Arabella's Notes

Burt Lancaster 1913 -1994   ….the “thinking man’s tough guy”

The Killers   1946  Directed by Robert Siodmak Universal/Hellinger     B/W

Burt had his bags packed to return to New York to wait for “Desert Fury” to shoot when Mark Hellinger offered him the role of “the Swede” in this adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s short story. Had he waited, his rise to stardom wouldn’t have been so meteoric!

When Hellinger first met Lancaster, his first impression was a very big guy who needed a shave, hair tamed and a tie. “You Lancaster?” he asked. “Yeah, you Hellinger?” was the slow reply. “Fine way for an actor to talk to a producer! For a second, I thought I was back at Warners”. Mark later borrowed a jacket from Robert Preston and found a script to thoroughly prep Burt for his audition. He knew he had his “Swede”.

Ava Gardner, Albert Dekker and Edmond O’Brien rounded out the stellar cast.

Sorry, Wrong Number   1948  Directed by Anatole Litvak Paramount/Wallis        B/W

This was the first of Burt’s ‘stretch roles” and he had to fight for it. Hal Wallis had the script and had signed Barbara Stanwyck for the lead as Leona, a wealthy neurotic who was bedridden and constantly on the phone. Burt wanted the role of Henry, her husband but Wallis felt he was too strong for it.  Lancaster stubbornly pursued the point feeling that only a strong character could crumble effectively on the screen as he allows a woman to buy him then drain the strength out of him. He got the part and the film remains a noir classic.

Barbara won a Best Actress nomination but lost to Jane Wyman (“Johnny Belinda”). In January, 1950 Burt and Babs re-created their roles on Lux Radio Theater.

Note: Babs’ hair turned entirely white during the filming. Life called it “The most extended emotional jag in recent movie history”.

Kiss The Blood off My Hands  1948    Directed by Norman Foster UI/Hecht-Lancaster               B/W

Burt took another giant step but Louella Parsons got the scoop: “Talk about zooming to the top – Burt Lancaster, an unknown two movies back, has been given his own independent production company at UI (Universal International) for at least one fling. Not since Clark Gable has any actor hit as hard as this Lancaster who is hotter than the so-called breeze trying to sneak through my window. Most actors wait years to get important enough to put their feet on a desk and boss the works. But not this baby.”

So while Burt was billed after Joan Fontaine in this film, he was literally her boss. The storyline contains both romance, crime and punishment but Burt gets Joan in the end. The film was even more successful in England where it was titled “The Unafraid”.

Jim Thorpe – All-American  1951   Directed by Michael Curtiz Warner Bros.                  B/W

This script had been on the studio’s shelf for years. What they didn’t have was the actor who could play the part…an actor who was also an athlete. Burt Lancaster was that actor and the studio wisely signed a 6-picture deal with his Norma Productions to get him. But the big guy had a problem…he had to learn to play football!

As usual, Burt did all his own stunts in the film….he could handle that. But off screen he met a problem he couldn’t handle by himself. Little Billy, not quite 3 years old, came down with polio. The little boy who loved to run and jump mud puddles, would be left with a limp for the rest of his life. Burt built a pool on the property and began to swim with Billy every day to strengthen his leg.

Come Back, Little Sheba   1952    Directed by Daniel Mann Paramount/Wallis         B/W

The ball was back in Burt’s corner again and he had to make even a stronger case to win the role of Doc Delaney in a picture that made Hollywood studios very nervous. This William Inge play had taken Broadway by storm along with actress Shirley Booth. But how to make the story of alcoholism and life on the seamy side appealing to filmgoers was going to be quite a leap. With the help of padding and make-up Burt dug deep down in his gut and..he pulled it off.

Shirley got the Oscar for her performance but Burt won rave reviews. Hollywood Reporter: “A complete switch from anything he (Burt Lancaster) has ever done and easily the outstanding effort of his career. His surprise casting results in a dramatic bombshell!”

From Here To Eternity  1953 Directed by Fred Zinneman Columbia                     B/W

While there may be a youg’un out there that hasn’t seen the movie, I doubt if there is anyone who hasn’t seen Scene #106. Or what is left of Scene#106 after the censors took away the splashing water. For some reason the love scene with the waves partially washing over the two was considered too much for American audiences.

