[1] Electrifying suspense, laced with crackling dialogue and melodrama. Winters, in one of her earliest roles, is divine… This film gives new meaning to the phrase “disappearing into a character.”
[2] Milton Krasner’s dark cinematography and Miklos Rozsa’s dissonant score supports George Cukor’s pessimistic direction.
[3] …can an actor get that wrapped up in a role? I heard different things about this. Some actors have admitted taking a role home with them from the theater or movie set. Others have found a role they have to be stimulating, influencing them on a new cause of action regarding their lives or some aspect of life.
-Excerpts from IMDB reviews
Anthony John (Ronald Colman in an Oscar winning role) is a successful/middle-aged/British actor whose life is influenced by the characters he plays. When he’s acting in a comedy, he’s light-hearted and fun to be around. When he’s acting in a tragedy, he becomes brooding and very difficult to handle. That’s the reason why his Swedish ex-wife, Brita (Signe Hasso), divorced him 2 years ago. They still love each other, respectfully work together, but can’t live together. One night, Anthony ends up at a restaurant in Little Italy; he meets a young waitress, Pat (Shelley Winters). He accepts the title role in Shakespeare’s Othello and devotes himself entirely to the challenging part. Anthony begins to suspect that Brita is involved w/ a press agent, Bill (Edmond O’Brien), and grows jealous!
Anthony: You want to know my name- Martin.
Pat: Thank you!
Anthony: Also Ernest and Paul, and Hamlet and Jo and, maybe, Othello. I’m French and Russian and English and Norwegian.
Pat: I got mixed blood too!
The role of Anthony John was written for Laurence Olivier, but he was unavailable when the film went into production. In real life, actor Paul Robeson (the first black actor to star in Othello on Broadway) had just completed the longest run of the play. In the movie, Anthony and Brita act in more than 300 performances of the tragedy; I assumed this was highly unlikely. I learned that most Shakespeare productions on Broadway are lucky to run several months; Richard Burton had a 4 month stint in a 1964 production of Hamlet. Director George Cukor (best-known as a “women’s director”) does a fine job w/ darker subject matter than he usually handles. The script was written by the husband-and-wife team of Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. This talented duo also wrote Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952), which became films starring two iconic actors (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy).
Anthony [narrating]: The part begins to seep into your life, and the battle begins. Reality against imagination.
When an actor has to play an actor, I’m sure it’s a challenge. Colman shows the character’s tortured double personality, using costumes, facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice. He reveals what Anthony is going through as himself and as Othello. I esp. liked the witty banter between Anthony and Brita; they seem like a real former couple who turned into close friends. Winters looks sweet, vulnerable, yet also has a bit of toughness; this was her breakout role (after small roles in 20 movies). I learned that she was roommates w/ Marilyn Monroe when they were new to Hollywood. Though they went to a lot of parties, Winters commented that Marilyn always gravitated toward the intellectuals. If you like Shakespeare and film noir (like me), check this unique movie out!
Knightleyemma 