Tonight on TCM, the 1946 classic The Best Years of Our Lives airs featuring an actor I don’t often write about but one that has long been a favorite, Dana Andrews. He’s a favorite for all the reasons an actor usually isn’t a favorite of mine. That is to say, I like actors who play it big, always have, always will. Think Charles Laughton, James Cagney, Bette Davis. In the modern day, Daniel Day Lewis comes to mind. When an actor plays to the rafters, I like it. Hell, I love it. Not all actors who play to the rafters do it with the same degree of confidence and/or skill. William Shatner always played to the rafters too and while I like him – no, honestly, I think he’s a good actor – I acknowledge that his big acting doesn’t quite hit the mark like those others I mentioned. Maybe he always played it big the same way and those others found a way to play it big differently each time and that’s why they’re considered the greats. But Andrews never played it big, not once. Andrews played absolutely level, every time. He never walked up to the line, much less crossed it. He held back and played it close to the vest. I like that. It takes a lot of skill to play it small, so to speak, and not bore the audience to tears. I don’t praise those types of actors nearly enough and it’s about time I did. Dana Andrews is one of them. Here are seven others.
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Franchot Tone – Perhaps more than anyone on this list, Tone has the least name recognition among non-classic movie fans. In movie after movie, his even, level style succeeded in making everyone else look better. In Mutiny on the Bounty, he’s a counterbalance to both Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, providing a balanced center for those two to play around. But more than any movie, Gabriel Over the White House, used Tone’s bland, ivy league air to menacing effect. He’s the president’s right hand man and helps carry out the execution of a crime boss in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty (it’s a fairly jaw dropping movie if you haven’t seen it). The movie happily condones the fascism of its characters and when Tone orders “fire” it’s downright chilling.
Teresa Wright – Wright, like everyone else on this list, made a career out of not hyperventilating in front of the camera. She held back on histrionics so much that when she got emotional it made a real impact. There are a lot of good things going on in The Best Years of Our Lives, the movie that started this whole post, but when she breaks down because she can’t take the treatment Dana Andrews is getting from his wife, the incomparable Virginia Mayo, and exclaims she’s going to break up their marriage, it hits pretty hard. When the marriage does break up, we’re not surprised. Wright’s stalwart attitude, and acting, made it believable from the start.
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Arthur Kennedy – I’ll say it right now, Kennedy is one of my all-time favorite actors. He’s just solid in everything and never missed a beat. He came from the stage in the forties and handled naturalistic acting better than most anyone ever. His performance in Bright Victory is a special one and he was nominated for Best Actor for it. It’s special because the character’s transformation from casual bigot to someone who sees the light about racism in his family only works because he doesn’t overplay his hand. He never overplayed his hand. That’s why he was great.
Laurence Harvey – He was quite a star in his day but never thought of very much as an actor. I mean, he was considered good but no one ever thought of him as a great actor because he didn’t give them the necessary histrionics. But Orson Welles liked him well enough to cast him and Welles didn’t work with crappy actors. Also, could anyone have played his role in The Manchurian Candidate better? Harvey’s non-hysterical style makes that last moment, when he realizes what he has to do to end it all even more upsetting.
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Celia Johnson – Her performance in Brief Encounter is so perfectly modulated, so expertly played in the minute details, that it’s heartbreaking beyond belief. Her anguished look of torment as the train pulls away and another pulls in and she contemplates throwing herself in front of it, it all works because of that face, the face of an actress who knew how to make the littlest thing work. The smallest glance. When she finally emotes full on at the end, when her husband returns home, you feel every part of it.
Jean Simmons – Another big star who managed to play against some of the biggest actors in the business and keep them grounded the whole time. In The Robe, it was Richard Burton. In Guys and Dolls, it was Marlon Brando. In Elmer Gantry, it was Burt Lancaster. I love them all but isn’t Simmons better than each one in each of those movies?
Melvyn Douglas – Hud, Being There, Ninotchka. He’s the secret ingredient in each one of those. He’s the engine that keeps them humming. And he was Bill Cole, friend of the family, in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, one of the best understated comedic performances ever. Ever.
It’s an incomplete list but a good start. The big actors often steal all the thunder and we forget that the smaller actors often make the lightning strike in the first place.