The film was one of the finest ever made and garnered 13 Oscar nominations, winning 8 of them. Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed won in  supporting roles but both Burt and Montgomery Clift lost to William Holden (Stalag 17) for Best Actor Oscar. However, it was generally agreed all were superb in their roles and Burt and Deborah Kerr made the screen sizzle.

Note: Just after filming wrapped Burt had his teeth capped. He referred to the new choppers as “Chiclets”. The new tag in the press….Mr. Muscles and Teeth!

Trapeze   1956    Directed by Carol Reed UA/Hecht-Lancaster   Color

This was the answer to Burt’s dream of making a real circus movie and a hit around the world for Hecht-Lancaster. It was done in Cinemascope and color and filmed almost entirely on location at the 103-year-old. 5000 seat Cirque d’Hiver (Winter Circus) in Paris. Entire European circus acts were hired from 16 countries.

But off the set, Tony and Burt were playing in style at the Hotel V (except when Norma and the kids were in town). A scandal magazine painted the escapades as lurid and disgusting. Whatever happened, apparently something did and it pointed out that Lancaster had a dark side that popped up once in a while. Thankfully those episodes were rare although it was known that Burt had affairs outside his marriage.

Note: In 1962, a Mexican trampoline artist watched this movie and had his dream. Four years later, Tito Gaona became the first trapeze artist to consistently do the triple for the Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus, accomplishing the aerial feat from the film.

The Rainmaker  1956   Directed by Joseph Anthony Paramount/Wallis     Color

Lancaster regarded Hepburn as “a hell-for-leather challenger if there ever was one.” Kate knew all her lines the first day and didn’t forget to remind Burt he was 25 minutes late! But when they got down to acting, the sparks flew. The scene in the tack room where Starbuck gets Lizzie  to let down her hair was so sizzling that it got a reprimand from the Motion Picture Association of America.

The story is based on an actual incident. Playwright Richard Nash was driving through drought-ravaged Kansas in 1951 when his car radiator boiled over. While he was begging for water to fill it, he saw a small boy with a forked stick who was convinced he could bring rain. “You don’t believe I can bring rain…any more’n my old man does. But I’m gonna do it—you see if I don’t”. The idea for Starbuck and the play was born right there. Starbuck was more dreamer than fraud and almost gave up hope when the rains came.

Elmer Gantry  1960        Directed by Richard Brooks UA           Color

This storyline fit right into Burt’s fascination with the dual natures of man…good and evil. He holed up in a rented office with director Brooks where they built the script “brick by brick, like a wall” according to Brooks. It was later reported that the film was shot in Los Angeles because the city “spawned so many religious cults and sects that it seemed only fair”.

Lancaster wanted Shirley Jones for the role of Lulu after he saw her performance as an alcoholic suicide in “The Big Slide”, a Playhouse 90 television drama with Red Skelton. “She arrived with (her) Maidenform pushed up....hair down, high heels (looking) like she didn’t even know how to spell “Oklahoma” and she got the part and an Oscar.  Burt finally got his Oscar, too.

Note: It took 5 weeks to shoot the spectacular fire climax on location at the back of a skating rink on the Santa Monica pier. To speed the burn they used highly flammable old nitrate films from the Columbia Studio vaults (I wonder what old classics died in that fire).

Birdman of Alcatraz  1962  Directed by Harold Hecht UA/Norma Productions   B/W

Based on Thomas Gaddis’s biography of Robert Stroud published in 1955, it is the story of the man who served the longest term in solitary confinement of any U.S. prisoner in history. The first attempt to make it into a movie (by 20th Century Fox in 1958) was nixed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. But Hecht-Lancaster revived the old Norma Productions and did it anyway.

Of course, they had to do it the hard way by doing exterior long shots from just outside the perimeter of the prison and building the cell block on the studio back lot. Two thousand canaries were flown in from Japan and Burt spent two weeks working with them and some good old American sparrows. Burt grew fond of the birds and was horrified to learn much later that the bird-handler killed them all.

