Lonely Are the Brave (2024)

1h 47m 1962

Lonely Are the Brave (1)
  • Overview
  • Synopsis
  • Credits
  • Film Details
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  • Notes

Brief Synopsis

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A modern-day cowboy defies the law in order to live a free man.

Cast & Crew

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David Miller Director Kirk Douglas Jack Burns Gena Rowlands Jerri Bondi Walter Matthau Sheriff Johnson Michael Kane Paul Bondi Carroll O'connor Hinton

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Lonely Are the Brave - Movie Poster

1 Photo

Lonely Are The Brave -- (Original Trailer)

Film Details

Also Known As

The Last Hero

Genre

Western

Adaptation

Drama

Release Date

Jan 1962

Premiere Information

Houston opening: 24 May 1962

Production Company

Joel Productions

Distribution Company

Universal-International Films

Country

United States

Location

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Screenplay Information

Based on the novel Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey (New York, 1956).

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 47m

Sound

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color

Black and White

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

2.35 : 1

Lonely Are the Brave (2)

Synopsis

Jack Burns, an itinerant cowboy whose individualism clashes with modern-day life, rides down from the mountains when he learns that his friend Paul Bondi has been jailed for helping illegal immigrants across the Mexican border. Hoping to help Bondi escape, Burns deliberately becomes involved in a barroom brawl and is thrown into the same jail, but Bondi prefers to serve his sentence rather than spend the rest of his life on the run. So Burns breaks out alone, gets food and ammunition from Bondi's wife, Jerri, with whom he has been romantically involved, and heads for the hills with his horse, Whisky. The local sheriff, a kindly and philosophic man, organizes a posse of seven deputies equipped with a jeep and a helicopter, while Burns, refusing to abandon his horse though he would make better time on foot, slowly climbs a steep mountainside. When the helicopter spots him, he shoots it down and heads for the Mexican border. Crossing a highway at night, Whisky balks at the oncoming traffic, and both the horse and Burns are hit by a diesel truck. The sheriff arrives, shoots the injured animal to end its misery, and quietly speaks the lonely cowboy's epitaph.

Lonely Are the Brave (3)

Director

David Miller Director

Cast

Kirk Douglas Jack Burns Gena Rowlands Jerri Bondi Walter Matthau Sheriff Johnson Michael Kane Paul Bondi Carroll O'connor Hinton William Schallert Harry Karl Swenson Reverend Hoskins George Kennedy Gutierrez Dan Sheridan Deputy Glynn Bill Raisch One Arm William Mims 1st deputy in bar Martin Garralaga Old man Lalo Rios Prisoner

Crew

James Alexander Sound Leon Barsha Film Editor Don Christie Stills James Curtis Sound Tim Donahue Photographer coordinator Larry Germain Hairstyles Joseph Gershenson Music Supervisor Jerry Goldsmith Music Alexander Golitzen Art Director Dave Grayson Makeup Millard Kaufman Screenwriter Stanley Kufel Wardrobe Philip Lathrop Director of Photography Edward Lewis Producer Edward Mann Film Editor Dick Michaels Script Supervisor George Milo Set Decoration Peter Saldutti Wardrobe Tom Shaw Assistant Director David Silver Assistant Director Art Smith Sound Robert E. Smith Art Director Ray Taylor Jr. Assistant Director Waldon O. Watson Sound Bud Westmore Makeup Frank H. Wilkinson Sound

Lonely Are the Brave (11)

Photo Collections

1 Photo

Lonely Are the Brave - Movie Poster

Here is the American one-sheet movie poster for Lonely Are the Brave (1962), starring Kirk Douglas. One-sheets measured 27x41 inches, and were the poster style most commonly used in theaters.

Videos

Trailer

Lonely Are The Brave -- (Original Trailer) A modern-day cowboy (Kirk Douglas) defies the law in order to live a free man in Lonely Are The Brave (1962).

