ROBERT RYAN at Film Forum in New York City
http://www.filmforum.org/films/robertryan.html#817
"Life, death, loneliness, loss: these were some of the things we learned from the quiet art of Robert Ryan."
– Pete Hamill
When I was a kid, I used to watch movies with my dad. He used to work a lot so when he and I would watch a movie on TV it was quality time. Despite being in a remote town in PA, he was a good movie guy. He got the ball rolling by making me watch "
On the Waterfront," with the great Brando, Burt Lancaster in "
Elmer Gantry" and Howard Hawks' "
Red River," with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift that he told me were all great actors. But one actor that he always told was the GUY, was Robert Ryan, his personal favorite. Robert Ryan is indeed a great actor, Jeff Bridges who was in "
The Iceman Cometh" with him as a young man, says that Ryan was the greatest actor that he'd ever seen on screen or worked with. Robert Ryan was an actor's actor who never was an "A-Lister" but when paired with such stars as Clark Gable, Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, James Stewart, Lee Marvin and Spencer Tracy, he more than held his own.
Ryan often played conflicted, ambiguous characters in such films as Nicholas Ray's "
On Dangerous Ground," Anthony Mann's great western "
The Naked Spur," Fritz Lang's version of Clifford Odets' "
Clash By Night," or Max Ophuls' "
Caught," in those great director's movies and many others he simply dominates the screen even though his characters are not very nice people.
In other films like the adaption of Melville's "
Billy Budd," Richard Brooks' "
Crossfire," Robert Wise's "
Odds Against Tommorow," and "
Bad Day at Black Rock" with Spencer Tracy, Ryan is just downright mean, cementing himself as possibly the screen's greatest heavy. However all of his characters brought an intelligence and gravitas that gave dimension to all of those characterizations.
In real life he was the exact opposite, a private, family man, a fierce liberal who campaigned for many causes like civil rights, against Sen. McCarthy's withchunts, anti-nukes, etc. He did many stage productions at the height of his movie stardom which not too many actors would do including Irving Berlin's last musical "
Mr. President." He said, "In movies, I've played pretty much everything that I've dedicated my life to fighting against." A legitimate tough guy in a land of fake tough guys, he was a Marine Drill Instructor and an Ivy League boxing champion who on the set of "
The Wild Bunch," threatened to punch out legendary tough guy Sam Peckinpah whom he didn't get along with. Legend has it that he and his friend and total political opposite John Wayne almost came to blows. Shortly after Ryan died in 1973, his estate sold his apartment in the Dakota building to a young couple named John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
The Film Forum on West Houston Street in NYC is doing a very overdue tribute to Robert Ryan's career showing 21 films over 12 days this August, it's going on now.
FilmForum.org 2 excellent films where Ryan gets to really show his stuff and are playing in this festival are Roy Ward Baker's 3-D survival tale "
Inferno," and Robert Wise's boxing film "
The Set-Up." Both films feature tour de forces by Ryan. In "
Inferno," he plays a not so nice millionaire who's left to die in the desert with a broken leg by his cheating wife. He's alone on screen trying to survive for most of the movie and one can't help but rooting for his boorish character to survive. In "
The Set-Up," considered by many one of the best of all the boxing movies and Bob's favorite role, Ryan plays a real ham and egger in the dead end world of small time boxing.
“Bob caught all the nuances of guts and shattered hopes, and small-time aspirations of a never-was beating the hell out of the desperation of being a club fighter.”– Samuel Fuller. I'll be as bold to say that Ryan's performance is the best in any boxing movie.
So I think my old man was right about saying that Robert Ryan was "the man." An actor first, a star second, not afraid to take an unsympathetic role. Ryan brought a dignity and intelligence to any film that he was in and if you love movies and acting you should definitely try to catch some of his films at the Film Forum, TCM or Netflix. You will be entertained. The writer who did Robert Ryan's obituary when he died in 1973, wrote this very lovely summation of Ryan's career, "he left behind a lifetime of roles too small for his talent..." Well said.
