The Boston Strangler and more of my Tony Curtis fixation

I thought my Tony Curtis phase had finally passed, but apparently not ;)
I watched The Boston Strangler (1968) on Saturday. It's based on the true story of a series of murders that took place in Boston in the 1960s. The film takes a lot of liberties with what happened, but as some of its best moments are at the times when it takes the biggest liberties I'm not particularly upset by that ;-P Curtis plays the title role of the murderer and he's quite extraordinary in it. Apparently, he had to lobby very hard to get the part as neither the director nor the studio thought he'd be any good in it (he was a blue eyed, handsome guy who did mostly conventional leads and a lot of comedy). Of course the studio and director were wrong ;) The part is one of Tony Curtis's most acclaimed performances. He doesn't come in until about an hour into the film, but once he's in he pretty much carries the film. Here's the only clip from the film that I found on-line:

Funnily enough I didn't have much trouble picturing him doing a murderer and rapist well, but what took me totally by surprise was what he does in the closing stages of the film. After the character gets caught, he's locked up in a mental institution and interrogated there. What he does in those scenes is amazing. I don't want to spoil the film for anyone, so I won't say exactly what the diagnosis is (the real Albert Desalvo was never diagnosed with anything of the sort by the way), but it's one of the most amazing portrayals of mental illness I've seen - on the one hand very intense, but on the other there's something very simple and straight about the way he does it. Usually when one thinks of acclaimed actors doing mentally ill characters they do it "big". Think people like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind or even Edward Norton in Primal Fear. I'm not saying Tony Curtis did it "small" exactly, but it definitely was "smaller" and "more human". I loved how you could practically understand all the thought processes and feelings that were happening in the character's head during the interrogations. The way it was edited and the dialogue helped a lot of course, but there was just a beautiful clarity and simplicity in what Tony Curtis was doing.

Since I found Tony Curtis in this movie so gushworthy I'm naturally very excited about the prospect of seeing more of his films ;-P I've apparently got around 120 feature films to choose from (in the old days it was quite normal to do around 3-4 films a year and he's been at it since 1949!), but as that's a little too much even for my current level of interest in him I thought I'd make a shorter list for myself ;-P So here's a list of the Tony Curtis titles that caught my eye (including those I've already seen):

Insignificance (1985)
This sounds like some sort of very bizarre and artsy film that will be very difficult to make any sense of ;) Basically Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Joe DiMaggio meet together in a hotel room. Tony Curtis plays McCarthy.
The only video clip I've come across is here - it's a montage of 5 films by Nicolas Roeg. Unfortunately no Tony in the clip, but the clips of Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe covered in blood look kind of weird and interesting ;-P

Casanova & Co. (1977)
I still haven't made my mind up over whether I actually want to see this one lol Basically, almost all the reviews I've come across describe it as a soft porn movie ;) Now that in itself doesn't scare me off (on the contrary, the idea of Tony Curtis doing a soft porn film seems so funny to me that I automatically want to see it ;-P - especially that he's supposed to be Casanova AND Casanova's look-a-like in the film), but most people write that the film is terrible and also it's supposed to be dubbed over (badly) in German.
Unfortunately I've found no clips on-line of this weird piece of work ;) Had I found any perhaps I would have made up my mind by now ;-P

The Persuaders (1971-1972)
This is the TV series I've already mentioned. The idea of seeing 24 episodes of Tony Curtis flirting with Roger Moore while both of them are playing cool action heroes is too good to pass on ;) I linked to clips in my previous post, but I'll repeat the links ;-P (here's one and here's another one).