Film Details

Also Known As

The Last Hero

Genre

Western

Adaptation

Drama

Release Date

Jan 1962

Premiere Information

Houston opening: 24 May 1962

Production Company

Joel Productions

Distribution Company

Universal-International Films

Country

United States

Location

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Screenplay Information

Based on the novel Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey (New York, 1956).

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 47m

Sound

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color

Black and White

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

2.35 : 1

Lonely Are the Brave (13)

Articles

Lonely Are the Brave

November 25, 2002

A cowboy asleep on his bedroll is awakened by a sound and pauses to smile wryly as a jet zooms overhead. So begins Lonely Are The Brave (1962), Kirk Douglas' favorite of all his films.

In 1960, Douglas read a paperback copy of the source novel, The Brave Cowboy: An Old Tale In A New Time by author Edward Abbey (The Monkey Wrench Gang). He fell in love with the story and demanded that Universal allow him to make it into a film. He explained, "It happens to be a point of view I love. This is what attracted me to the story - the difficulty of being an individual today."

In the film, Jack Burns (Kirk Douglas) rides freely throughout modern New Mexico, even if it means cutting his way through barbed-wire fences. His friend and fellow iconoclast Michael Kane (Paul Bondi) has been imprisoned for helping Mexicans cross the U.S. border illegally (in the original novel he was a draft resister). Burns comes up with a scheme to get himself thrown into the same jail so he can help his friend break out. It leads to a chase across the desert by police cars and helicopters pursuing a cowboy on horseback.

The studio may have thought it would be getting just another Western, but Douglas recruited top talent such as Academy-Award winning writer Dalton Trumbo, who had written Spartacus (1960) two years before, and cinematographer Philip Lathrop (Point Blank, 1967) for a crisp documentary-style look. Walter Matthau, later famous for playing fast-talking big-city roles, is here cast against type as Sheriff Morry Johnson, a man charged with capturing Burns despite his growing respect for him. An actress better known for urban roles, Gena Rowlands, also makes a rare foray into Westerns as the wife of the jailed friend. Making their major film debuts are two actors later to become famous on television; Bill Bixby (The Incredible Hulk) as an airman in the helicopter and Carroll O'Connor (All In The Family) as a truck driver. Another newcomer, Jerry Goldsmith (The Omen, 1976) wrote the score. He credited friend Alfred Newman with getting him his first major studio assignment on Lonely Are The Brave.

The title was a major point of contention between Douglas and the studio. Douglas wanted to call it "The Last Cowboy" and release the film slowly in art-movie houses, allowing it to build through word-of-mouth. Universal overruled him, slapped on the title "Lonely Are The Brave" and dumped it in theaters as if it were another run-of-the-mill Western. Despite its rough handling, Lonely Are The Brave achieved cult status and is often listed as one of the best Westerns ever made.

Producer: Edward Lewis
Director: David Miller
Screenplay: Dalton Trumbo, based on the novel by Edward Abbey
Cinematography: Philip H. Lathrop
Film Editing: Leon Barsha, Edward Mann
Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Principal Cast: Kirk Douglas (Jack Burns), Gena Rowlands (Jerri Bondi), Walter Matthau (Sheriff Johnson), Michael Kane (Paul Bondi), Carroll O'Connor (Hinton), William Schallert (Harry), George Kennedy (Deputy Sheriff Gutierrez), Karl Swenson (Rev. Hoskins).
BW-107m.

by Brian Cady

Lonely Are the Brave (14)

