If you have 5 minutes, I'd like to share with you a clip from one of my favorite films - from 1941, 'The 49th PARALLEL' Directed by Michael Powell. Perhaps if you've never seen or heard of it, you may want to rent it for a view, it's a magnificent film. Setting the scene: A group of survivors from a sunken Nazi submarine has infliltrated a local community of gentle Hetterites (Amish) somewhere along Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence. Actor Eric Portman is frightening, but Actor Anton Wallbrook's eloquence proves more than his match.
Funny thing, when the U-Boat captain started talking about "the wind from the east," I was reminded of one of Rathbone's patriotic curtain speeches in one of the Universal SHERLOCK HOLMES series.
What a pleasure it was one evening in the 1980's to show a VHS copy of THE 49th PARALLEL to Raymond Massey, who hadn't seen it in many years. But that's another story.
And you may recall he was Canadian by birth. The perfect casting for the last act.
I never knew that, but it makes the scenes stand out more for me the next time I see it. The film somehow seems timeless to me no matter it was made 70 years ago. Sometime Mr. Preston Jones, I'd (we'd?) like to hear your story about what you mentioned above.
Massey had a fantastically cheeky role as an AWOL soldier who 'sacrifices' his freedom right at the end of the movie in a clever symbolic scene involving a train, a border, a bridge, and some general indecision that was meant as a metaphor for America's dilemma about isolationism etc.. VERY clever use of a scene's setting to convey a bigger idea. Toitally brilliant.
One wonderfully clever thing about Powell and Pressburger is the subverting of the idea of 'hero' in each film. There's usually a trickster who carries the day, even in a more conventional war-film like 'River Plate' they prefer to emphasise the TRICK that sank the Graf Spee. In this case, Massey is an AWOL soldier, with far more in common with the average WWII serviceman than any 2D action hero. He turns up at the last hour, like the nun in 'Vertogo' and saves the day despite himself. The Holy Fool. That sort of insight sets these film-makers apart from the pack.
Wonderful assessment of the Archers, William, thanks for that!
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Montana, my good fortune was to discover that a young neighbor in my apartment building had been visiting a fellow Canadian chum of hers and her Uncle in Beverly Hills, "a television actor from the Fifties." When I asked his name, she said, "Raymond Massey," and I wasted no time offering to screen one of his movies from my tape library. As it turns out, Christopher Plummer had just given him a big new TV set-up, so the timing was perfect. Ray chose 49th PARALLEL, and it was the beginning of a friendship that lasted a few years until his passing. There were several Massey movies savored after dinners, but somehow I never got to show the two I took most personally in his career, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE and EAST OF EDEN.
(You'll see a reference to Massey, who had worked with Charles Laughton on Broadway, in my book on THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.)
He doesn't have any lines, just makes faces. I thought he looked like Massey, but I'm probably mistaken.
That's Niall McGinnis.
No, LOL!
Niall MacGinnis doesn't look like Raymond Massey!
If you'll look at the clip at the four-minute mark, center screen, you'll know who I mean.
Who IS that actor, if he's not Raymond Massey? Somebody HELP ME!
I really wish I could help you too. I watched the entire film again last night and the actor's characters name is uttered only once that I could hear and it was so quick and near the end of the film I didn't catch it. I narrowed it down to possibly two names in the credits, but still couldn't figure it out. He sort of reminds me of (can't recall the actors name) the scientist from Back to the Future?
