Wlady P. remembers. The editor of American Spectator is reminding McQueen fans of a film that never gets mentioned in the actor's retrospectives. That film is Love with a Proper Stranger. The reason? The film is powerfully and romantically pro-life.
Read about it here.
Is that really the reason? I saw no evidence one way or the other in that article for the film being overlooked.
ReplyDeleteFind another reason and suggest it. Look also at the way "Alfie" was remade to de-emphasize the ugliness of abortion. Wlady's theory sounds pretty good to me.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that the film isn't particularly remembered because McQueen is more typically remembered as an action star? There's a reason why when I ask for Steve McQueen movies to add to my collection at holiday times, I get The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven (third best Wesern ever), and Bullitt.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the easiest answer is also the correct one.
It's a reasonable theory. Then again, the fact that his costar was Natalie Wood (who was a big, big star at the time) still makes its exclusion look strange. Definitely have to agree that his genre was action/thrills, though.
ReplyDeleteTCM showed The Cincinnati Kid and The Honeymoom Machine, neither of which is an action film, and both of which are largely forgotten. It's possible that the programmers simply overlooked Love with a Proper Stranger, yet it does seem unlikely. They're not unprofessional.—STK
ReplyDelete"The World's Greatest Film Critic in the English Language(TM)" comes to my aid.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, sir.
And yet, The Searchers, possibly the greatest Western ever, is rarely shown or mentioned when one speaks of Westerns or lists of the best movies ever. Perhaps it's a conspiracy against Natalie Wood?
ReplyDeleteThat's simply untrue. I've heard "The Searchers" praised many times. Karnick will know better than I, though.
ReplyDeleteGuess I've been watching the wrong retrospectives. Nice to know that it gets the mention it deserves.
ReplyDeleteThe Searchers was listed on the American Film Institute's list of the Top 100 Movies of all time, as number 96. I think that's rather lower than its reputation in the previous two decades. www.filmsite.org says, "The Searchers (1956) is considered by many to be a true American masterpiece of filmmaking, and the best, most influential, and perhaps most-admired film of director John Ford." The Searchers also made Time magazine's Top 100 Movies of All Time list, which was much more difficult than making AFI's list because the Time compilation included a quite large number of foreign films.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, I'd say The Searchers is in fact one of the most critically respected American films of all time, and certainly one of the top two or three Westerns most critics think of.—STK