Lonely Are the Brave

A cowboy asleep on his bedroll is awakened by a sound and pauses to smile wryly as a jet zooms overhead. So begins Lonely Are The Brave (1962), Kirk Douglas' favorite of all his films.In 1960, Douglas read a paperback copy of the source novel, The Brave Cowboy: An Old Tale In A New Time by author Edward Abbey (The Monkey Wrench Gang). He fell in love with the story and demanded that Universal allow him to make it into a film. He explained, "It happens to be a point of view I love. This is what attracted me to the story - the difficulty of being an individual today."In the film, Jack Burns (Kirk Douglas) rides freely throughout modern New Mexico, even if it means cutting his way through barbed-wire fences. His friend and fellow iconoclast Michael Kane (Paul Bondi) has been imprisoned for helping Mexicans cross the U.S. border illegally (in the original novel he was a draft resister). Burns comes up with a scheme to get himself thrown into the same jail so he can help his friend break out. It leads to a chase across the desert by police cars and helicopters pursuing a cowboy on horseback.The studio may have thought it would be getting just another Western, but Douglas recruited top talent such as Academy-Award winning writer Dalton Trumbo, who had written Spartacus (1960) two years before, and cinematographer Philip Lathrop (Point Blank, 1967) for a crisp documentary-style look. Walter Matthau, later famous for playing fast-talking big-city roles, is here cast against type as Sheriff Morry Johnson, a man charged with capturing Burns despite his growing respect for him. An actress better known for urban roles, Gena Rowlands, also makes a rare foray into Westerns as the wife of the jailed friend. Making their major film debuts are two actors later to become famous on television; Bill Bixby (The Incredible Hulk) as an airman in the helicopter and Carroll O'Connor (All In The Family) as a truck driver. Another newcomer, Jerry Goldsmith (The Omen, 1976) wrote the score. He credited friend Alfred Newman with getting him his first major studio assignment on Lonely Are The Brave.The title was a major point of contention between Douglas and the studio. Douglas wanted to call it "The Last Cowboy" and release the film slowly in art-movie houses, allowing it to build through word-of-mouth. Universal overruled him, slapped on the title "Lonely Are The Brave" and dumped it in theaters as if it were another run-of-the-mill Western. Despite its rough handling, Lonely Are The Brave achieved cult status and is often listed as one of the best Westerns ever made.Producer: Edward LewisDirector: David MillerScreenplay: Dalton Trumbo, based on the novel by Edward AbbeyCinematography: Philip H. LathropFilm Editing: Leon Barsha, Edward MannOriginal Music: Jerry GoldsmithPrincipal Cast: Kirk Douglas (Jack Burns), Gena Rowlands (Jerri Bondi), Walter Matthau (Sheriff Johnson), Michael Kane (Paul Bondi), Carroll O'Connor (Hinton), William Schallert (Harry), George Kennedy (Deputy Sheriff Gutierrez), Karl Swenson (Rev. Hoskins).BW-107m. by Brian Cady

TCM Remembers - Carroll O'Connor

August 20, 2001

Carroll O'Connor - who died June 21st at the age of 76 - will be best remembered for portraying Archie Bunker on TV's All in the Family but his career actually was much more extensive. Born in New York on August 2nd, 1924, O'Connor served in the merchant marine during World War II before attending the University of Montana where he worked on the school newspaper. Before graduating, he followed his brother to another college in Ireland (he would later get a Masters in speech from Montana). It was in Ireland that O'Connor started acting in several local productions. He returned to the U.S. for his Broadway debut in 1958 and shortly after started to appear on numerous TV shows like The Untouchables and Naked City. His first film was Parrish (1961) though he eventually acted in over a dozen films during the Sixties including Cleopatra (1963), Marlowe (1969), Hawaii (1966) and Point Blank (1967). O'Connor even auditioned for the part of the Skipper in the TV series, Gilligan's Island, but it was his role as Archie Bunker in a 1971 sitcom that made him a star. All in the Family was an American version of the British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part that met some initial resistance (ABC rejected the first two pilots) but quickly captivated American audiences and became the country's top-rated TV show. Archie became such an icon that his chair is now preserved in the Smithsonian. The series lasted until 1979 and brought O'Connor four Emmys, even leading to a four-year spinoff Archie Bunker's Place starring O'Connor. (It also produced one of TV's oddest spinoffs in1994's 704 Hauser about a multi-racial family living in Archie Bunker's old house. It had no cast members from the earlier series and only lasted six episodes.) In 1988, O'Connor took the role of a Southern sheriff in a TV series based on the movie In the Heat of the Night and found himself in another hit, this one lasting until 1995. He also occasionally played Helen Hunt's father on Mad About You. By all accounts, O'Connor was nothing like Archie Bunker; in fact, O'Connor was an active anti-drug crusader, partly the result of his son's drug-related suicide.

