OBITUARY: Karl Malden (1912-2009)
Mladen George Keulovich, better known as "Karl Malden" was a perennial character actor from Chicago. He died today. He was 97.
I heard him say once that as a boy he sang in the church choir, and liked being on stage, so he tried out for plays in high school in Gary, Indianna He was also a bit of an athlete as a kid, and, as with most Hoosiers he had an entirely unfathomable obsession with Basketball that lasted him through his entire life. He tried acting professionally in the early 1930s while attending the Art Institute in Chicago, but struck out and moved home again. In the late 30s, he struck out on his own again, heading to New York this time, and got his first stage gig on broadway around 1938 or so, and continued to act on stage pretty much constantly until he got his first bit part in a film in 1940. From then on, he ping ponged back and forth between the two mediums.
Luck was with him, and he had a major supporting role in "A Streetcar Named Desire," (His 9th film), for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, and from then on he was never hurting for work. He also worked occasionally in TV. That became his mainstay for a time in the 70s when he was doing "The Streets of San Francisco," which was a massive hit show for four of it's five seasons. (In the fith, Michael Douglas left and was replaced by Richard Hatch, later of Battlestar Galactica fame).
Really the only unquestionable genre credit he's got was in 1979's "Meteor," a typical '70s B-movie disaster flick with an A-movie cast that included Sean Connery, Henry Fonda and Natalie Wood (Her final film), and another of the all-time-great Character Actors, Martin Landau. As I recall - it's been decades since I've seen it - Malden played the head of NASA. The movie was a mercinary attempt to merge the waning-but-still-popular Disaster Movie genre with the waxing-ever-more-popular SF genre in the wake of Star Wars. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but I really liked it as a kid, and Malden was pretty good in it.
I tend to remember him more for the two spy films he did. The good one was Ken Russell's "Billion Dollar Brain," one of the Michael Caine/Harry Palmer spy series. The more laughable one was "Murderer's Row," one of the amazingly smarmy and cheezy Dean Martin "Matt Helm" movies. He was the main bad guy, and it's one of the very, very few times I've ever seen him give a bad performance. Functioning as the main bad guy, He's sadled with a terrible accent, and occasionally forgets to use. The movie is best known for Anne Margaret wearing the world's only turtleneck swimsuit, and an overlong hovercraft chase to pad the film out to barely feature length, and Between the incoherent plot, flaccid direction, and a scrip that was obviously being made up as they went along, it's a sad example of a great supporting player at his worst, but you know what? Even phoning it in as part of a crap movie that is clearly frustrating him, he's still better than anyone in it.
He was a good man from good stock, he lived in the entertainment industry for most of his life, but never let it touch him. He was a good family man, father, and husband, married to one woman from 1938 until the day he died, with no divorces or infidelity. He was a working actor who managed to raise two apparently-well-adjusted and functional children who've never appeared in any scandal sheets or tabloids. That seems like a success to me, and he was always reputed as a very grounded man, one of the few in the industry who took his job very seriously, but never took the stardom seriously.
He's one of the final lights of an entire generation of actors that is fading to black for the final time, and he, more than many of them, will be missed. Our prayers go out to his family.
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Comments
27 December 2008
7 min 12 sec
Hell yeah! I was just thinking in the shower this morning that my egomania hasn't been served in a while, so, yeah, I'd love to be interviewed about it! Email me at Three@Republibot.com and we'll talk about the details!
2 July 2009
51 weeks 6 days
Hey pallie, likes can hardly wait to see those Dinoreviews....likes plan to share 'em over at the ilovedinomartin Dinoblog with a link to your pad here....so dude, likes can you gives me a preview....will have have some appreciato to share 'bout "Murders Row?" And, pallie, likes I think I mentioned this before, woulda you be interested in bein' interviewed 'bout your Dinolove....woulda be cool to do it before your reviews...in the mid of 'em, or even after......
27 December 2008
7 min 12 sec
Hey, good to see you again!
The Silencers review will go online on August 7th, a Murderer's Row review will go online August 14th, an Ambushers review will go online August 21st, Wrecking Crew will be reviewed here on August 28th, and there's something special planned for September 4th, also related to the Helm movies.
All those dates are fridays. Do please let your people know!
2 July 2009
51 weeks 6 days
Hey pallie, tried to find your review of "The SIlencers." Has it been posted yet? wOUldn't wanna miss it .....
27 December 2008
7 min 12 sec
Will do, if you'll spread the links around to all your Dino-lovin' friends. Actually, I tried to post today, but ran in to Google-problems.
