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Topic:
Hollywood Death Watch: Bernie Mac (1957-2008)
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JohnWesleyDowney
Registered:
Jan '04
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Date Posted:
4/7 2:02am
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008)
- Date Edited:
4/7 2:25am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
JohnWesleyDowney
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And yes, despite the weird casting, I thought Heston was good in Touch of Evil.
Heston's casting in that movie is commented on in Tim Burton's Ed Wood. It's a fictitious scene (Ed Wood never met Orson Welles) where Wood and Welles talk about the challenges of being a director and Welles says, "I'm supposed to do a thriller at Universal but they want CHARLETON HESTON to play a Mexican!" The look on Wood's face (Johnny Depp) is priceless. Still, Touch of Evil was a good movie, and Heston was good in it.
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
4/7 8:14pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008)
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RT's take on Heston's best performances:
"With his classically chiseled looks and basso profundo speaking voice, Charlton Heston was an icon of old-school Hollywood. Heston embodied a noble, heroic ideal -- small wonder he was the man who injected a sense of gravitas, as well as intelligence and fallibility, to big, bold Biblical epics and historical dramas. And if the kind of grandiosity Heston brought to every role -- even Wayne's World 2! -- might seem old-fashioned in these ironic times, there's still something thrilling in seeing an actor of such rugged intensity giving every role his all. In remembrance of Heston, Rotten Tomatoes has compiled a short list of some of Heston's most famous and memorable performances.
The Ten Commandments (1956, 96 percent)
With the influx of foreign, arthouse, and indie films in the mid-1950s film market -- not to mention the looming threat of television -- Hollywood's answer to attracting audiences involved grand spectacle. Even given the life expectancy of bodies during biblical times, the 34-year-old Heston was strikingly young to play Moses, the legendary leader of the Jews. Yet no other could have outdone his booming voice and security inspiring authority. This is one of the more "pure" of the Biblical epics of the late 1950s early 1960s, for while there's plenty of political commentary to be found within its dialogue and carefully located intimacies, its greatest strength is its ability to inspire the awe famously associated with Biblical tale. Heston's Moses certainly contributes. For those less familiar with Cecille DeMille's last directing project, The Ten Commandments is one of those films that's ironically had a longer life due to endless televised repetition."
This movie has some definite problems---Anne Baxter's horridly campy performance as Nefertiti comes to mind---but it's still interesting, in a florid 50's sort of way. Heston is typecast.
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yankee8255
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
4/7 11:28pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "The 10 Commandments"
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The Ten Commandments being on every year is almost as much a part of the Easter tradition as the bunny and eggs for most people of my age. It's so long, though, that I don#t know I've ever stayed up late enough to see the end. When I was of school-age, I always had to go to bed around the time of the commandments being given.
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LilyHobbitJedi
Title:
Apples to Apples hostess
SFF Trivia Winner
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Aug '05
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Date Posted:
4/8 7:10am
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "The 10 Commandments"
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I love this movie, and I've seen it dozens of times over the year. In my mind Charton Heston IS Moses.
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Proud Master to eboneya & Alassë Eärfalas!  Everybody Lies- House/SW Crossover! http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/28032689/r28039379/ A Light In The Darkness http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b1047
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
4/8 12:34pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "The 10 Commandments"
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A 'net tribute:
"By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: April 7, 2008
“What does it matter what you say about people?” Marlene Dietrich asks at the end of that 1958 American masterpiece “Touch of Evil.” She’s talking about the dead cop Hank Quinlan, a mound of stilled flesh and lasting corruption given frightening life by the film’s director, Orson Welles. The man who brings him down is Vargas, the upright Dudley Do-Right Mexican detective with a paint-on tan. Lantern jaw set like a vise, this is of course Charlton Heston.
Dietrich’s character probably had it right that it doesn’t really matter what we say about people, but in the wake of Mr. Heston’s death on Saturday, I would like to offer a few words about one of the last American movie stars. This seems particularly worthwhile because in the final decades of his life he had all but disappeared from the screen, making one of his only on-camera appearances in “Bowling for Columbine,” Michael Moore’s 2002 anti-gun feature. Mr. Moore shows up at Mr. Heston’s home and tries to shame this stooped and visibly frail old man for his stance on guns. The old man doesn’t engage Mr. Moore, just walks away, unfailingly polite to the end.
Welles called Mr. Heston “the nicest man to work with that ever lived in movies.” These two seemingly unlikely collaborators were brought together to star in a pulpy Universal Pictures project originally titled “Badge of Evil.” Mr. Heston thought that his co-star had been hired as the director (“any picture that Welles directs, I’ll make”), which prompted the studio quickly to sign Welles up for what would be his last Hollywood studio gig. Welles rewrote the screenplay and shot much of the film in Venice Beach in Los Angeles. History, alas, repeated itself, and he lost control of the film as he had on “The Magnificent Ambersons,” which is a different story from the one I want to tell. (A beautifully re-edited version was released in 1998 and is available on DVD.)