By Lang Thompson

TCM REMEMBERS JACK LEMMON 1925-2001

Whether playing a cross-dressing jazz bassist or a bickering roommate, Lemmon has kept his fans in stitches for fifty years. But beneath that comedian's facade, the actor had a very serious side, which occasionally surfaced in such films as Days of Wine and Roses (1962) or Costa-Gavras' political thriller Missing (1982). Lemmon was truly a one-of-a-kind actor and his track record for acclaimed performances is truly remarkable: 8 Oscar nominations (he won Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955) and Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973), a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, 8 British Academy Award nominations, 4 Emmy Award nominations, numerous Golden Globe nominations, a two-time Best Actor winner at the Cannes Film Festival, the list goes on and on.

Lemmon entered the world in a completely novel fashion; he was born prematurely in an elevator in Boston in 1925. The son of a doughnut manufacturer, Lemmon later attended Harvard University but was bitten by the acting bug and left the prestigious college for Broadway. Between theatrical gigs, he played piano accompaniment to silent films shown at the Knickerbocker Music Hall in New York. Later, Lemmon claimed that he learned more about comic technique by watching these Chaplin, Keaton and Harold Lloyd two-reelers than acting school could have ever taught him.

From Broadway and early TV appearances to Hollywood, Lemmon moved West to make his screen debut in It Should Happen to You (1954), opposite Judy Holliday in a variation of her 'dumb blonde' persona that had won her an Oscar for Born Yesterday (1952). In It Should Happen to You, Holliday plays a struggling actress who soon wins fast fame as the product of promotion. Lemmon plays her levelheaded boyfriend but finds himself on the sidelines when the suave and sophisticated Peter Lawford appears on the scene. It Should Happen to You, directed by George Cukor, was a popular success and Lemmon and Holliday were quickly teamed again in Phffft! (1954), another lightweight romantic comedy. A year later, Lemmon hit the major leagues when he supported Hollywood heavyweights Henry Fonda, James Cagney and William Powell in Mister Roberts (1955). As Ensign Pulver, a deckhand who avoids work whenever possible, Lemmon won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar&reg.

Onscreen, Lemmon's characters often found that they were the wrong men for their jobs. In Cowboy (1958), Lemmon plays a city slicker venturing out on the wild frontier. His romantic visions of the West are soon changed by the hard-living, hard-drinking reality. Cowboy is based on the autobiography of Frank Harris, and, like the author, Lemmon found himself adapting to the rough and tumble lifestyle on the trail.

Lemmon brought a new comic persona to Hollywood films. He combined elements of screwball and slapstick comedy with his own self-deprecating humor to create satiric portraits of the contemporary American male. The sometimes cynical comic sense of director Billy Wilder provided Lemmon with the perfect complement. Together they made seven films, but it was their first, Some Like It Hot (1959), that captured the sheer comic genius of their collaborations together.

From sexual antics to social critique, Lemmon and Wilder sharpened their comic knives on the hypocrisies they saw in American culture. The Apartment (1960) focused on a working stiff who lends his home to his supervisors for their extramarital affairs. Problems arise when Lemmon falls for his boss's paramour - it gets even more complicated when she tries to kill herself in his pad! Though The Apartment was a comic success, with each passing year the film's serious side seems even more dark and derisive. Illicit love and the corruption of big business might not seem to be the stuff of hit comedies, but Wilder and Lemmon found humor in the most unlikeliest of places. Director and comic star went on to make five more films: Irma la Douce (1963), The Fortune Cookie (1966), Avanti! (1972), The Front Page (1974) and Buddy Buddy (1981).

