Ben Gazzara

CONVICTS 4: Ben Gazzara in prison with his crazy friends

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Ben Gazzara and Timothy Carey in CONVICTS 4
Ben Gazzara and Timothy Carey in CONVICTS 4

The title of Convicts 4 (1962) is odd because it’s really the true-life tail of one convict, played by Ben Gazzara, who develops into a fine artist while in prison.  It’s based on the autobiography of John Resko, who was sentenced to death for a killing during a robbery; his sentence was commuted, and he developed his skills as a painter in prison, contributing to his eventual release.

Now Convicts 4 is not a masterpiece:  some of the scenes are contrived, the dialogue is often stiff  and there are some overwrought moments, especially the pre-execution shower and the wintertime escape attempt. interesting story.  But it’s pretty entertaining because of the real-life story and the compelling performance by Ben Gazzara – at the height of his charisma.

Resko/Gazzara does have a set of cronies while in the Big House.  There’s a particularly unforgettable turn by one of my favorite movie psychos, Timothy Carey, here in one of his most eccentrically self-conscious performances.  Ray Walton (My Favorite Martian) plays another loony prisoner, crazier than Carey’s, but not a menacing.  The rich cast includes Stuart Whitman, Vincent Price, Rod Steiger, Jack Albertson, Brodrick Crawford and Sammy Davis Jr.

Turner Classic Movies will air Convicts 4 on October 25.

2012 at the Movies: farewells

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Andy Griffith in A FACE IN THE CROWD

This year I wrote farewells to four of my movie favorites.

Most Baby Boomers first saw Ben Gazzara as the star of the 60s TV series Run for Your Life, and cinephiles point to his work in two groundbreaking John Cassavetes films, Husbands and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.  I immediately thought of the Coolest Movie Character Ever, John Russo in Peter Bogdanovich’s They All Laughed.

Levon Helm‘s 17 acting credits include some very top shelf stuff. He was Loretta’s father in Coal Miner’s Daughter. In The Right Stuff, he played Ridley, test pilot Chuck Yeager’s aircraft mechanic, the guy who loans him Beeman’s chewing gum before each life-risking test flight. He was also the narrator in The Right Stuff.  I particularly loved one of his last roles, Old Man with Radio in Tommy Lee Jones’ overlooked 2005 The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

Susan Tyrrell was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for a dead-on performance as a pathetic sad sack barfly in the under appreciated Fat City (1972).

For his very first feature film, Andy Griffith shed the likeability and decency that made him a TV megastar and became a searingly unforgettable villain.  In the 1957 Elia Kazan classic A Face in the Crowd, Griffith played Lonesome Rhodes, a failed country guitar picker who is hauled out of an Arkansas drunk tank by talent scout Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal).  It turns out that he has a folksy charm that is dynamite in the new medium of television.   Presaging communication in the television age, A Face in the Crowd is one of our most important political movies.