It was Welles who decided that Mr. Heston should play the role as a Mexican, partly as a way of building up what he considered to be an uninteresting character. (At first glance it may seem as if Welles failed.) Shortly after the film opens, Vargas and his delectable new American bride, Susan (Janet Leigh), kiss at the Mexican-American border, a passionate embrace that leads to a cataclysmic explosion and soon plunges the newlyweds into a phantasmagoria of sleaze, violence and very low camera angles. Vargas, a celebrity cop who has brought a case against a drug ring that’s about to go to trial in Mexico City, spends much of the story separated from Susan and circling Quinlan, a dirty American lawman.
In long shot and choking close up, Welles directs Mr. Heston brilliantly, making particularly memorable use of the actor’s physicality, his big, rangy body and the hard, clean right angles of his face. The ramrod straight, straight as an arrow Vargas, with his impossibly long and loping stride, could not look or register more different from Quinlan, an amorphous blob who all but rolls across the screen. Welles exploits Mr. Heston’s rigidity as a performer (and his American movie-star presence) for the character, using what in other films sometimes seemed like a limitation of craft and technique to the great advantage of the story’s texture and meaning. He turns Mr. Heston’s jutting jaw into the wagging finger of righteousness, deepening the film’s complex morality.
Mr. Heston starred in other notable films, of course, including Sam Peckinpah’s vicious 1965 western, “Major Dundee,” another story about border crossing and yet another ill-fated production taken away from its director. Mr. Heston plays the title character, a fanatical cavalry officer who, along with a motley posse, chases marauding Apaches into Mexico. Mr. Heston has his moments as Dundee — there’s something about his intensity that lends itself to obsessive characterizations — but he remains elusive, never becoming the Ahab that Peckinpah was after. As he had with Welles, Mr. Heston showed great loyalty to his troubled director and threatened to walk if the studio fired Peckinpah, who was drinking heavily throughout the production. Mr. Heston forfeited his salary in the bargain.
As much as I admire “Major Dundee,” my fondness for Mr. Heston can be traced back to the films I saw growing up, most important his great dystopian trilogy: “Planet of the Apes” (1968), “The Omega Man” (1971) and “Soylent Green” (1973). This was the Charlton Heston I first met and loved and the one I still love, the last man on Earth, the raging consciousness, the horrified hero. Few films thrilled me — or scared me — as much as “Soylent Green,” in which his character realizes that the stuff keeping the human race alive is made from other human beings: “Soylent Green is people!” By then, he had played Moses and saved an entire people from destruction. Things didn’t look good in “Soylent Green,” but somehow, I thought, surely Charlton Heston could save us."
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
4/8 7:44pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. A Tribute
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RT's Review of the Five Best Heston Films:
"Touch of Evil" (1958, 94 percent)
"One of the last of the classic film noirs, Orson Welles' Certified Fresh Touch of Evil featured one of Heston's most driven performances. Heston plays Vargas, a newlywed Mexican g-man who investigates a bombing in a U.S. boarder town; he quickly runs up against the corrupt lawman Hank Quinlan (Welles), who appears to be railroading several Mexicans for the crime. Noirs don't come much more noir than Touch of Evil, a stark, sinister, gritty, formally daring masterpiece. Though Touch of Evil had a troubled history -- the film was taken out of Welles' hands and recut -- it was a favorite of Heston's. "It was a remarkable experience for me, a great learning experience, one of the most valuable I've had in my whole film career," he said."
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JohnWesleyDowney
Registered:
Jan '04
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Date Posted:
4/8 7:56pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "Touch of Evil"
- Date Edited:
4/8 8:00pm (2 edits total)
Edited By:
JohnWesleyDowney
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the film was taken out of Welles' hands and recut
There's a restored version of "Touch of Evil" on DVD that approximates Welle's vision of the film, based on the lengthy memo he gave the studio suggesting changes. The memo is included on the DVD. I watched it recently and really enjoyed it. Heston is great in it, and there's a great little role in it by Dennis Weaver as a motel owner who goes nuts that's pretty amazing.
Walter Murch, one of the all-time classy people in the film industry, and a master editor and sound man, (much involved with the careers of Coppola and Lucas) supervised this version.