Billy Wilder and Lemmon's lifelong comic foil Walter Matthau (nine collaborations with Lemmon in 32 years, including their most popular film, The Odd Couple, 1968) brought some of the comedian's finest funny moments to the screen. But there was a serious side too. Lemmon waived his salary to act in Save the Tiger (1973), the 'great American tragedy' of a businessman at the end of his rope. Lemmon won his second Academy Award for the film. In Missing (1982), directed by the uncompromising Costa-Gavras, Lemmon played a patriotic father searching for his kidnapped son in Latin America. The closer he gets to his goal, the clearer it becomes that a government conspiracy is behind his son's disappearance. Missing was inspired by a true story - the production was condemned by the Reagan administration and awarded the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival.

Very few actors today can match Lemmon's range on the screen. He has acted in everything from lightweight sex farces (How to Murder Your Wife, 1965) to musicals (My Sister Eileen, 1955) to social dramas (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) to political thrillers (The China Syndrome, 1979). Turner Classic Movies cherishes the memory of this remarkable talent.

By Cino Niles & Jeff Stafford

ANTHONY QUINN, 1915-2001

Not many actors can boast that they've inspired a Bob Dylan song but Anthony Quinn - who passed away June 3rd at the age of 86 - was one of the select few. But that's just one of many incidents in a life that can only be described as colorful. If a novelist had invented a character like Quinn, she would be accused of unbelievable invention. But in Quinn's case, it's all true.

Quinn was born April 21, 1915 in Mexico. His parents were involved in Pancho Villa's revolutionary struggle and must have made a striking couple since the father was half Irish and mother Mexican Indian. The couple were married on a train of rebel soldiers. After Quinn's birth, the family soon moved to East Los Angeles (after a quick Texas detour) where Quinn grew up in the shadow of Hollywood. (A branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library now occupies the site of Quinn's childhood home; in 1981 it was renamed in his honor.) At the age of 11 he won a sculpture award and shortly after began studying architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright. It was Wright in fact who suggested the possibility of acting to Quinn and even paid for an operation to cure a speech impediment. Along the way, Quinn also dabbled in professional boxing (he quit after his 17th match, the first he lost) and street-corner preaching. He continued to sculpt and paint for the rest of his life while also becoming a noted art collector.

Quinn's acting debut was in 1936 initially in a handful of barely noticable spots as an extra until he landed a speaking role in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman, supposedly on the recommendation of the film's star, Gary Cooper. One unanticipated result was that Quinn married DeMille's daughter the following year; they appeared together in Phil Karlson's Black Gold (1947) and had five children. Quinn also appeared on stage in 1936 playing opposite Mae West. Quinn continued in film parts that gathered acclaim: Crazy Horse in They Died With Their Boots On (1941), a gambler in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), a soldier in Guadalcanal Diary (1943).

But it was the 1950s when Quinn broke out. Viva Zapata!(1952) provided him a wonderful role which he used to win a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. Oddly enough, in Viva Zapata! Quinn worked with Marlon Brando who he had replaced in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. (Director Elia Kazan tried to start a rivalry between the two actors but they were great admirers of each other.) Quinn again won Best Supporting Actor playing painter Paul Gauguin Lust for Life (1956) which at the time was the shortest on-screen time to win an acting Oscar. The following year came was a Best Actor nomination for George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind (1957). As he did throughout his career, Quinn rarely hesitated to take work whereever he found it, which resulted in dozens of potboilers like Seven Cities of Gold (1955) but also a few cult favorites like Budd Boetticher's The Magnificent Matador (1955). It was a trip to Italy that brought Quinn one of his most acclaimed roles: a simple-minded circus strongman in Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954). Quinn directed his only film in 1958, The Buccaneer, a commercial failure he later attributed to producer Cecil DeMille's interference. Towards the end of that decade he appeared in Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents (1959) as an Eskimo, inspiring Bob Dylan to write "Quinn the Eskimo" (a Top Ten hit for Manfred Mann in 1968). In 1965, his relationship with an Italian costumer created a minor scandal when it was revealed that the couple had two children. Quinn divorced DeMille's daughter and married the costumer.

