MOVIE REVIEW — MacKenna’s Gold a remake of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World?

When I first saw MacKenna’s Gold (1969) I was 13 or 14 and thought it was a classic — great special effects and sound effects for the Sixties, visuals for the earthquake at the end that buries all that gold. And it had other elements a kid moviegoer wanted. Even kind of a happy though cheesy twist ending reminiscent of the Sixties’ James Bond series, where the guy and the girl survive to live happily ever after with saddlebags full of gold. These days the romantic charms of Julie Newmar and Camilla Sparv are about the only ones that stack up, along with the theme tune as sung by Jose Feliciano and narrative by Victor Jory. And their fights over Gregory Peck with knives, whips, cat-wrestling in a big pond, show a piquant hint of sado-masochism (though admittedly I didn’t think about lithe young women in those terms then).

Six-foot-three Greg Peck — here dwarfed by six-nine Ted Cassidy of “Lurch” fame in tv’s The Addams Family — was always good for an epic, as was Omar Sharif. Both had worked with director J Lee Thompson before early in the decade on earlier epics (The Guns of Navarone and Taras Bulba). Telly Savalas tended to pick his pictures for blockerbuster appeal too — sheer Sixties commercial potential. The cast included a host of older guest stars, all along for the ride and underused: Edward G Robinson, Raymond Massey, Burgess Meredith, Lee J Cobb, Eli Wallach, Anthony Quayle. Sharif probably gives the best performance, at least tries the hardest. Most of the rest of the cast looks demoralised (but for Julie, who’s crazy) and I can’t blame them. Amid all this, stupid back-process shots, carelessly speeded-up film and gimmicky horse’s-head-point-of-view mounted-camera shots are too much to take.

Meantime, Missouri-born screenwriter William Rose had spent the Fifties in Britain creating truly classic screenplays like Genevieve and The Ladykillers before returning to Hollywood for It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) and going on to another in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!(1966). Carl Foreman was writing Champion, Home of the Brave, Young Man With a Horn, The Men, High Noon, A Hatful of Rain — all worthy, topical subjects — before settling for the epic if-somewhat-bloated war movies Bridge on the River Kwai and The Guns of Navarone. Who would have thought he would be found resorting to cribbing from another screenwriter — Rose — just at the peak of his reputation?

I’d long since forgotten the gist of MacKenna’s Gold unlike It’s a Mad Mad… World, that I first saw when I was eight but have watched a few times since. Now, having just watched the western right through for the first time since 1969, the formula format is far too obvious to miss. Both stories are centered on the search for a lost treasure told of by a dying old man. In both the rumor spreads until multiple factions join the search — in the western, a marshal, bandidos, Indians, townspeople, cavalry — and run across each other in a game of attrition, picking each other off. Old partnerships are summarily dissolved too, as when Telly, as a cavalry sergeant, shoots two of his own men in cold blood in his lust for gold. The dust-ups are way funnier in the comedy, between Terry-Thomas & wife Dorothy Provine, father-in-law Milton Berle & wife Ethel Merman, along with the expert hijinks of Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar & wife Edie Adams, Phil Silvers, Dick Shawn, Paul Ford, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney and many more.

It strikes me there’s nothing expert at all in MacKenna’s Gold aside from maybe a knife vs belt duel between Sharif and Peck (he’s helped by Camilla) — attractively choreographed, probably worked out themselves. No thanks to Foreman or Thompson. Note that this takes place between two other pointless pieces of business: climbing up a sheer thousand foot cliff, then climbing down again to fetch their horses. Maybe I should have left my teen illusions of a classic western intact…

MOVIE LEGENDS — THE MOUNT RUSHMORE FOUR (Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston)

If there are four screen stars with the granite jaws and steely gazes worthy of replacing the presidents’ faces on Mount Rushmore, they are those who rose as actor-producers in the immediate post-World War II era and projected themselves as larger-than-life characters on screen: Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston. Other stars of the era — Richard Widmark, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Victor Mature, Cornel Wilde — miss the category by being not quite as stellar, less predictable and therefore less conventionally heroic.

Gregory Peck

Charlton Heston

Burt Lancaster

Kirk Douglas

In their time and for long afterwards they were derided by critical cognoscenti for not being the same type of actor as Olivier or Laughton or Muni, totally losing themselves in their roles. I’ve come to agree with Bette Davis, who, remarking on her Warner Bros studio-mate Paul Muni, regretted that he submerged himself so far into his role that there was little real flesh and blood showing on the screen. Spencer Tracy, if not Fredric March, might have lent something to them — though he too was too much of a thespian and boozer to be a producer. Brando, too, in the end, thought little of his craft, dabbling in directing often to the detriment of his films, and bent as he was on being an activist.