9 June 2009
50 weeks 2 days
John Nolte at Big Hollywood's obituary brings up a point I had forgotten. It was Karl Malden who led the push for Elia Kazan's Oscar some years back. I'm sure he got a ton of flack over that, but he thought it was the right thing to do.
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9 June 2009
50 weeks 2 days
We have a commenter at Threedonia who calls himself Matt Helm. It wasn't until about a month ago that I realized that wasn't his real name.
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Never be certain of anything; it's a sign of weakness.
Threedonia.com
2 July 2009
51 weeks 6 days
Hey pallie Republibot 3.0, so so sorry to have misjudged your Dinointentions....but the tenor of your thoughts on "Murder's Row" did not same of favorable thin' 'bout our Dino or his role as Matt Helm.
Thanks so much for sharin' how your came to see the Matt Helm capers....like you I first saw 'em on TV and was transfixed by our Dino.....and makes my Dinoheart glad to know that you own all 4 of 'em.....woulda you please let me know when you review all 4 of the flicks, and do hope that you will give MR a fair shake....for many of us who are proud to be tagged a Dinoholic, "Murder's Row" is by far our fav of favs.....just so mucho full of total Dinopleasure along with Miss Ann-Margret and that great scene between our Dino and his beloved boypallie Dino Jr.
If you loves our Dino, do hopes that you will stop by the ilovedinomartin Dinopad often to share your Dinothoughts and spread your Dinopassion...
27 December 2008
7 min 12 sec
I love Dean Martin, and I am inexorably tied to the Matt Helm movies. When I was a kid in the late 70s, and our local UHF station would play "Spy Theater" on Sundays, right after church. Whenver the Helm flicks came up in rotation - obviously without bothering to screen them first - it was always a red-letter day for a 10 to 12-year-old kid who was just beginning to realize women were damn fascinating, and, oh, Lord, there were acres of women in those movies, weren't there? Added to which, they were funny, and I loved when Dino would sing parody versions of his own standards on the soundtrack. In fact, I own all four of the movies.
That said, I still think "Murderers Row" is the weakest of the bunch, and the recently-late, undeniably great Mr. M. was clearly not having a pleasurable working experience on it.
But you've convinced me: I'll review all four of the movies just as soon as I can find the remote control for my DVD player.
2 July 2009
51 weeks 6 days
Hey pallie Republibot 3.0, no disrespect to the memory of Mr. Malden, but I certainly take offence at your comments on our Dino's stellar Matt Helm caper "Murder's Row," simply the best of our great man's spy quartet. While our Dino showcased his amazin' dramatic actin' ability in such flicks as "Rio Bravo," "Some Came Running," and "The Young Lions" to name just a few, in MR our Dino does what he does best.....play his ever cool, hip, and randy self to Dinoperfection. MR and the other three Matt Helm films are groovy parodies of the more serious spy films of their day. Your are obviously not a fan of our great man....and likes that is your loss. http://ilovedinomartin.blogspot.com/
27 December 2008
7 min 12 sec
You're right. What I meant to say was that this was her final completed movie, and the last one to come out before her death, but I ended up blowing that. Brainstorm came out quite a while after, and bombed. The Tech is, I agree, pretty laughable, but it is more-or-less the first "Virtual Reality" movie, as we'd all 'em today, and the scene where the kid stumbles in to a VR Torture Program was genuinely chilling.
The scenes of Mrs. Wood nearly drowning (In mud) in the end of this movie play out pretty creepy in retrospect.
18 May 2009
5 weeks 2 days
Natalie Wood's last role was Brainstorm. She died during production so the movie's ending had to be unsatisfactorily reworked. Interesting premise, typical anti-military bias, and looking back, technologically laughable. "We'll just phone the data in."
Anyway, thank you for mentioning Malden's moral integrity and fidelity. When you look at Hollywood today it just makes his loss that much more painful.
27 December 2008
7 min 12 sec
If you've never seen it, she's the female lead of the film, but the movie can't really decide if they want her to be the love interest or not. There was an attempt to tone down the smarm from the previous movie (Which I frequently describe as "A Skinemax late night movie with clothes on"), which wasn't really all that wise because if you cut out the T&A, you're left with only the story, and the Matt Helm movies never had much of one going for them. Anyway, as a result of this, there's a weird on-again/off-again thing where in some scenes, Anne is hitting on Dino, and then in other scenes where she's hitting on his son (in a minor role in the film). It's just a mess all the way through. The first movie was a minor hit, but this one is massively in Sophomore Slump territory.
Actually, you know what? I might review 'em...
9 June 2009
50 weeks 2 days
If you've got a young Ann-Margret, why would you ever put her in a turtleneck of any kind?
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Never be certain of anything; it's a sign of weakness.
Threedonia.com