He continued the same mix of classics and best-forgotten quickies throughout the 1960s and '70s. A key role in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) only confirmed his talents while he again earned a Best Actor nomination for the unforgettable lead role in Zorba the Greek (1964). The gritty crime drama Across 110th Street (1972) is one of the best American movies of its decade, enhanced by Quinn's turn as an embattled police captain. Quinn was a pope in The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), an Islamic leader in The Message (1976), a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis in The Greek Tycoon (1978) and an assortment of gangsters, con men, military leaders and what have you. The rest of his career might be summed up by the year 1991 when he gathered critical acclaim for his appearance in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, was nominated for a Razzie as Worst Actor in Mobsters, co-starred with Bo Derek in Ghosts Can't Do It, worked beside John Candy and Macaulay Culkin in Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely and made a film so obscure it appears to have never appeared on video. Quinn married his third wife in 1997; they had one son. He had just completed the title role in Avenging Angelo (with Sylvester Stallone) at the time of his death.

By Lang Thompson

TCM Remembers - Carroll O'Connor

Carroll O'Connor - who died June 21st at the age of 76 - will be best remembered for portraying Archie Bunker on TV's All in the Family but his career actually was much more extensive. Born in New York on August 2nd, 1924, O'Connor served in the merchant marine during World War II before attending the University of Montana where he worked on the school newspaper. Before graduating, he followed his brother to another college in Ireland (he would later get a Masters in speech from Montana). It was in Ireland that O'Connor started acting in several local productions. He returned to the U.S. for his Broadway debut in 1958 and shortly after started to appear on numerous TV shows like The Untouchables and Naked City. His first film was Parrish (1961) though he eventually acted in over a dozen films during the Sixties including Cleopatra (1963), Marlowe (1969), Hawaii (1966) and Point Blank (1967). O'Connor even auditioned for the part of the Skipper in the TV series, Gilligan's Island, but it was his role as Archie Bunker in a 1971 sitcom that made him a star. All in the Family was an American version of the British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part that met some initial resistance (ABC rejected the first two pilots) but quickly captivated American audiences and became the country's top-rated TV show. Archie became such an icon that his chair is now preserved in the Smithsonian. The series lasted until 1979 and brought O'Connor four Emmys, even leading to a four-year spinoff Archie Bunker's Place starring O'Connor. (It also produced one of TV's oddest spinoffs in1994's 704 Hauser about a multi-racial family living in Archie Bunker's old house. It had no cast members from the earlier series and only lasted six episodes.) In 1988, O'Connor took the role of a Southern sheriff in a TV series based on the movie In the Heat of the Night and found himself in another hit, this one lasting until 1995. He also occasionally played Helen Hunt's father on Mad About You. By all accounts, O'Connor was nothing like Archie Bunker; in fact, O'Connor was an active anti-drug crusader, partly the result of his son's drug-related suicide. By Lang ThompsonTCM REMEMBERS JACK LEMMON 1925-2001Whether playing a cross-dressing jazz bassist or a bickering roommate, Lemmon has kept his fans in stitches for fifty years. But beneath that comedian's facade, the actor had a very serious side, which occasionally surfaced in such films as Days of Wine and Roses (1962) or Costa-Gavras' political thriller Missing (1982). Lemmon was truly a one-of-a-kind actor and his track record for acclaimed performances is truly remarkable: 8 Oscar nominations (he won Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955) and Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973), a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, 8 British Academy Award nominations, 4 Emmy Award nominations, numerous Golden Globe nominations, a two-time Best Actor winner at the Cannes Film Festival, the list goes on and on.Lemmon entered the world in a completely novel fashion; he was born prematurely in an elevator in Boston in 1925. The son of a doughnut manufacturer, Lemmon later attended Harvard University but was bitten by the acting bug and left the prestigious college for Broadway. Between theatrical gigs, he played piano accompaniment to silent films shown at the Knickerbocker Music Hall in New York. Later, Lemmon claimed that he learned more about comic technique by