BURT LANCASTER, The Poll

tough guys

I almost left it off bcz of YOU!

Cassandra Crossing

bcz of YOU!

??

I'm kidding. I sort of want to vote for The Swimmer because, overripe as it is, Lancaster carries the whole thing and makes it work, for me. Also I figure it'll get overlooked.

xp: I'm just assuming you were the one who voted Tough Guys in the Kirk Douglas poll?

i actually managed to miss the Douglas poll. re: Tough Guys - it was more of a lol nom than anything. i think my dad rented it when i was about 10, so i don't really remember much except my folks chuckling at the meta joeks.

i'm sad to say that i've only seen about seven of these. i've got a soft spot for the swimmer myself.

ten, tops.

FWIW, he appears in drag in "The Crimson Pirate."

Ulzana's Raid DVD is OOP; a great Vietnam allegory.

i've seen 27 of these movies and i like them all except for the osterman weekend. in fact, i don't even remember burt being in the osterman weekend. i only went and saw the osterman weekend cuz i was in love with rutger, but it was kind of a stinker.

wait, i've seen airport. make that 28 of these movies. i might have to vote for atlantic city, cuz it's in my top ten or twenty movies but i like burt in lots of stuff.

no rocket gibralter no credibility though.

I liked the Osterman Weekend when I saw it as a teenager cos it felt racy and grown-up and I also loved Rutger.

> i like them all except for the osterman weekend

Not Peckinpah's finest moment, to be sure.

and where is zulu dawn? i like that movie too.

of the minority i've seen, comes down to sweet smell vs. atlantic city. went with jj hunsecker.

The Professionals is like if the Wild Bunch had been made for by and about idiots.

xp: I tried to eliminate the 30+ films I couldn't imagine someone judging his best.

I saw The Professionals at the Ziegfeld here maybe 20 years ago; just a solid entertainment.

I have to vote Local Hero because that's my favourite film ever and he's great in it even though it's not a huge role.
Keep watching the sky, MacIntyre.

valdez is coming, which also isn't up there, is a freaky western a la spagetti if you ever get a chance to see it. i love his 60's and 70's stuff. the genre stuff is so cool. scorpio is awesome.

Gotta be Sweet Smell of Success, but Elmer Gantry, Atlantic City, The Swimmer, The Leopard are all contenders.

His noir work is great as well. Brute Force, the Killers, Criss Cross all top notch.

wait, you don't have the scalphunters on there either. that's an awesome movie!

His Frankenheimer vehicles are solid, but not either's best work.

you forget the movie he did with cassavetes too.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/Child_is_waiting.jpg

sorry, burt is one of my heroes! that's all.

Scott you are aware there is a fifty option limit for polls, right? What would you have Morbs left off?

one movie i don't think i've seen that i wanna see is:

http://www.musicman.com/00pic/3266.jpg

I think The Train is his best physical performance -- that take they allways show on TCM where he's jumping and climbing all over the place -- aside from the early swashbucklers (and i haven't seen em all). I also think it's JF's best film after Manchurian.

oh there is? i didn't know that. he could have left osterman weekend and tough guys off. and airport.

and Judgment at Nuremberg.

I would vote The Leopard but you don't get to hear Burt's voice in the uncut version.

"I also think it's JF's best film after Manchurian."

Seconds is way way way better.

"I would vote The Leopard but you don't get to hear Burt's voice in the uncut version."

Or anyone else's IIRC. Isn't it all dubbed?

Agree that Airport could be dropped in favor of something good.

Airport is fine for what it is.

Sure but if it's anyone favorite Lancaster movie then that person SHOULD be disenfranchised.

yes, The Leopard is dubbed per the Italian system, but there's a shorter English-lang release where he dubs himself.

Ah I see. Well either way (I've only seen the Uncut version) it's an amazing film and his performance (crazy dubbing and all) is amazing.

Have we done one of these polls for Brando yet?

We did. What a pathetic showing.

Marlon Brando

Did we do this already -- coulda sworn I started one of these.

Voted for The Leopard this time: the finest example of poise and grace in movies. Never got devoted fan Pauline Kael's gripes about Burt in SSOS: when Lancaster wore spectacles he looked like he'd been "bled by leeches."

Atlantic City's one of my favorite movies.

"Never got devoted fan Pauline Kael's gripes about Burt in SSOS: when Lancaster wore spectacles he looked like he'd been "bled by leeches.""

Not sure what the problem with that would be in that movie.

She found him less hot or something.

There's enough sexy in that film if you ask me.

seen only a fraction but The Leopard > Sweet Smell

and i'm not a big Kael fan, but i take her point

The Train

amazing fucking movie imo

^blood diamonds!

