Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 28, 2017 16:21:32 GMT
You've seen Henry O'Neill in dozens of films spanning three decades from the dawn of talkies. If you watch enough films of that era, you could easily have seen him in well over a hundred. Dignified and gray-haired, he was most typically cast in staid or vaguely authoritarian roles: judges and military officers; professors and attorneys; the occasional doctor or businessman. Equally well-suited to playing them in either drama or comedy, he was one of those eminently reliable character actors who dependably delivered exactly what was required but rarely, if ever, was given the opportunity to shine in a role beyond their typecast range.
In director Phil Karlson's 1952 newspaper/crime drama Scandal Sheet, O'Neill had just such an opportunity and - although I'm not generally given to sports metaphors - knocked it out of the park. Top-billed players were Broderick Crawford, Donna Reed and John Derek, but it's O'Neill who stands out as boozy former reporter Charlie Barnes, who once won the Pulitzer Prize but has long since hit the skids, living on past glories, optimistic illusions and a little help from sympathetic friends. Once a newshound, always a newshound, and he's forever sure his big comeback break is just around the corner...right after just a few with the boys at the local bar.
O'Neill doesn't need to steal his scenes, he owns them, and delivers truly multi-layered work: under the frayed clothes and battered hat, behind the three-day growth and watery eyes, he conveys a full sense of the crack reporter he used to be as well as that of the nearly-forgotten man he's become.
Mention should also be made of Rosemary DeCamp's brief and effective turn as an embittered deserted wife, but it's Henry O'Neill who comes across with something I so love to find in films: the kind of performance you may never have expected from a familiar player, as though they'd been carrying it around in their pocket for years, just waiting for the chance to pull it out. And pull it out he does.
In director Phil Karlson's 1952 newspaper/crime drama Scandal Sheet, O'Neill had just such an opportunity and - although I'm not generally given to sports metaphors - knocked it out of the park. Top-billed players were Broderick Crawford, Donna Reed and John Derek, but it's O'Neill who stands out as boozy former reporter Charlie Barnes, who once won the Pulitzer Prize but has long since hit the skids, living on past glories, optimistic illusions and a little help from sympathetic friends. Once a newshound, always a newshound, and he's forever sure his big comeback break is just around the corner...right after just a few with the boys at the local bar.
O'Neill doesn't need to steal his scenes, he owns them, and delivers truly multi-layered work: under the frayed clothes and battered hat, behind the three-day growth and watery eyes, he conveys a full sense of the crack reporter he used to be as well as that of the nearly-forgotten man he's become.
Mention should also be made of Rosemary DeCamp's brief and effective turn as an embittered deserted wife, but it's Henry O'Neill who comes across with something I so love to find in films: the kind of performance you may never have expected from a familiar player, as though they'd been carrying it around in their pocket for years, just waiting for the chance to pull it out. And pull it out he does.