Ten years ago (how time flies!), Katie-Bar-The-Door and I trekked down to the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, to watch a 70mm presentation of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I first saw 2001 upon its initial release in 1968 at the age of seven, and have seen it many times since.
At the AFI showing, the film's star, Keir Dullea, spoke, signed autographs, posed for pictures and chatted one-on-one with the audience.
When my moment to talk to Dullea rolled around, I skipped the usual question about the ending of 2001 and instead asked him what he thought of as his best work, the performances he hoped people would seek out.
He blinked and said, "Nobody's ever asked me that before!" And he gave it some thought and then really got into it. These are the four movies he recommended:
The Hoodlum Priest (1961) — The pet project of its star, Don Murray, The Hoodlum Priest is the true story of Father Charles "Dismas" Clark, a Jesuit priest in St. Louis who ministered primarily to ex-cons — fighting to convince a hostile society to offer these men a second chance, and fighting the men themselves to take that chance when they got it. Dullea, in his first film role, plays one such ex-con, Billy Lee Jackson, a callow youth fresh from two years in the pen. Clearly influenced by the film noir movement, The Hoodlum Priest offers no happy endings, no easy answers. Fate puts Billy Lee Jackson through the wringer, and Dullea must have relished playing such a juicy part right out of the box.
David and Lisa (1962) — Dullea won a Golden Globe as most promising newcomer for his portrayal of a mentally ill young man who falls in love with a fellow patient in this intense, kitchen-sink-style drama that often plays like an early draft of Ordinary People. In recommending the picture, Bosley Crowther of the New York Times noted "the psychiatric definitions are vague and elusive in this film, and, therefore, the whole situation of conflict must be taken on verbal trust. But the visual aspects of mental patients are strongly presented by Mr. Dullea and by dark-haired Janet Margolin, who plays the schizoid girl." Dullea also won the best actor trophy at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
The Fox (1967) — As the film opens, two women (Sandy Dennis, Anne Heywood) struggle to run a farm during a bitterly cold Canadian winter. Along comes a handsome drifter (Dullea) — a predatory fox in the proverbial henhouse — sparking jealousy and stirring their loins, with the two women eventually realizing that what they really want is each other. If it sounds like the plot to a D.H. Lawrence story, it is, a novella published in 1922 between Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover. Almost chaste by today's standards, this was racy stuff back in the day (a theater owner who showed it in Jackson, Mississippi, was convicted of violating the state's obscenity laws). In a four-star review, Roger Ebert called The Fox "a quiet, powerful masterpiece" and wrote that this was Dullea's best performance since David and Lisa.
Paperback Hero (1973) — Dullea admitted that this was an obscure, off-the-wall choice, one I'd have to track down on YouTube or something, but it turns out to be the most fun of the bunch, a sad, rambling, nutty little gem. Four years before Slap Shot, Dullea plays a semi-pro hockey star, a loutish, beer-swilling womanizer who fancies himself a gunslinger out of the Old West. He's having a fine ol' time, at least until the team folds and he has to figure out what comes next — nothing good, I'm afraid. I imagine the dreams of all young men are inherently delusional if you cling to them long enough. In 2006, the Toronto International Film Festival selected Paperback Hero for Canada's equivalent of the National Film Registry.
But, that said, if you're only going to watch one Keir Dullea movie in your life, it has to be 2001: A Space Odyssey, right? The story of man's ascent from ape to god (with a timely assist from a mysterious monolith), 2001 is still the most beautiful, mind-blowing — and challenging — science fiction film ever made. And Keir Dullea is the calm eye at the center of this cinematic storm. Highly recommended, a film so iconic, Greta Gerwig spoofed it at the beginning of this year's smash hit Barbie.
And now on to the alternate Oscars of 1968. Vote well.
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
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