Saturday, September 03, 2005

The Harder They Fall

Simply on the strength of it starring Humphrey Bogart, I watched a movie called 'The Harder They Fall' the other night. I'm a huge film-noir fan, and I enjoyed this one. It's not quite on the top rung, but Bogart's performance is characteristically brilliant.
The thing is, I didn't find out until afterwards that it was his final performance. I was quite moved by this - especially as the man seemed to be still somewhere near the height of his acting powers.
A similar thing happened a couple of weeks ago. I watched 'Soylent Green'. I'd never heard of it, but I'm also a fan of conspiracy thrillers and I enjoy watching Charlton Heston acting grumpy.
Then I found out it featured Edward G Robinson's final performance. He died just nine days after the movie was finished. Again, the film isn't amazing, but has a lot to recommend it. I don't want to give too much away, but there's a long sequence towards the end involving Robinson's character that is a little weird when you see the film, but when you know that the actor was about to die, it becomes quite powerful.
That sort of thing tends to throw off your judgement of a film. Maybe I shouldn't have told you. Oops.

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