The Rushmore Four were also liberal activists in their day, even Charlton Heston — sticking his neck out for others’ civil rights, like Burt Lancaster, on protest marches with Martin Luther King. Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster were instrumental in breaking down the Hollywood Blacklist, the brick wall of rabid hatred erected by Senator Joe McCarthy and maintained by Nixon and many others starting in the late Forties and persisting for the next fifteen years with few exceptions. Gregory Peck, particularly after he gained civil-rights iconic status through To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), was near the top of Nixon’s dirty tricks hitlist. As far as acting went, the Four were plenty disciplined enough (unlike Brando) and convincing enough to carry the central role in at least a hundred major films between them from 1945 to say, 1975, though the flow had thinned out considerably over the last decade.

Though all could be relied on best to project virility effortlessly on screen — something hardly captured by the Arnies and Sylvesters with all their huffing and puffing, in their biggest, pumped-up bodies — Burt and Kirk were from the start capable of considerable subtlety of emotion along with the naked power, and Gregory and Chuck improved with age. Greg Peck’s early screen performances were described in terms of various levels of inadequacy even by his major biographer. The open implication always was that he made it on his looks in openings at a time when the real, established stars were off at the war. And at the peak of his box-office popularity in the late Forties and early Fifties he was singled out as “the kind of actor that Humphrey Bogart despised”, whatever species of beast that be. Critics held reservations about Charlton Heston because of what was said to be his “reserve” on screen, slow to come to the boil in front of the camera, for example — though probably it was all down to a highly controlled technique. He had considerably more stage experience than the others, after all. And he never quite made the Motion Picture Herald top 10 in personal popularity for any one year though starring in the biggest box-office blockbusters of all through the Fifties: The Greatest Show On Earth, The Ten Commandments for DeMille again, and Ben Hur — supposedly for lack of any deep connection felt by the audience. Lancaster and Douglas were said to be “terrible tempered twins” though not really much alike — renowned for their egos though, as good friends, surrendering status to each other in the many films they made together. Lancaster once suffered from faint praise by co-star Shirley Booth, admittedly a stickler for stage standards of quality, for relatively rare moments of “truth” in Come Back Little Sheba (1952). All were highly regarded for their ability by British audiences, foremost Douglas just shading Lancaster.

Burt (The Killers, 1946) and Kirk (Champion, 1949) were both launched to stardom at age 33. Greg and Chuck made it at 27 — vi Days of Glory (1944) and Dark City (1950) respectively, though a little less convincingly. None had difficulty filling the screen from the outset — better than say, contemporaries Richard Widmark, who just misses this bunch, with Robert Mitchum, missing only for reasons of lackadaisical anti-heroism — but only two of them made the annual top 10 box-office stars lists, and only twice each, Greg and Burt. Kirk and Charlton narrowly missed the honors list several times, as did Widmark and Mitchum. Sure there was more, and hotter, competition for places in those days. But there also wasn’t the all-fired rush for bigger blockbusters every time. Many of their films were actually made to be personally uplifting. Also, for whatever reason, in recent decades the Harrison Fords, Sylvester Stallones, Arnold Schwarzeneggers, Chuck Norrises, Samuel L Jacksons and Jackie Chans have been named top box-office draws when special effects afficionados would go along to see a trained chimp in their roles.

As far as their acting went, some of their roles have rarely been surpassed: Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life (1956) as Vincent Van Gogh and as the disillusioned colonel in Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1958). Lancaster, after a swashbuckling period — The Flame and the Arrow (1950), The Crimson Pirate (1952) — applied himself to as versatile an oeuvre as Brando, including such classics as Elmer Gantry (1960) and The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). Watching him recently in Run Silent, Run Deep, up against the old warhorse Clark Gable, admittedly twenty years past his prime, Lancaster came across as fine — sensitive and subtle. Surely, adding that same year his frightening portrayal of abuse of power in The Sweet Smell of Success and of sexual frustration (pursued by Rita Hayworth at her most alluring) in Separate Tables gave him the acting honors for 1958. All of them infuriated a certain type of critic at one time or another — Peck especially for Captain Ahab in Moby Dick and evil Dr Mengele in The Boys from Brazil, “boring” or inert in other roles; Heston for being irredeemably dignified and monumental — as if he could be anything else in his best, most demanding roles; Lancaster for not being “method” enough to need a therapist — so definitely not the actor’s actor in the Fifties; Douglas, though more “method” and facile in displaying feelings, still too much of a hunk to please other, generally weedy actors.

