BMP Actor Spotlight: Marlon Brando....

Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He was born on April 3, 1924 and died on July 1, 2004.

He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute, and part of Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

He is best known for his roles as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan in the early 1950s. In middle age, his well-known roles include his Academy Award-winning performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Colonel Walter Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, both directed by Francis Ford Coppola and an Academy Award-nominated performance as Paul in Last Tango in Paris.

Brando was an activist, lending his presence to many issues, including the American Civil Rights and American Indian Movements.

Sacheen Littlefeather on behalf of Marlon Brando, refused to accept the Best Actor Oscar® for his performance in The Godfather (1972).

Best Motion Picture Association:
Brando appeared in two Best Motion Pictures.

On The Waterfront (1954)
The Godfather (1972)

Academy Awards and Nominations
Won Award for Best Actor:
On the Waterfront (1954)
The Godfather (1972)

Nominated for Best Actor:
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Viva Zapata! (1952)
Julius Caesar (1953)
Sayonara (1957)
Last Tango in Paris (1973)

Nominated for Best Supporting Actor:
A Dry White Season (1989)

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Film Focus: On The Waterfront (1954)...

Notable Film Fact(s):

This film was based on a 24-part series of articles in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson, Crime on the Waterfront. The series won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. The stories detailed widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfront of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

To add realism, On the Waterfront was filmed over 36 days on-location in Hoboken, New Jersey (the docks, workers' slum dwellings, bars, littered alleys, rooftops).

Director Sam Spiegel sent the film script to Marlon Brando and it came back with a refusal. While Spiegel continued to work on Brando, Frank Sinatra agreed to take on the role.

It is also on the Vatican's list of 45 greatest films of all time, compiled in 1995.

Film Synopsis:

Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) once dreamt of being a great prize fighter, but now works at the docks of Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), the corrupt boss of the dockers union. He witnesses the murder of longshoreman Joey Doyle by a couple of Johnny's thugs, but won't betray Friendly, who is both his brother's (Rod Steiger) boss and a long-time friend of his family.

Later Malloy meets the dead man's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) and feels responsible for his death. She introduces him to Father Barry (Karl Malden), who tries to force him to provide information for the courts that will smash the dock racketeers.

Director:
Elia Kazan

Producer:
Sam Spiegel

Screenplay:
Budd Schulberg

Cast:
Marlon Brando
Karl Malden
Lee J. Cobb
Eva Marie Saint
Rod Steiger

Distributor:
Columbia Pictures

Release Date(s): 28 July 1954 (US)

Running time: 108 minutes

My View Rating: ***

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BMP Actor Spotlight: James Stewart....

James Maitland "Jimmy" Stewart was an American film and stage actor, best known for his self-effacing persona. He was born on May 20th, 1908 and died on July 2nd, 1997.

Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards. In 1940, he won the best actor Academy Award for his performance in The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. He also received one Lifetime Achievement award. He was a major MGM contract star.

He also had a noted military career, rising to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force Reserve.

From the beginning of James Stewart's career in 1935 through his final theatrical project in 1991, Stewart appeared in 92 films, television programs and shorts.

Best Motion Picture Association:
Although Stewart appeared in many landmark and critically acclaimed films, he has only two connections with the Best Motion Picture of the Academy Awards:

You Can't Take It With You (1938)
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

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Film Focus: You Can't Take It With You (1938)...

Notable Film Fact(s):
This 1938 comedy film directed by Frank Capra was adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.

In addition to winning Best Picture, it also won Best Director for Frank Capra.

Actor Lionel Barrymore's infirmity was incorporated into the plot of the film. He was on crutches the entire movie, which was said to be due to an accident from sliding down the banister. In reality, it was due to his increasing arthritis.

Film Synopsis:

Tony (James Stewart), the eldest son of millionaire Anthony P. Kirby (Edward Arnold) and his snobbish mother (Mary Forbes), has fallen in love with a stenographer that works for Kirby, Alice Vanderhof (Jean Arthur).

She is the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, whom she lives with and a few extra misfits in a decaying old house. It's a building that just happens to stand in the way of Mr. Kirby's plans to construct an impressive office complex. But Grandpa Vanderhof refuses to sell. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things do not turn out the way Alice had hoped.

Director:

Frank Capra

Producer:
Frank Capra

Screenplay:
Robert Riskin

Cast:
Jean Arthur
Lionel Barrymore
James Stewart
Edward Arnold
Mischa Auer
Ann Miller
Spring Byington
Samuel S. Hinds
Donald Meek
H. B. Warner
Halliwell Hobbes
Dub Taylor
Mary Forbes
Lillian Yarbo
Eddie Anderson
Charles Lane
Ian Wolfe
Ward Bond

Distributor:
Columbia Pictures

Release Date(s): 23 August, 1938

Running time:
126 minutes

My View Rating: **


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