The Boston Strangler (1968)
I've basically said all that needs to be said above, haven't I? :)

The Great Race (1965)
This sounds like a comedy with a totally ridiculous sense of humour. The hero (Tony Curtis as the Great Leslie) is always dressed in white and the villain (Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate) is always in black. It features the biggest pie fight ever staged and many other totally ridiculous scenes (for example this one). In fact the only films that I've ever read about or seen which sound anywhere near as ridiculous are Bollywood ones ;)

Spartacus (1960)
This one I've seen. I guess the main interest factor is that it's a Stanley Kubrick film, though I don't think it's one of his best. What it was meant to be would have probably been much more interesting than what it actually is. Still, it's a classic.
I've already mentioned the film on my blog, but as I concentrated on its gay subtexts I didn't link to the trailer which is sadly not homoerotic in the slightest ;-P

Operation Petticoat (1959)
It's a comedy which also stars Cary Grant. It takes place on a submarine during World War II and basically everything keeps going wrong. For example because they don't have enough paint, they're forced to mix red and white and paint the submarine pink (apparently there really was one pink submarine during the war for those reasons!).
Here's a hilarious pig stealing scene from the film.

Some Like It Hot (1959)
I've seen this one ages ago. I really want to re-watch it and I know I used to have a VHS tape of it, but can't find it anywhere grrrrr...
It's a great comedy which has Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed up as girls and Marilyn Monroe is great and really hilarious in this as well (incidentally, I think it's the only Marilyn Monroe film I've seen, I should change that!). Oh and the closing line is unforgettable ;)
The trailer is here.

The Defiant Ones (1958)
This one I've already mentioned and seen. It's a beautiful film :) Already posted this before, but here's the trailer.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
This is supposed to be Tony Curtis' first serious dramatic part. He plays a young guy who is prepared to do some very morally repulsive things to achieve success and money in New York.
I love the look of the two clips I found (clip no.1 and clip no.2) - the atmosphere is thick with jazz, New York and degeneration ;)

Houdini (1953)
In this one Curtis plays Harry Houdini and I think this was his first major success. I'm actually convinced I saw this film on TV when I was very, very little.
Here's the clip I found (it gives me a strong deja vu feeling).

Tony Curtis is very absorbing ;)

My Tony Curtis obsession has subsided a little bit, but as no bisexual 60s Hollywood star has taken his place yet, my internet searches still seem to be revolving around him ;-P

So firstly, here's a really nice interview with him in which he talks a lot about gender and sexuality in context of his film career.
I also found a great audio interview (part one and part two) - he's clearly a really good talker.

Thanks to Mr Curtis I have also discovered what I think are the two gayest action heroes ever lol In 1971 he starred alongside Roger Moore in a series called The Persuaders. I've looked around youtube for some clips and as far as I can make out the concept is that the two of them keep flirting with each other all the time ;) See for yourself - here and here. It's really cute ;)

Finally, I've been digging amongst my old video tapes, trying to find something with Tony Curtis and I've re-discovered The Defiant Ones. I'd totally forgotten the film (I'm not sure how I managed to do that as I remember really loving it when I first watched it and it's gotten the same reaction from me this time round too).
It's a film from 1958, but it's aged really well. It's the story of a black man (played beautifully by Sidney Poitier) and a white man on the run from the law. The catch is that they're chained to each other. It was the first Hollywood film that addressed racism so directly (and IMO in much less moralistic tones than what Hollywood does today). The film is much better than the trailer IMO ;-P but you can see the trailer here.

My sudden Hollywood obsession and the quest to find a star that isn't gay ;)

Why is it that whenever one has a lot of schoolwork to do, one always has an irresistible urge to do something else? (or at least that's what happens to me ;-P) I've got something like 4 tests and 2 projects over the next week, but am I studying? Of course not ;-P What am I doing? I'm getting unhealthily obsessed with Hollywood stars from the 50s and 60s. And lets get this straight (pun unintended ;-P) - I've never been a particular fan of old Hollywood movies before! I have sometimes enjoyed older films, but a lot of the time I've watched them because I feel I ought to build on my film history awareness rather than because I really want to see an older film. So why have I suddenly become obsessed with this particular topic? Your guess is as good as mine ;-P
Well ok... I do sort of know how it started - it's because of this blog ;-P I found a very interesting article about Method Acting and I'm drafting a post on it (which of course, as always, is turning out to be extremely long). I started looking for Laurence Olivier quotes on The Method because I knew he had spoken against it and... er... that wasn't a good idea ;)
What followed was that I became totally obsessed with Laurence Olivier for 2-3 days (that has subsided somewhat, I have now turned to Tony Curtis instead and I'm wondering who will be next ;-P).
Worse still, I somehow came across this:

And well... it fascinated me... It had never occurred to me that Stanley Kubrick tried to broach the topic of homosexuality in Spartacus. The reference is so slight that if you're not looking for the subtext you might not notice it - and yet this was enough for the censors to cut it.
It was interesting also that two big stars - Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis would have wanted to risk such subtext.