Tragedy struck when Burt’s brother Jim dropped dead of a heart attack on the set during filming. Burt’s decision not to shut down the set left some people aghast but the only way he could deal with his grief was to keep on working.

A Child Is Waiting  1963   Directed by John Cassavetes UA/Kramer          B/W

The truth of the matter is that this film was considered a failure. The performances from Lancaster, Judy Garland, Gena Rowlands, Steven Hill and even little Bruce Ritchey, who played Reuben, were excellent. But while it was a critical success, it was not successful at the box office. Somehow the subject of mentally and emotionally challenged children bothered American audiences in 1963.

Burt spent two months at the Pomona State Hospital where the movie was to be filmed and later, gently coached Judy, fragile and unpredictable because of her drinking.  Handicapped children were included in the cast along with child actors hired to play integral roles (Sighle Lancaster, age 7, played Jenny).

Time wrote”Garland is good, Rowland and Hill are excellent, Lancaster has never been better”. Saturday Review: “Miss Garland as a teacher, and Lancaster as head of the institution radiate a warmth so genuine that one is certain that the children are responding directly ..not merely following (the) script”.

The Train   1965    Directed by John Frankenheimer UA          B/W

Burt Lancaster was 50 years old but no stuntmen need apply. It was Burt who slid down that 20-foot railroad ladder….jumped on that moving train (and got kicked off)…scaled a brick wall and rolled, tumbled and slid through scene after scene…and even learned to really drive the train. This is considered the most physically demanding role of his career and shows that he always kept his body in prime physical condition.

The picture was filmed in France using real trains (not models) and they actually blew up a train yard and wrecked a real train. It took almost a year in filming, a year that Burt was away from Hollywood. When it was released “The Train” was regarded as “the last great black and white action/adventure film”.

Note: Burt changed directors in midstream sending for John Frankenheimer who hurried to Paris to take the job. It cost John’s estranged wife a bundle…she had to pay a lot more to that private detective she had following him.

Airport  1970   Directed by George Seaton Universal/Ross Hunter       Color

This was a $14 million  adaptation of Arthur Hailey’s best seller and was the #1 box office money maker for 1970. It gathered ten Oscar nominations and gave one to Helen Hayes as the incorrigible but lovable stowaway. Filmed at the Minneapolis-St, Paul Airport in February and March, they had below-zero temperatures and very real snow. All they needed were a few giant fans to blow it around a little.

Burt hated the film even though he got great reviews. It may have been because his life off the set was upside down. His divorce from Norma was underway and he was also being attacked for his support for L.A. mayoral contender Tom Bradley. Incumbent Sam Yorty claimed that electing a black mayor would cause more race riots and make way for “militant extremists” (the list included Lancaster) to capture control of the city. Sam got John Wayne to stump for him and won the election.

Atlantic City   1981  Directed by Louis Malle Paramount           Color

Director Malle and playwright John Guare had only a short list of aging Hollywood stars  and they needed someone available between October and December, 1979 to protect their tax shelter funds. When they realized they had the star of “Kiss The Blood Off My Hands” and “The Killers” it was a no-brainer. Burt Lancaster was perfect to play aging mobster wannabe Lou Pasco. Susan Sarandon was cast as Sally and Kate Reid as the bedridden Grace.

The movie recalled all those film noir flicks of the 1940s and Burt proved again that he could take even an unflattering role and make it a once-in-a-lifetime performance. He received his 4th Oscar nomination but lost to Henry Fonda (“On Golden Pond”). Rolling Stone: “The movie belongs to Burt Lancaster…what you will remember from the performance is his eyes….and his velvet voice. He gives a lyrical performance.”

Field of Dreams  1989  Directed by Phil Alden Robinson Universal      Color

Burt had a small role in this picture but it was a key one….he played “Doc” Graham, a tough old ex-ballplayer whose major league career lasted for just one inning of only one game. But “Doc” gets to do something more important .... he gets to come back from his ghost past to be the doctor he later became and save a little girl.  

The story was based on W.P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe” about a mystical cornfield and the ghosts of 1919’s Chicago White Sox, disgraced for fixing the World Series. It was made entirely in Iowa during the summer of 1988. It was Burt’s last feature film and his biggest box-office hit.