As much fun as SSOS is, and Burt in it, he's miscast. (And the victimized couple, well, they're almost as horrible as the Good Girl in Sunset Blvd.) Admirably trying to stretch, but it's just not him. Like Bogart in The African Queen -- there would be no Burt legend based on roles like that.

My finalists would be The Leopard, Ulzana's Raid, Atlantic City, Local Hero. (Need to take another look at Gantry, it's been eons.)

no love for The Killers? Saw the sparkling DVD release for the first time a couple of years ago. Boy, was he

he's terrible in those play adaptations: Come Back, Little Sheba and The Rose Pasta Palooza.

*boy, was he a hunk

Sorry, I was paying attention to Ava.

yeah, he's amazing in The Killers considering it was his debut and, for a male lead, he doesn't speak very often!

James Wolcott wrote an essay a few years ago lamenting the loss of physical grace in today's crop of Hollywood meta-hunks; Lancaster was his touchstone for how to move in character.

bump

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZE3JKM5KL._SS500_.jpg

and since VC ain't there, Atlantic City.

It seems like THIS Tv (MGMs hd movie channel/clearing house) plays a couple of Burt movies every other day (Scorpio, The Kentuckian, Valdez... etc.)

I saw Vera Cruz twice fairly recently! I can only think I cut it by mistake.

write-ins are acceptable.

one last bump

my all-time favorite actor! gotta go w/the iconic from here to eternity but the swimmer is a cult classic, must've seen it on latenite TV half-a-dozen times in the pre-video dark ages.

sweet smell of success is obvious but also great. "match me sidney"

Yeah, finally went with Sweet Smell after tempted by The Train and Atlantic City. Glad I don't have to actually choose, though.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hmmmm, no.

No way is The Swimmer better than Atlantic City and The Leopard.

unless you're nrq

ai missed it. Atlantic City would've got my vote, can't say i really remember him in Sweet Smell, probably that bad guy column writer huh, seen too many film noirs they all start to blend into one big movie.

You should read Geoffrey O'Brien's The Phantom Empire, where each chapter is one giant genre movie.

How the fuck didn't Elmer Gantry get one vote but The Swimmer did?

he was *52* yrs old when he made the swimmer!?! he was quite good in it & its a difficult role imo; i havent seen enough of the rest of these 2 rate where it would stack up tho

Surprised to say that I don't think I even knew what Executive Action was about all these years; I always thought it was a Killer Elite-type action film. The opening credits seemed to be modeled after The Manchurian Candidate's, or at least the tone. I've never seen a film with so many shots of old men looking at TV screens.

is that the one with Stanwyck as the CEO's widow? I saw it yeeeears ago on PBS.

That's Executive Suite--this one's about the Kennedy assassination.

(Which, checking, is with Holden, not Lancaster--also saw it ages ago.)

Burt fest at UCLA, and Turan on B.L.:

http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2013-04-05/burt-lancaster-centennial-celebration

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-burt-lancaster-notebook-20130403,0,5280540.story

100th

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-burt-lancaster-100

If you're a Lancaster fan, here is an interesting bit of useless trivia. A popular Spanish band called Hombres G had an album called La cagaste Burt Lancaster. Of course, Lancaster is pronounced in a nonrhotic English dialect, meant to rhyme with "cagaste".

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b7/La_Cagaste_Burt_Lancaster.jpg

David Bordwell from Antwerp Summer Film College, on young Burt in The Killers, and what Bill Forsyth sez about old Burt:

Bill learned that Burt regretted not doing more comedy, so he wrote the mogul’s part with him in mind. Burt signed on eagerly. He showed up on the set with a full beard, hoping Bill would let him keep it; they compromised on a mustache.

Bill had worked mainly with teenage actors on That Sinking Feeling (1979) and Gregory’s Girl, so Burt was really the first adult performer he ever directed. Across their three weeks together, Burt demanded nothing, except that he wanted to loop his dialogue. Bill preferred not to loop, and as it turned out only one scene needed to be rerecorded.

Burt and Bill skipped lunch in order to prepare the next scene, becoming “lunch bums.” Bill remembers Burt hanging out with the other actors and chatting with extras. He freely made fun of Bill’s accent: “”He speaks no known language.” He told Bill: “I don’t know what you’re saying, but I know what you mean.”

Bill talked as well about his own career. Starting out in the days before home video, he learned dialogue and pacing by audio taping classic films. (Sounds like a good idea to me.) He became a performer’s director. “The only thing I’ve ever said to a cameraman is: ‘Accommodate the actors.” He quoted Burt approvingly: “The space in front of the camera is the actor’s space.”

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2015/08/03/watch-those-hands-or-burt-jean-luc-and-bill-come-to-cinephile-summer-camp/

Burt NYC retro

http://filmforum.org/series/burt-lancaster

he's fine in The Swimmer, wouldn't even place in my top five.