The Spartacus scene somehow led me on to other discoveries... In particular I started finding all sorts of rumours that Laurence Olivier might have been bisexual. As that sort of gossip has always amused me I followed it through. At first it seemed like gossip with little foundation, but what started making it much more fishy was the way Joan Plowright (Olivier's third wife) was being quoted and in particular that she had authorized a biography which claimed Olivier had had encounters with men. I finally came across this article which seemed to cover all the incidents that I found mentioned elsewhere. It is from the Daily Mail, so that's hardly a reliable source, but there was one bit in particular that caught my eye:
After Lord Olivier's death on July 11, 1989, aged 82, from neuromuscular disease and cancer, and his interment in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, his official biographer, Terry Coleman, asked Plowright if he had had homosexual affairs. She replied robustly: "If he did, so what?"
Tarquin Olivier, Larry's elder son, 'was hell-bent on censoring' the homosexual revelations in Coleman's book and attempted to pressure Plowright into withdrawing her permission. She refused, privately remarking that "a man who had been to Eton and in the Guards might be expected to be a little more broad-minded".

The article led me on further... For one it mentioned an encounter between Olivier and Marlon Brando. I'm not sure I believe that one, but apparently there are other sources which suggest Brando may have been bisexual.
The article also mentioned an incident in which John Gielgud was caught in a public toilet trying to pick up a guy (he was arrested for it).
Finding it amusing that so many stars of the era seemed to be gay or bisexual I thought I'd try to look for somebody who was straight ;) So I searched for stuff on Charles Laughton - like Olivier and Gielgud he was also a very acclaimed British theatrical actor who'd done a bit of Hollywood. I thought it likely that he wasn't much of a sexual experimentator - I knew he had been married to just one woman his whole life (unlike most of the stars of that time). Well, I was wrong *grin* Laughton's wife, Elsa Lanchaster, had outed her husband as gay in her autobiography and apparently that was the reason for them never having children.
Feeling rather gigglish by this point I went to my dad (who had after all watched Hollywood in those times) and told him about my discoveries. He had also heard about Laughton and Gielgud, though Olivier and Brando surprised him. Having shown him the Spartacus scene, I joked I should check whether Tony Curtis was straight. My dad said he was pretty sure Curtis was straight (and I rather thought so too), but I ended up checking it up anyway just for a laugh. At first it seemed I had finally found somebody who *was* straight though probably promiscuous (6 wives! and his present one is 42 years younger than him!), but lo and behold, I found an interview with him in a gay magazine ;) Here's what he says in it:
Speaking of men and men … well, first, how old were you when you got to Hollywood?
I was 22. That was 1948.
And as beautiful as you were … I mean, you are still good-looking…
Thank you.
But as beautiful as you were, I’m assuming that you…
I had more action than Mount Vesuvius.
So, both men and women put the make on you.
Men, women, children. Animals!
I can’t wait for the headlines–"TONY CURTIS INTO BESTIALITY."
[Laughs] I loved it, too. I loved the affection of everybody around me. I participated where I wanted to, and I didn’t where I didn’t. It wasn’t like I said, "Well, I won’t do this or I won’t do that." I just had a chance to have great wonderful friends of all ethnic backgrounds, all sexual genders, and that’s the joy of being an American, that’s the joy of being alive, where all of your friends can be who-ever they want to be.
I'm not sure how serious he was about the children and animals ;) He clearly has a rather crass sense of humour, but especially in context of what he says after that he seemed fairly serious about the men ;) So yet again my quest to find a straight star had failed ;)

Am I the only person who ends up doing such moronic things rather than study? ;)