Let's Spam About Gary Cooper - The TCMR Edition

[pktrekgirl]

Well, I've not been able to post much as I've been WAY busy at work...but I wanted to check in here and say hello, anyway.

While I'm glad Coop is getting a day, I must admit to feeling alot like I usually do on Humphrey Bogart day (I notice he is not getting a day this year, for the first time I can recall). In other words, I'm glad about Coop getting a day...but I'm disappointed with the picks.

It's not that they aren't great films, because they are. But I guess I was hoping for more 'meat' for the hard-core fans.

I would have liked to have seen, for example, THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH. It just came out on DVD, and I can't imagine why TCM couldn't show it.

Or give us something more obscure, like OPERATOR 13 or DEVIL AND THE DEEP, TEN NORTH FREDRICK or one of several others that never get shown.

I love PRIDE OF THE YANKEES...but it's like Coop's THE MALTESE FALCON. Great film. But we don't need to see it EVERY month.

Just sayin....

[MissGoddess]

Hi PK!

I agree that his most popular films are already played in decent rotation so to show some more obscure films which give us a better idea of the broad range of his career would have been sublime. Oh well, I guess it's enough that he at least got a day.

I didn't realize Bogie was left out---that is rather surprising. Not to stray off topic, but I watched him in High Sierra last night (I've seen it several times already) but this time I really thought he was so sexy! *lol* I don't know what hit me differently but all of a sudden I think this is one of his most attractive roles. He and Ida are a good pairing.

Miss G

[feaito]

Or give us something more obscure, like OPERATOR 13 or DEVIL AND THE DEEP, TEN NORTH FREDRICK or one of several others that never get shown.

....Like "One Sunday Afternoon", "City Streets" or "Now and Forever"... More of Coop's great & yet "undiscovered" gems from the 1930s!

BTW, the other day I was reading (yet again) David Shipman's excellent "The Great Movie Stars-The Golden Years" and in Coop's profile he states: "The strange thing is that Cooper (as his TV interviews showed) had in life a number of effeminate mannerisms. However, on the screen he was virility personified, all that was required of a hero: honest, courageous and determined- determined to do what must be done at whatever the cost. The image was fixed quite early, though he did, with surprising elasticity, manage from time to time less admirable qualities: mawkishness, craftiness, hesitancy. But he could never be villainous. He himself considered that his consistent popularity stemmed from the fact that he always played "the part of Mr. Average Joe American. Just an average guy from the middle of the USA.""

That startled me. I had never heard or read before about Coop having effeminate mannerisms. That sounds so weird, but then Mr. Shipman is a respected and well known scholar and author.

[MissGoddess]

Hola Feaito,

I think I can guess what mannerisms and expressions he might be alluding to, which if you isolate them out of context could appear feminine. Watching and listening to all of him I pick up so much more that it cancels out that impression at least in my case. It's funny, because sometimes I'm surprised by how he will play a scene and I realize he must have felt very comfortable in his skin to be able to behave in ways that would make most other actors look childish. Hee!

[MissGoddess]

Had to share this. I don't know if anyone has heard about Kevin Costner's new serial-killer picture but in almost all the articles about it they have compared him to Gary. Here is my reaction to one of them:

Here is what Peter Rainer of Bloomberg wrote: "Although (Kevin) Costner has often been typed as his generation's Gary Cooper, that designation has always been dubious. Costner exhibits a lot more mettle than Cooper ever did. "

Of course I just had to email him and here is what I wrote:"Good morning---I just read your article about Kevin Kostner and my attention was caught by your comparison of him with Gary Cooper.

I can't help but agree with you that the comparison is dubious---but not because of any lack of "mettle" on the part of Cooper's characters. An acquaintance with Gary Cooper movies will show you the mistake in that assumption. See Man of the West, The Hanging Tree, The General Died at Dawn and Vera Cruz and see if you won't change your mind.

The real dubiousness of the comparison, is that Cooper's characters were always at bottom deeply honorable men and Costner virtually never brings out that quality to any degree of believability. It does not seem to be in him, or perhaps he lacks Cooper's acting chops to display it.

No offense is intended, I just wanted to clarify a blatant misconception about Gary Cooper's unique persona. Thank you for letting me speak my piece."

Here is the link to Rainer's full article, which includes one more negative comparison to Gary:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=muse

[jdb1]

Good for you, Miss G. I felt some of the same annoyance at a review last week in the NY Times for the new K. Hepburn video collection.

In addition to the fact that the review contained factual errors (for which corrections were listed in the next day's paper), it seemed to me that the reviewer had very little familiarity with Hepburn, her work, or her amazing impact on the film industry and the country in general. It's dollars to donuts that the reviewer (I wasn't familiar with his name) is new, young, and ignorant of the very subject he's supposed to be writing about.

By the way, comparing Costner to Cooper in the first place seems pretty specious to me

[sandykaypax]

I have never heard ANYONE compare Kevin Costner to Gary Cooper before this article! I do not see any similarities at all!

