waterfront ('54), in which Malden played Father Barry. His third and final Brando collaboration was in One-Eyed Jacks ('61), in which he played the cowardly and sadistic Dad Longworth, under Brando's direction.

Malden was also excellent as the chief detective in Alfred Hitchcock's I Confess ('53); as the obsessive high-strung father of Jimmy Piersall (Tony Perkins) in Fear Strikes Out ('57); opposite Burt Lancaster in Birdman of Alcatraz ('62), in which he played Alcatraz warden Harvey Shoemaker; and as Warren Beatty's dad in John Frankenheimer's All Fall Down ('62).

Okay, I'll throw in his role as Gen. Omar Bradley in Patton ('70) and make it eight. But he only had one or two decent scenes in that Franklin Schaffner film, which George C. Scott owned top to bottom.

With Marlon Brando in On The Watrerfront.

I love Malden's third-act Waterfront moment with Brando in the Hoboken bar when he snaps at the bartender, "Gimme a beer!" And his line to Eva Marie Saint in the beginning: "You think I'm just a gravy-train rider with a turned-around collar...don't you? Don't you? (Pause) I see the sisters taught you not to lie."

In Streetcar Malden says to Vivien Leigh, "I was fool enough to believe you were straight." And she answers "Straight? What's 'straight'? A line can be straight, or a street. But the heart of a human being?"

I love the One-Eyed Jacks moment when the hog-tied Brando spits in Malden's face just before being bull-whipped on Main Street; ditto Brando's faking Malden out in the final shoot out, running and diving into the dust and shooting Malden in the back three times.

Tall Guy<< previous | next >>"No Jean, No Money!"

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 1, 2009 at 1:22 PM

comment #1

Monument says ...

Father Barry was such a great role, I love this scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XLbRI0kdLg

Posted by Monument at July 1, 2009 2:19 PM

comment #2

George Prager says ...

What about BABY DOLL?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvgfLilPZP4

"FOOOOOD!!!! FOOOOD!!!"

Posted by George Prager at July 1, 2009 2:26 PM

comment #3

George Prager says ...

Harve Presnell R.I.P.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090701/ap_on_en_ot/us_obit_harve_presnell_2

Posted by George Prager at July 1, 2009 2:39 PM

comment #4

High Chaparral says ...

Y'know, you remind me of the man that lived by the river...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX6wOOJy0hk

Posted by High Chaparral at July 1, 2009 2:57 PM

comment #5

p.Vice says ...

Finally, someone worth eulogizing.

He was also good in Wild Rovers.

Posted by p.Vice at July 1, 2009 3:27 PM

comment #6

COCO says ...

The man ruled....in ''Nevada Smith'' by the creek at
the end......''FINISH ME.......FINISH ME!!!''
Just terrific stuff.
Will miss him....RIP.

Posted by COCO at July 1, 2009 3:45 PM

comment #7

Halhillco says ...

In October of 2002 I attended a screening of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE at the Goldwyn Theatre at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills. At the film's conclusion, a microphone was handed to a then 90 year old Karl Malden who was seated in the rear of the theatre. A thousand people rose to give him a standing ovation and then in an emotionally filled voice he croaked these words into the mike:
"They all gone. All gone."
It was really chilling. But I was glad I was there.

Posted by Halhillco at July 1, 2009 3:59 PM

comment #8

mccool says ...

Only seven huh?

Malden's Father Barry made me want to be priest when I was 11 or 12. From meek to brash while in the good graces of God? What's better than that? Course then I grew up....but still. Awesome about sums him up.

Posted by mccool at July 1, 2009 4:13 PM

comment #9

BurmaShave says ...

I'm pretty sure I've repped it on here before, but his work on THE WEST WING shouldn't go overlooked.

Posted by BurmaShave at July 1, 2009 4:16 PM

comment #10

Stringer Bell says ...

97! God bless him. Lets not forget his Amex commercials.

Posted by Stringer Bell at July 1, 2009 5:06 PM

comment #11

alynch says ...

Is seven really a low enough number require an "only" qualifier. I think that's better than most actors were able to do.

Posted by alynch at July 1, 2009 5:45 PM

comment #12

T. S. Idiot says ...

Malden has small roles in some good films early in his career: Kiss of Death, The Gunfighter, Where the Sidewalk Ends.

He's very good expressing lust for Jennifer Jones in Ruby Gentry, a wonderfully overheated King Vidor melodrama, and plays variations on this same role in Baby Doll and The Cincinnati Kid. He provides a welcome sparkle in the otherwise dreary Billion Dollar Brain. And his understated befuddlement and slow burns balance Ustinov's typical overacting in Hot Millions.

His villain in One-Eyed Jacks is by far his best work. He should have played bad guys more often.

Posted by T. S. Idiot at July 1, 2009 7:22 PM

comment #13

TheCahuengaKid says ...

In his autobiography, Brando said that Karl Malden was the most decent and ethical man he ever met in Hollywood...

Posted by TheCahuengaKid at July 1, 2009 9:55 PM

comment #14

Rod32303 says ...

Watch his excellent work in his SEVENTIES in Marty Ritt's "Nuts" where he played Barbra Streisand's father. He and Dreyfuss in the courtroom scene - one of the best of both of them.

R.I.P.

Posted by Rod32303 at July 1, 2009 10:32 PM

comment #15