Saturday, January 03, 2009

First impressions

I'm down with the latest incarnation of illness that keep circling through the family, so I've spent the day either sleeping or on the couch watching two Route 66 eps and Key Largo (cuz I was still in a Humphrey Bogart mood after High Sierra). And while half out of it, I had a scene stuck in my head that I could not, for the life of me, place. It finally came to me.

It was from ffolkes (1979), a highly underrated, wonderful Roger Moore action film that my family used to watch all the time. Which made me realize that this movie gave me my first, rather against-type, impression of Anthony Perkins, and it wasn't as the twitchy, nervous, self-conscious character he often played in other films. No, my first impression of Anthony Perkins was as a cold-blooded, intelligent, scary murderer/hijacker. That's still the image I get when you mention his name and I realized I've never really shaken it. I've learned to accept the nervous version, but I still expect to see that cold calculating look appear any second, no matter who else he's playing.

The only other against-type first impression I can think of off the top of my head is Stewart Granger in The Wild Geese (1978). That was the first thing I saw him in, and I have never, ever been able to see him in anything else without distrusting him and waiting for him to doublecross somebody. I just can't shake that first impression.

And now I'm really in the mood to watch ffolkes, except, alas, I don't own it. Great cast (Roger Moore, Anthony Perkins, James Mason, David Hedison!), cool action, "Cigarette, Kramer?", and cats and more cats! I used to want three little white kittens, just so I could name them Esther, Ruth, and Jennifer.

4 comments:

Ginger Ingenue said...

Oh, I'm sorry you're sick. :(

I hope you get to feeling better soon. :)

I've never seen this movie, but I love Anthony Perkins, James Mason, and kittens, so it might be right up my alley. ;)

My first impression of Fred Astaire was a bit throwing: it was FUNNY FACE, so I just thought of him as this lovable, old, unattractive man...not knowing he was quite handsome in the 1930s.

***

Have you ever seen BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT?

DKoren said...

Still sick. Lost my voice and am all croaky now. I was going to do a post on how important voices are to me in an actor... except I ran out of energy halfway through and gave up. Sigh.

I like your Fred Astaire story!

And yep, I've seen Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

Ginger Ingenue said...

Goodness...sorry you lost your voice, too. :(

"I was going to do a post on how important voices are to me in an actor"

That would be interesting! :)

I think a lot of my favorites have unique voices...Dana, Bogart, Leslie, etc.

"And yep, I've seen Beyond a Reasonable Doubt."

Did you like it?

DKoren said...

Ahhh, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. I was extremely disappointed in this movie, but that's because it had such potential to be awesome and they blew it in favor of their "surprise" ending. All they had to do was just work in the setup material for that surprise, without giving it away, simply laying the groundwork so it was inevitable, I would have probably loved this movie. But they didn't, and there's nothing I hate more than poorly executed plots, particularly when I actually really really really love the idea itself. (The more I like an idea, the more I get mad when the filmmakers, for whatever various reasons, can't execute the idea properly.)