Burt was an acrobat pre-acting, Kirk a professional wrestler, and Greg and Chuck similarly athletic. That by itself is enough in most circles to consign them to the monosyllabic Action Man category and disqualify them from serious artistic consideration today, when slightly built, androgynous Johnnny Depps, Brad Pitts, Matt Damons and Leonardo DiCaprios rule.

All four retreated to rather routine westerns in the latter 1960s to extend their commercial lives — and all were better for their presence. At the same time they continued extending their experience in different types of roles, just as other old timers essayed risky roles late in the decade, giving their last hurrahs in ground-breaking blockbusters: Tony Curtis (The Boston Strangler), John Wayne (True Grit), Henry Fonda (Once Upon a Time in the West), Rod Steiger (Waterloo), George C Scott (Patton), with Marlon Brando (The Godfather) still to come. Of the four, as always Lancaster and Douglas did best in attempting to stretch the boundaries. Heston (Planet of the Apes) was the only one to lower himself to “disaster movies”, though he fitted them in to finance his Shakespeare and other literary classics.

Douglas produced and directed the anti-establishment western Posse (1975) before semi-retiring into the production side; Peck the same, emerging on screen for superior horror The Omen (1976). Lancaster did best through this era with 1900 and Atlantic City. All four boasted marriage partnerships of extraordinary duration, especially where Hollywood is concerned. And all lived at least into their mid-eighties, Douglas still going at 92, again maybe reflecting outstanding professionalism and discipline.

CHARLTON HESTON: AMERICAN ICON

Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur in William Wyler's film

The death of Charlton Heston two days ago at age 84 has once again brought out all the termites from the woodwork — those who think Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe were equals in popular culture, and who feed on the downfall of Anna and great individuals just the same. Uppermost in reporters’ obituaries are a still of Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments (1956) — as if to imply Heston thought he personally had that power — his suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, and the fact that, in later life, he blotted his liberal copybook as head of the National Rifle Association. It’s hardly a unique failing for a star actor to believe they have superior abilities in other directions — Ronald Reagan, Clint Eastwood, Shirley Maclaine, Arnie Schwarzennegger, Oprah Winfrey to name a few — so I will concentrate on Heston’s legacy in the main event of his life.

At the height of his career from 1956 to 1968 he was the foremost screen figure in historical roles. It is hard to believe that he was something of a fluke for his role as Moses. From his mid-twenties he had played such demanding epic roles as Marc Antony, Andrew Jackson and Buffalo Bill. And Cecil B DeMille himself had used him as the central figure in the contemporary blockbuster The Greatest Show On Earth (1952). For Ben Hur (1959), made by William Wyler for MGM, Heston was some way down the list in line for the role, behind Burt Lancaster and Marlon Brando and one or two others. But it is hard to picture now anyone but Heston as the modern Ben Hur.

Kirk Douglas made good attempts to impinge on Heston’s historical epic territory with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Ulysses (both 1955), The Vikings (1958) and Spartacus (1960); Gregory Peck with David and Bathsheba (1951), Moby Dick (1956), The Guns of Navarone (1961) and a few other more tame costumers; Burt Lancaster the same. But The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur each set spectacular box-office records — the only films to even approach Gone With the Wind in earnings in the twenty years since.

Chuck went on in El Cid (1961) and 55 Days at Peking (1963) and then when overblown costume epics suddenly stopped returning their massive outlay — as with Cleopatra and, spectacularly, The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) — one star carried on unaffected, still drawing crowds into The Greatest Story Ever Told as John the Baptist, The Agony and the Ecstasy as Michelangelo, The Warlord (all 1965), Khartoum (1966) as General Gordon, and of course Planet of the Apes (1968) as a futuristic hero of the human race.

Most of these films he carried by himself as sole box-office draw, and along the way out-acted such prestigious names as Laurence Olivier. Yet, never once did he appear in the annual top 10 box-office stars lists. This fact is incomprehensible in an age when Samuel L jackson can claim to be all-time box-office champion by virtue of appearing in some of the biggest box-office takers in history through an era of outlandish prices — even though unrecognizable in Star Wars and others.

It has been said by film historians that he was not overly popular with audiences because his portrayals were impersonal, not intimate enough to engage the viewers on a deeply personal level. If this is so, it is my guess they were suitably awestruck by the fact that Heston appeared to be whatever monumental figure he was playing and certain didn’t need — or wheedle for — audience sympathy in the way that ‘great’ actors like Brando, Olivier and Laughton did.