I do like Kevin Costner as an actor, even though he did make that TERRIBLE Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. What a horrible case of miscasting that was.

To me, Cooper is an All-American, manly man with a bit of a shy streak. Costner is a reformed frat-boy. I don't see that bad-boy thing in Cooper.

I can't see Kevin Costner playing any of Coop's great roles. I can, however, see Coop playing Costner's role in Dances with Wolves. And maybe Field of Dreams. In Silverado, Coop would be best suited to the role played by Kevin Kline ("You're wearing my hat.")

Sandy K

[MissGoddess]

I get email alerts from Google whenever there is something out there on Gary, and lately there have been several about this new movie and each one has compared Costner to Cooper. I had never heard it either until this latest spate of reviews. And to think it's a movie about the life of a serial killer.

[pktrekgirl]

It wouldn't surprise me if those guys all read each other's reviews and 'lift' ideas like that from each other.

I suppose Costner has the same general body type...and maybe that is where the original comparison came from. But I'm not buyin' the rest.

[moira finnie]

"Riven with doubt?"

In reading something about Joel McCrea in Bright Lights Film Journal, I came across a strikingly apt description of a good friend of the actor. The author said that "as Gary Cooper aged, his face was riven by doubt."

I've always been touched by Cooper's most sensitive late life performances and especially by the vulnerability that showed in his long, sometimes haggardly appealing face in the '50s. To me, this quality heightened his work in such films as High Noon, Ten North Frederick, Love in the Afternoon, and The Wreck of the Mary Deare, giving his characters depth and sensitivity that might not have always been found on the script's page. There were few, if any, major stars from the classic heroic mold who wore their years so completely as Cooper allowing him to become more expressive. His deeply lined face so often looked tired, lost, appreciative, kind and understanding during this period--and, to me, was far more interesting than when young.

Do you think it's accurate to describe what appears in his work of this period as "doubt"? Do you prefer his work when he was a younger, and healthier man? Thanks in advance for any insights. Here's a link to the original article about McCrea that contains this reference to Cooper.

Gary Cooper being vulnerable with screen daughter Diane Varsi in "Ten North Frederick" (1958).

[MissGoddess]

Hi Moira---thanks for including your posting here on the later part of Gary's career, which in my opinion contains some of his most interesting work and showed he was really digging into his characters and utilizing all he had learned in previous decades. The Hanging Tree, Man of the West and The Garden of Evil are movies in which he plays a man with a mysterious past that, were it to have been actually depicted within the movie would have shocked most Cooper fans---instead we are only shown what this past has created: a man haunted.

Ten North Frederick showed him at his most vulnerable, when all of "Joe Chapin's" sins come home to roost. I stand by my claim this is his great unheralded performance.

Everyone: On the TCM board I just learned the good news that Universal plans to release a Volume II to it's Gary Cooper Signature Collection in 2008. Titles to be included:

1) Bluebeard's Eigth Wife
2) Desire
3) One Sunday Afternoon
4) The Virginian restored version

And possibly the 1930 movie "The Spoilers".

And just as exciting is the news that one of my favorite above mentioned westerns from the 50s is coming to dvd from Fox, GARDEN OF EVIL, with a special making of documentary!!!

[feaito]

Excellent news MissGoddess! Thanks for sharing that info!

[pktrekgirl]

Everyone: On the TCM board I just learned the good news that Universal plans to release a Volume II to it's Gary Cooper Signature Collection in 2008. Titles to be included:

1) Bluebeard's Eigth Wife
2) Desire
3) One Sunday Afternoon
4) The Virginian restored version

And possibly the 1930 movie "The Spoilers".

And just as exciting is the news that one of my favorite above mentioned westerns from the 50s is coming to dvd from Fox, GARDEN OF EVIL, with a special making of documentary!!!

Sorry I haven't been around much to squeal at this wonderful news. That is simply FANTASTIC.

Can't believe we are getting 5 more - maybe 6.

I certainly can't complain about all the DVD's that have been released - there is no reason whatever for any Gary Cooper fan to whine about him being neglected - he is really getting some great treatment with all of these boxed sets.

I wonder if they have all done really well or something, and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon?

Of course, I am a very greedy little Gary Cooper fan...and my dream is for them to release a bunch of the silents - especially some of the ones that probably exist, but cannot be found, even on the 'grey' market.

[MissGoddess]

I also read this week that WBHV is going to issue a Vol. II to its signature collection next year! It will probably include Bright Leaf and Saratoga Trunk and I'm not sure about the others, They Came to Codura was mentioned. One Sunday Afternoon is a possibility too, if Universal does not have it.

I would like to see the silents, too. Or Ten North Frederick & The Hanging Tree (in need of restoration).

[Sue Sue Applegate]

This is all very good news for the Coop's Coop. I think his later years, as Moira so smoothly referenced, reveal so much more depth and sensitivity. I know what I'm putting on my Christmas list now.

(We had a family friend who was an extra in The Virginian. )