Luzerne County native Jack Palance plays good and bad guys in new releases
It’s common these days for actors to play good guys and bad guys and everything in between. But during Hollywood’s Golden Age, it was relatively rare for movie stars to show their dark sides.
Lattimer Mines native Jack Palance was always an exception to the rule, the rare ‘50s leading man who played as many villains as victors.
Consider Palance’s performances in two new reissues: A Blu-ray upgrade of “Attack!” (1956, Kino, unrated, $20) and a DVD restoration of “Sudden Fear” (1952, Cohen, unrated, $20.) In the former, he’s a
World War II officer with a deep commitment to doing the right thing. In the latter, he’s a low-level chiseler with a knack for manipulating women. Both films are also available on various streaming platforms.
Directed by Robert Aldrich (“The Dirty Dozen,” “The Longest Yard”), the toughminded battlefield thriller “Attack!” is a treatise on bravery and cowardice during wartime as well as a look at corruption in the military.
It’s set during the Battle of the Bulge, as a dedicated lieutenant (Palance) and his men (Richard Jaeckel, Buddy Ebsen, William Smithers) discover they’ve been abandoned by their commanding officer (Eddie Albert), who is too chicken to join the fight.
Aldrich is a master at working with ensemble casts, carefully braiding together tension, conflict and dark humor. Reportedly, during filming, some cast members were put off by the intensity of Palance’s performance.
“Palance was quite a scary guy,” Jaeckel told Aldrich’s biographers Edwin T. Arnold and Eugene L. Miller. “You never knew where he was coming from.”
But Aldrich knew what Palance could do. The filmmaker used the actor’s menacing magnificence to help turn “Attack!” into a powerful antiwar treatise.
Widely regarded as a film noir classic, “Sudden Fear” earned Palance his first Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. He would be nominated the next year for his even more ominous turn in “Shane.” And then again in 1992, when he won the award
for “City Slickers.”
“Sudden Fear” stars Palance as an actor who marries a rich playwright (Joan Crawford) and then schemes with his girlfriend (Gloria Grahame) to murder Crawford and make off with her millions. But Crawford becomes wise to Palance and Grahame’s plans and turns the tables on the devious pair.
“Sudden Fear” is fueled by suspense and subterfuge. According to a number of sources, making the movie was nearly as fraught with tension.
In Vincent Curcio’s biography of Grahame, director David Miller recalls the struggle he underwent in convincing Crawford
that Palance was the right actor for the job. She eventually not only approved of him but began dating him, at least until he and Grahame hooked up.
It sounds like an impossible situation but the drama off-screen feeds the drama on-screen. There’s a believable amount of strain between the two lead actors which deepens the movie’s aura of anxiety and dread. “Sudden Fear” is a white-knuckle affair from start to finish.