Close your eyes and you'll think it's Richard Widmark
The next time you channel-flip to Jack Nicholson doing the Joker in Batman, or even to such great vintage Nicholson vehicles as Chinatown and The Last Detail, treat yourself to something a little different afterward and pop in a DVD of Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death, Night and the City, No Way Out or Pickup on South Street. Widmark died this week at the age of 93.
In the late 1940s and 1950s, Widmark pioneered the art of turning psychos, weasels and marginal hustlers into multi-faceted characters; a host of later actors, notably Nicholson and Bruce Dern, brought his influence into their portrayals of antiheroes and villains of the 1960s and 1970s. Widmark was the poet laureate of desperation. Even in his one great heroic role, in Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets, he was doing something extreme: fighting the pneumonic plague. At his best, he physicalized sadistic psychology and mental torment, and mastered the trick of using his clear blonde looks as a mask that he occasionally lifted for the audience.
Nicholson must have learned his knack for letting viewers in on his characters' private jokes partly from Widmark, and the way Nicholson modulates his drawling, sometimes sneering delivery owes even more to the earlier star's virtuoso verbal presentation. Indeed, after you sample Kiss of Death or Pickup on South Street, close your eyes for a second during a Nicholson star turn and you'll find yourself imagining Richard Widmark.
Above: UCLA photo via the Los Angeles Times of Richard Widmark in 'The Bedford Incident'
Comments
I think Richard Widmark precedes a generation of who we are familiar - He was really his own man - and left a significant footprint in the character world.
Thought this was worth a read.
wendy
Posted by: Wendy Stark | March 29, 2008 12:10 AM
One of the true greats is gone. Catch "The Bedford Incident" sometime on TCM, if you want to see him at his best.
Posted by: Mark Hassler | March 30, 2008 5:04 AM
I watched Richard Widmark wide eyed in 1976 as he portrayed Dr. George Harris, Chief of Surgery at the fictitious Boston Memorial Hospital in Michael Crichton's film, Coma. Coming from a medical family, Widmark was thoroughly convincing as a Doctor, Surgeon and Politician. As Dr. Harris, he expertly navigated his way through a complicated drama all the while calmly spearheading a criminal plot to steal vital organs from recently "deceased" patients and placing their body parts on the black market. He had the right touch in every scene I saw him in.
Posted by: Douglas Atkins | March 30, 2008 1:02 PM
I was a young child when I was first indrduce to Richard Widmark in the kiss of death, even to this day it is still my favorite movies. he was great and he will be missed
Posted by: Sandra Plefka | March 30, 2008 3:01 PM
There are only a few left. Widmark was one of the last of that great generation of male movie actors for whom we might call part of the classic Hollywood. With perhaps the likes of Kirk Douglas, Van Johnson, Karl Malden, Harry Morgan, Ernest Borgnine and Eli Wallach being the last.
At the age of 93 Mr Widmark lived far past most of his leading man contemporaries such as Fonda, Wayne, Stewart etc. So, he was with us for a long time though he lived a private life. He was never afforded the same lofty heights as some of his peers but that was perhaps because he took on roles that were quite different - he was not always playing the same hero or villain.
Yes, he is gone but he is not forgotten. I thank him for all the movie memories he gave and for a dignified life lived.
Posted by: Joseph | March 31, 2008 5:21 PM