Day 2 - Kirk Douglas (A bit late!)

Yesterday morning I was talking to my friend Catherine and I had mentioned watching Out of the Past.  "Not bad," I had said.  "I had no idea it was only Kirk Douglas's second film."

"You know," she said.  "I don't know that I've ever seen a Kirk Douglas film."

I started listing the ones I knew and realized I couldn't list that many either.  Spartacus, of course, defined his whole career.  Who hasn't seen at least the image of Kirk Douglas the gladiator?  Looking at the list I had and the list on IMDb, I started to think about Kirk Douglas's status as a classic film star.  How many standout, essential classics does an actor or actress need to star in in order to qualify as one of the greats?  Do they need to have won an Oscar?  What makes a star a timeless star?

Let me start with the Kirk Douglas films I've seen.  Aside from Spartacus, there's of course Out of the Past.  Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I've always associated him with this role.  I talked to Catherine about how putting Mitchum vs. Douglas in this movie really made it believable - Douglas's character may have all the money and power, but he can't get the girl (Mitchum does).  There's an interesting play on masculinity here too.  Douglas as Whit Sterling represents finance and the upper class - he is often seen in his house with deer heads mounted on the wall.  Mitchum as Jeff Markum/Bailey is always seen actively in nature - fishing, usually - and represents more blue-collar values (he's found in the beginning as the owner and operator of a gas station).  Douglas fits this upper-class villain role rather well, carrying some of it over into his later role of Jonathan Shields in The Bad and the Beautiful.  I think if I had to pick a type for him, it would be something along these lines - a guy who's made it to the top, though not always by innocent means.  He reminds me a bit of Jay Gatsby in that sense, even in real life where he went from being the poor son of Russian-Jewish immigrants with the name Issur Danielovitch Demsky.     

 

Kirk Douglas in Out of the Past and up to no good. (RKO 1947)

I've also seen Douglas play some awful characters too, in films like The War Wagon (1967).  And then there are somewhat annoying characters, perhaps only because they seemed to always be needling John Wayne's character in films like In Harm's Way (1965) and Cast a Giant Shadow (1967), though I don't remember either of those films well because they just didn't click with me.  There is something to be said about not wanting to play a good guy through and through - as Kirk Douglas said, "Virtue is not photogenic."  Perhaps that's why he stuck out as such a great actor - his willingness to take on challenging and not always sympathetic roles.  That might also have something to do with the rights to another film he bought and held, hoping he could make the film himself - it was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and eventually he turned it over to his son Michael, who continued the great acting tradition of the family. 

To follow up to the earlier question of what makes a person not only a star, but a star for all time, I will revert to Norma Desmond - "No one ever leaves a star.  That's what makes one a star!"  I think Kirk Douglas (among others) has remained a big star because he's always found a following - when I was in college, a lot of the guys used to watch and chant lines from Spartacus in the dorms.  Plus Kirk passed on more than his cleft chin to his son and grandson - he passed on his talent.  I could talk more about the films of his that I should see, but haven't yet found time to watch (like Lust for Life and Mourning Becomes Electra), but those just add to the point I'm struggling to make: Douglas is a star.  Whether we've seen one of his films or not, we probably know the lines or roles.  I mean, who here hasn't once yelled "I Am Spartacus!!!"?  That's the stuff of legends.