Saturday, February 07, 2009
James Whitmore, R.I.P.
1 commentsJames Whitmore, Versatile Character Actor of Flinty Integrity, Is Dead at 87
As an example to prove that the venerable New York Times can't always be relied upon to get it right, I offer their obit of the beloved actor James Whitmore, who passed yesterday.
Any paper that can print an obit of this stunning, acting Everyman, and never once mention one of his most impressive stints in film, the early creature feature THEM!, is not to be trusted.
At a time when films in the Sci-Fi genre were little more than a bad script, cardboard sets and props and really atrocious performances, THEM! collected all the proper adult elements—focusing on talent and film experience as criteria.Written by Ted Sherdeman—whose credits in the '50s and '60s included Scandal Sheet; The Eddie Cantor Story; St. Louis Blues; The Big Show, along with the war films, Breakthrough; Retreat, Hell!; Away All Boats and Hell To Eternity. THEM! was directed and produced by long-time Hollywood veterans Gordon Douglas and David Weisbart, respectively. The eerie music was written by film score icon Bronislau Kaper, of Green Dolphin Street fame. The gorgeous B&W photography was shot by film pioneer Sid Hickox, who came to THEM! having already lensed To Have And Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, White Heat, Along The Great Divide and Distant Drums, among over 150 assignments starting in 1916.
Whitmore, already an Oscar-nominee, played the strong, heroic good-guy cop, within a steller lead cast that included a young, pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the romantic lead and the estimable Edmund Gwenn—towards the end of his storied career—as the sage scientist who alone grasps the import of those strange, deadly goings-on in the Arizona desert.
Ahead of its time, THEM! also casts the female lead, played by Joan Weldon, as a serious, trained scientist who's more intent on solving the riddle of the radioactive impact of nuclear testing than responding to Arness' goofy romantic advances. Indeed, they portrayed a woman in "the girl part."
Staying consistent, this team assembled a superb supporting cast of character actors, both young and old—and mostly uncredited—which included such as Fess Parker, John Bernadino, Richard Deacon, Leonard Nimoy, William Schallert, Dub Taylor and, especially, Olin Howland's indelible near-star turn as the alcoholic rummy who actually came face-to-face with the deadly, mutated ants early on and survived.All of this firepower combined to create a high-level exploration of the impact of an already increasingly out-of-control military-industrial complex in a brand new—and thoroughly not yet understood—nuclear age. The fact that they chose a mutated-creepy crawly flick as a frame to present these questions and warnings, served to entertain their audiences while scaring the bejeesus out of them, both psychologically and politically.
A stunning film. It changed the discussion on our nuclear prospects; it changed the science-fiction genre utterly. Career-wise, it served as a spring board for some of those involved, while providing a fitting cap for the careers of others.
The fact that The New York Times would miss all this is stunning. Like the ants, it's kinda big.
The fact that this is one of Gotham's favorite films of all time, and the piece that introduced us to Whitmore and made us a fan forever, is, of course, self-evident.
Thank you for all the amazing and always human-scale work, Mr. Whitmore.
We fear your type of performer will not pass our way anytime soon.
You will be sorely missed.
posted by Gotham 3:18 PM
1 Comments:
Pardon my ignorance, but I only knew him from The Shawshank Redemption--one of my faves--but I enjoyed his performance in it.
By 
Kiko Jones, at
February 09, 2009 4:56 AM
