Screen legend George Barrows along with some faceless extra.
Last Friday’s Watch Party subject was 1954’s Gorilla at Large, a pleasing piece of hokum filmed in vibrant color and 3-D. (See the gorilla swing toward the camera!)
It’s a murder mystery set in a (real life) little amusement park with, of course, a gorilla act. The film’s cast is crazy. I said there were three Oscar winning actors, but I was off by one. This was, in fact, a film where a lot of my trivia was slightly off.
I had thought Lee J. Cobb had won for Death of a Salesman, but he wasn’t even in the movie. He did originate the role on Broadway, but bigger film star Frederic March take the part in the film. March himself was nominated as Best Actor for the film, which must have stung Cobb. Cobb was nominated for two Oscars, including as the brother in On the Waterfront–a rather more remembered film–but didn’t win either time. Still, he had quite a good career. Somebody japed he wasn’t believable as a cop, because that’s what he seemed to play like 80% of the time.
The film’s rather slutty, femme fatale-ish lead is a dishy young Anne Brancroft, who was eventually nominated for Best actress five times. I thought she won for The Graduate (playing the “older” woman despite being 8 years older than her putative daughter Katherine Ross and only six years older than Dustin Hoffman). Actually, she didn’t win for that, she won Best Actress for playing Anne Sullivan in the Helen Keller biopic The Miracle Worker. She was also, of course, Mrs. Mel Brooks.
Comic relief beat cop Lee Marvin (told you it was a crazy cast) won Best Actor for the not extremely great Cat Ballou, presumably for parodying his tough guy screen image in a way that wasn’t much done back in the those days. I’m glad he won, because it was the only time he was ever nominated by the Academy. That said, I really don’t think the film holds up that well (although the minstrel Greek Chorus of Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye is great), even putting aside the fact that I loath Jane Fonda.
At one point I joked that lead actor Cameron Mitchell (!), here a blond (!), looked exactly like Biff from Death of a Salesman. Again, I was close. Mitchell was in the original cast of Salesman, opposite Lee J. Cobb, but he actually played Biff’s brother Happy. Other than that, Mitchell needs no introduction in these parts, I’m sure. Mitchell was also featured in our next Discord Watch Party film, Frankenstein Island, which we’re due to watch a week from Friday.
Mitchell later claimed in an interview that Mel “Mr. Anne Bancroft” Brooks once told him Gorilla at Large was his favorite movie. (One can certainly imagine him watching it with others and incessantly telling them whenever the foxy Bancroft was on screen, “That’s my wife.” Brooks is also supposedly was the one who suggested to Mitchell that he play the hoodlum heavy in My Favorite Year, a film who’s lead was modeled on Brooks himself when he was a young writer for Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar. It’s certainly possible, since Brooks was that film’s executive producer.
Meanwhile, Bancroft’s menacing in-film husband was played by Raymond Burr. The group made lots of Perry Mason jokes, and I got in one for his literal heavy in Rear Window, but as far as I recall there were no Godzilla or Ironside gags. Again, though, that cast! Fittingly, Burr also previously starred in another ape picture, Bride of the Gorilla. Written and directed by Curt Siodmak, it plays as the scribe intended The Wolf Man to, with the main character’s bestial transformation being left ambiguous as to whether it happens literally or just in his own mind. In that case, I think we’ll all agree, Universal’s decision to just definitely make Larry Talbot a monster was the right one.
Oddly (it was the fashion of the day, I suppose), but colorless lead female Charlotte Austin–playing the bland girl next door romantic interest for Mitchell does her no favors opposite the leotard-clad Bancroft–*also* starred in an ape movie, The Bride and the Beast. Yes, that’s the one written by Ed Wood Jr.
And, of course, Goliath the Gorilla was played by ape suit actor George Barrows. Nobody here would know him from anything else, though.
If you can dig up the old DVD, give it a look. Or check out the copy on YouTube (no commercials, thanks to the channel it’s on), which is slightly soft but still pretty good.