From The New Yorker
There have been three subtly different versions of Orson Welles's ornate thriller since it first came out, in 1958. The fourth should be the last: working from a memo that Welles wrote at the time, after the studio had messed with his original cut, producer Rick Schmidlin and editor Walter Murch have come as close to honoring the director's intentions as anyone ever will. At first glance, little has changed; the titles (and Henry Mancini's brassy theme) have disappeared from the celebrated opening shot, but from then on the basic thrust of this Mexican border tale (filmed in Venice, California) remains intact. We still have the manly Vargas (Charlton Heston) struggling to solve the case of the car bomb while his wife (Janet Leigh) feels the heat from a gang of local hoods; we are still thrown by the freakish cameos by Zsa Zsa Gabor and Mercedes McCambridge, and the horrific slaying-a kind of jazz strangulation-of the fleshly Grandi (Akim Tamiroff); and, of course, we still see Welles himself as police chief Hank Quinlan, looming over the action like a Falstaff gone to seed. If anything, the cuts and repairs make the work more fluid and less flamboyant; it was sometimes the studio, rather than Welles himself, who liked to go over the top. His scenes with brothel-keeper Marlene Dietrich have nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with the rotting heart of this amazing fable: the apotheosis of pulp. -Anthony Lane
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
4/9 9:41pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "Touch of Evil"
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Ben Hur (1959, 88 percent)
"The downside (or upshot, depending) to the Studio Era was the Production Code, which required that certain subject matter not be broached in studio productions, no matter the relevance or box office draw. One such subject was violence, which is peppered (liberally for 1959) into Ben Hur. This tale of politics and racial tension during Christ's ministerial rise features sword fighting, swashbuckling, and one of the most famously overplayed sequences in film: The epic chariot race, in which cinematographer Robert Surtees lit Heston in this scene to look like Apollo himself in the Coliseum. Violence notwithstanding, the most controversial elements of the film were the contributions made by notorious (and uncredited) screenwriter Gore Vidal. Suggestions of sexuality (distinct from today's more common mores), the blacklist (of which Vidal was critical) and backhanded politics were intelligently apportioned but in heed of the Production Code, buried in subtext. Loaded with legendary dialogue ("The world is more than we know"), this multiple Oscar winner is another springtime repeat that's impressive regardless of how you spend your Easter Sunday."
Notoriously, Vidal wanted to suggest a relationship between B-H and Messala. But 'Don't tell Chuck!' was their motto. Heston does seem quite impervious to innuendo. The sea battle and the chariot race are great scenes; what most people don't know is that these scenes are closely modelled on the silent version.
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Vengance1003
Registered:
Mar '06
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Date Posted:
4/9 10:52pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "Ben-Hur"
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I loved Ben-Hur and it was one of the only movies which felt too long. Charlton Heston fits the part perfectly.
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yankee8255
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
4/9 11:26pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "Ben-Hur"
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B-H was #1 on my JCC Top 10, a spot it shares alternatively with The Godfather. Simply an incredible movie, also brings the Christ aspect in very well.
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A perfect world: a house in the Hamptons with two solaria and a horse named Prickely Pete,
Dr. van Nostrand as my primary care physician,
the O-OT legally available on DVD in a quality worthy of its greatness
and Luke the undisputed hero of Star Wars
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soitscometothis
Registered:
Jul '03
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Date Posted:
4/10 11:35am
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "Ben-Hur"
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I really enjoy Ben-Hur, but when they call it an epic, they are talking about its length! Still, for those who have the stamina to stick it out, it is a great film. To his credit, Chuck never comes across as an actor acting (Al Pacino, please take note) - he is Ben-Hur. Following the fortunes of his character is a rewarding journey, from prince to galley-slave, from slave to Roman celebrity, and with a guest appearance from Jesus Christ.
A classic.
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
4/10 9:53pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "Ben-Hur"
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Next in RT's Top Five Heston Films:
"Planet of the Apes" (1968, 88 percent)
"In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Heston starred in a series of dystopian sci-fi flicks (The Omega Man, 61 percent, and Soylent Green, 73 percent) with more heft than your average futuristic fantasy. Time has taken some of the edge off these films (Phil Hartman unforgettably lampooned the later, portentously intoning, "Soylent Green is made out of PEEEE-POOOLLLLEEE!"), but the Certified Fresh civil-rights allegory Planet of the Apes remains influential -- and was elevated by Heston's intense performance. Heston plays an astronaut who lands on a planet run by sophisticated simians that have enslaved humans. The movie has one of the most iconic endings of 1960s cinema, as well as Heston's oft-quoted line, "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"
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Jango10
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
4/11 7:00am
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008) Now Disc. "Planet of the Apes"
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Great film, probably my favorite Heston film. I love the twist at the end.
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Yodas-evil-twin
Registered:
Jun '05
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Date Posted:
5/26 6:25pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008)
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Sydney Pollack
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Vortigern99
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
5/26 6:54pm
Subject:
RE: Hollywood Death Watch: Charlton Heston (1924-2008)
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Darnit. I really liked Sidney Pollack. Out of Africa, which he directed, Cold Mountain, which he produced, and Husbands & Wives, which he acted in, are three of my favorite films.   
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