Jack Palance
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Jack Palance |
See him in SHANE Aug.14th
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Jack Palance had a promising start to his Hollywood career in the early ‘50s that belied his misfortunes. He suffered severe burns when the bomber he piloted crashed during World War II, and after the plastic surgery restored a semblance of normality to his appearance, his face still retained a gaunt, impossibly stretched look, the result of skin grafts. He became ambiguously handsome, almost sinister, his thin lips, narrow eyes, and jutting cheekbones tightening his expressions into something never completely revealed. You always wondered whether Jack Palance was making fun of you—or worse—even as his velvety smooth voice reassured you otherwise. |
| He was attractive enough to secure roles meant for Mephistophelian men—evil yet undeniably appealing. On Saturday, August 14th, Film Night will present his prototypical performance as the gun-slinging viper Wilson in SHANE for which he earned an Oscar nomination in 1953. Watch him slide off his horse in his first silent encounter with Shane (Alan Ladd), his back to the hero, his head in stark profile, and a faint grin on his face. Dismounted, he takes a simple drink of water from the homesteader’s well, but the act becomes charged with violence and confrontation because Palance works it so deliberately and carefully, letting his shark-like face make its full impression upon his enemy. In another encounter, this time with a blustering ex-Confederate played by the perpetually ridiculed Elisha Cook, Jr., Palance needles the sad homesteader with teasing and an unavoidable posture that could double as seduction.
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Palance and Crawford in SUDDEN FEAR |
The year before SHANE, Palance starred with Joan Crawford in the excellent noir drama SUDDEN FEAR, his other Oscar-nominated performance and one that offers an interesting parallel to how his own career developed. Palance plays a struggling New York stage actor whose first chance at a lead role is cut short because the wealthy playwright (Joan Crawford) wants a more attractive man for the part. Needless to say, Crawford falls in love with him when they meet seemingly by accident on a train to San Francisco. He courts her, marries her, and just when the simple irony seems complete, something wicked happens. Palance is eloquent and smooth the whole way, his taut features shimmering with concealed plans. |
| Jack Palance quickly became typecast as the
heavy in most of his films throughout the ‘50s, and even in the most distinguished
art film, as the movie producer in Jean-Luc Godard’s CONTEMPT (1964), his character
is primarily a mean, cruel bastard. In the first scene of SUDDEN FEAR, when Joan Crawford
decides during rehearsals to find another man for the lead, Palance stands before her and
tells her in so many words that sex appeal can be complicated, not just a matter of
superficial beauty. For a while, he evokes our sympathy, and for the actor Palance as well
as his character, it’s his finest moment. By Greg Giles |
Palance in PANIC IN THE STREETS
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