Tonight on TCM, Design for Living airs, the 1933 adaptation of Noel Coward’s play, starring Gary Cooper, Frederic March, and Miriam Hopkins. I bring it up because Gary Cooper, the man who spent a career playing the down-home, salt of the earth type in movies like Meet John Doe and Sergeant York, also had quite an affinity for playing sophisticated, as he shows in Design for Living. He didn’t do it much. Even when he played a decidedly non-yokel types, like the lexicographer of Ball of Fire or architect of The Fountainhead, they still had that Gary Cooper quality to them, if you know what I mean. Once I started thinking about that, I started thinking about his co-star, Frederic March and how, even when he’s not playing entirely sophisticated types, there’s still that Frederic March quality there that seems sophisticated, the character of Mr. Hyde notwithstanding. I always talk about the roles that actors are perfect for but what I never think about is what actors aren’t perfect for and how some actors couldn’t play a certain type if their career depended on it.
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Think of Cary Grant in The Howards of Virginia. He doesn’t work in it because there’s just nothing about Cary Grant that says “Southern Plantation Owner!” It’s not that he doesn’t know how to read a line or emote, it’s that his persona screams “20th century sophisticate,” and nothing else. One of Howard Hawks’ finest films, Only Angels Have Wings, stars Grant as a more rough and tumble type and he pulls it off because it’s still the 20th century when the story takes place (although as great as the movie is, and boy is it, I would have loved to have had it made five years earlier with Gable and Harlow. Even in Father Goose, Grant is a rougher character but still one we can believe him in because, again, he’s a modern character. Put better: Only Angels Have Wings and Father Goose and the nineteenth century set Gunga Din all have modern banter between the characters and that’s why Grant excels in them. The man knew banter.
So, what about George C. Scott? What couldn’t George C. Scott play? Delicate. A few years ago I wrote up The Changeling here. I mentioned the odd decision made in the script, that the director, Peter Medak, decided to leave in, where George C. Scott hears shocking news and faints. That Medak couldn’t see that Scott fainting was so unbelievable and ridiculous that it takes the viewer out of the movie will forever be a strike against him in my book. George C. Scott could be many things but delicate wasn’t one of them. No matter what role he played, his presence was powerful.
Vivien Leigh impossible persona? Hard-nosed. Vivien Leigh fainting I can totally see. Vivien Leigh getting mad and petulant and fussy, I can see. She shows that in Gone with the Wind. Vivien Leigh being delicate and helpless and lost, like at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, is a natural. Playing Torchy Blane? No way. Leigh simply didn’t have the makeup to play the hard-nosed, fast talking lady.
Spencer Tracy? The urbane sophisticate. He could play “city” like nobody’s business. From Libeled Lady to Woman of the Year, Tracy could play the hard-nosed city type, the type that Leigh couldn’t play, with ease. But sophisticated? Eh. Can you really see Tracy ever pulling off a role like Addison DeWitt? Tracy was rugged and street smart. He could easily go toe to toe with a sophisticate but playing one wasn’t for him.
Katharine Hepburn? Let’s just say it: Rural. She could not play rural. Katharine Hepburn as Ma Kettle would never work. Heck, I can barely stand her in Little Women, and that’s more period than rural but her character, the tomboy Jo, comes off as completely against the grain of Hepburn’s natural talents. Maybe that’s why the performance rings false for me, like Hepburn is forcing every scene. In most of her other movies, though, she’s magnificent.
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And now let’s cut to the chase. Here are the qualities I can’t see certain actors play.
Olivia de Havilland: Mean and nasty.
Greer Garson: Crafty and duplicitous.
Wallace Beery: Refined.
James Cagney: Apathetic.
Audrey Hepburn: Bullying and angry.
Raymond Massey: Carefree and spontaneous.
Gregory Peck: Dishonorable and cowardly.
There are so many more but it’s interesting to note that many of the types of things the stars couldn’t play often lent themselves to more villainous portrayals, the kind of things handled by a character actor playing to type. But even there, character actors had their limits, too. If anyone had ever cast Edward Everett Horton as tough guy gangster type, they probably wouldn’t have been casting for long. Or Thomas Mitchell as a smooth talking ladies man. Or Thelma Ritter as a flighty party girl. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone. Eventually, you’re going to get to Barbara Stanwyck and when you do, you’ll realize she could have played anything.