watching these Chaplin, Keaton and Harold Lloyd two-reelers than acting school could have ever taught him.From Broadway and early TV appearances to Hollywood, Lemmon moved West to make his screen debut in It Should Happen to You (1954), opposite Judy Holliday in a variation of her 'dumb blonde' persona that had won her an Oscar for Born Yesterday (1952). In It Should Happen to You, Holliday plays a struggling actress who soon wins fast fame as the product of promotion. Lemmon plays her levelheaded boyfriend but finds himself on the sidelines when the suave and sophisticated Peter Lawford appears on the scene. It Should Happen to You, directed by George Cukor, was a popular success and Lemmon and Holliday were quickly teamed again in Phffft! (1954), another lightweight romantic comedy. A year later, Lemmon hit the major leagues when he supported Hollywood heavyweights Henry Fonda, James Cagney and William Powell in Mister Roberts (1955). As Ensign Pulver, a deckhand who avoids work whenever possible, Lemmon won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar&reg. Onscreen, Lemmon's characters often found that they were the wrong men for their jobs. In Cowboy (1958), Lemmon plays a city slicker venturing out on the wild frontier. His romantic visions of the West are soon changed by the hard-living, hard-drinking reality. Cowboy is based on the autobiography of Frank Harris, and, like the author, Lemmon found himself adapting to the rough and tumble lifestyle on the trail. Lemmon brought a new comic persona to Hollywood films. He combined elements of screwball and slapstick comedy with his own self-deprecating humor to create satiric portraits of the contemporary American male. The sometimes cynical comic sense of director Billy Wilder provided Lemmon with the perfect complement. Together they made seven films, but it was their first, Some Like It Hot (1959), that captured the sheer comic genius of their collaborations together. From sexual antics to social critique, Lemmon and Wilder sharpened their comic knives on the hypocrisies they saw in American culture. The Apartment (1960) focused on a working stiff who lends his home to his supervisors for their extramarital affairs. Problems arise when Lemmon falls for his boss's paramour - it gets even more complicated when she tries to kill herself in his pad! Though The Apartment was a comic success, with each passing year the film's serious side seems even more dark and derisive. Illicit love and the corruption of big business might not seem to be the stuff of hit comedies, but Wilder and Lemmon found humor in the most unlikeliest of places. Director and comic star went on to make five more films: Irma la Douce (1963), The Fortune Cookie (1966), Avanti! (1972), The Front Page (1974) and Buddy Buddy (1981).Billy Wilder and Lemmon's lifelong comic foil Walter Matthau (nine collaborations with Lemmon in 32 years, including their most popular film, The Odd Couple, 1968) brought some of the comedian's finest funny moments to the screen. But there was a serious side too. Lemmon waived his salary to act in Save the Tiger (1973), the 'great American tragedy' of a businessman at the end of his rope. Lemmon won his second Academy Award for the film. In Missing (1982), directed by the uncompromising Costa-Gavras, Lemmon played a patriotic father searching for his kidnapped son in Latin America. The closer he gets to his goal, the clearer it becomes that a government conspiracy is behind his son's disappearance. Missing was inspired by a true story - the production was condemned by the Reagan administration and awarded the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival. Very few actors today can match Lemmon's range on the screen. He has acted in everything from lightweight sex farces (How to Murder Your Wife, 1965) to musicals (My Sister Eileen, 1955) to social dramas (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) to political thrillers (The China Syndrome, 1979). Turner Classic Movies cherishes the memory of this remarkable talent. By Cino Niles & Jeff StaffordANTHONY QUINN, 1915-2001Not many actors can boast that they've inspired a Bob Dylan song but Anthony Quinn - who passed away June 3rd at the age of 86 - was one of the select few. But that's just one of many incidents in a life that can only be described as colorful. If a novelist had invented a character like Quinn, she would be accused of unbelievable invention. But in Quinn's case, it's all true.Quinn was born April 21, 1915 in Mexico. His parents were involved in Pancho Villa's revolutionary struggle and must have made a striking couple since the father was half Irish and mother Mexican Indian. The couple were married on a train of rebel soldiers. After Quinn's birth, the family soon moved to East Los Angeles (after a quick Texas detour) where Quinn grew up in the shadow of Hollywood. (A branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library now occupies the site of Quinn's childhood home; in 1981 it was renamed in his honor.) At the age of 11 he won a sculpture award and shortly after began studying architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright. It was Wright in fact who suggested the possibility of acting to Quinn and even paid for an operation to cure a speech impediment. Along the way, Quinn also dabbled in professional boxing (he quit after his 17th match, the first he lost) and street-corner preaching. He continued to sculpt and paint for the rest of his life while also becoming a noted art collector.Quinn's acting debut was in 1936 initially in a handful of barely noticable spots as an extra until he landed a speaking role in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman, supposedly on the recommendation of the film's star, Gary Cooper. One unanticipated result was that Quinn married DeMille's daughter the following year; they appeared together in Phil Karlson's Black Gold (1947) and had five children. Quinn also appeared on stage in 1936 playing opposite Mae West. Quinn continued in film parts that gathered acclaim: Crazy Horse in They Died With Their Boots On (1941), a gambler in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), a soldier in Guadalcanal Diary (1943).But it was the 1950s when Quinn broke out. Viva Zapata!(1952) provided him a wonderful role which he used to win a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. Oddly enough, in Viva Zapata! Quinn worked with Marlon Brando who he had replaced in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. (Director Elia Kazan tried to start a rivalry between the two actors but they were great admirers of each other.) Quinn again won Best Supporting Actor playing painter Paul Gauguin Lust for Life (1956) which at the time was the shortest on-screen time to win an acting Oscar. The following year came was a Best Actor nomination for George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind (1957). As he did throughout his career, Quinn rarely hesitated to take work whereever he found it, which resulted in dozens of potboilers like Seven Cities of Gold (1955) but also a few cult favorites like Budd Boetticher's The Magnificent Matador (1955). It was a trip to Italy that brought Quinn one of his most acclaimed roles: a simple-minded circus strongman in Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954). Quinn directed his only film in 1958, The Buccaneer, a commercial failure he later attributed to producer Cecil DeMille's interference. Towards the end of that decade he appeared in Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents (1959) as an Eskimo, inspiring Bob Dylan to write "Quinn the Eskimo" (a Top Ten hit for Manfred Mann in 1968). In 1965, his relationship with an Italian costumer created a minor scandal when it was revealed that the couple had two children. Quinn divorced DeMille's daughter and married the costumer. He continued the same mix of classics and best-forgotten quickies throughout the 1960s and '70s. A key role in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) only confirmed his talents while he again earned a Best Actor nomination for the unforgettable lead role in Zorba the Greek (1964). The gritty crime drama Across 110th Street (1972) is one of the best American movies of its decade, enhanced by Quinn's turn as an embattled police captain. Quinn was a pope in The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), an Islamic leader in The Message (1976), a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis in The Greek Tycoon (1978) and an assortment of gangsters, con men, military leaders and what have you. The rest of his career might be summed up by the year 1991 when he gathered critical acclaim for his appearance in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, was nominated for a Razzie as Worst Actor in Mobsters, co-starred with Bo Derek in Ghosts Can't Do It, worked beside John Candy and Macaulay Culkin in Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely and made a film so obscure it appears to have never appeared on video. Quinn married his third wife in 1997; they had one son. He had just completed the title role in Avenging Angelo (with Sylvester Stallone) at the time of his death.By Lang Thompson

Quotes

Believe you me, if it didn't take men to make babies I wouldn't have anything to do with any of you!

- Jerri Bonds

Trivia

Notes

Location scenes filmed near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Working title: The Last Hero.

Lonely Are the Brave (15)

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States Winter January 1, 1962

Released in United States Winter January 1, 1962

Lonely Are the Brave (2024)

References

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