Robert Newton is fast becoming my newest fixation

[moon_custafer]

— I always feel sort of guilty and embarrassed when they change, but I suppose no long-dead actor, or even any living one, is harmed by my brain being fickle in its interests.

Anyhow, Newton was the main reason I watched Androcles and the Lion (1952) yesterday, although the presence of Alan “voice of Scrooge McDuck” Young, Elsa Lanchester, Jean Simmons, and Victor Mature certainly didn’t hurt. ETA —I am curious as to how it would have played with the original casting of Harpo Marx as Androcles. I supposed he would have talked.

Still trying to put my thoughts in enough order to write about it— I don’t think I’ll go read Shaw’s introductory essay (I assume he wrote one) because my experience is that I enjoy GBS’ plays better than his explanations of what he meant by them. My other early opinion is that Androcles/Lavinia/Ferrovius make a lovely platonic OTP.

also ETA — Just looked at the YouTube comments and woah, Shaw would definitely get a kick out of how many people this play script from 1912 is still angering. Roughly half insist it’s an insult to Christians, while the other half consider it Christian propaganda and are calling it out on that count. (And then there are a couple of people complaining that it’s boring and asking why it isn’t in colour like The Robe or Ben Hur). 

Comments

[sovay]

Robert Newton is fast becoming my newest fixation

I will try very seriously to write about the film I loved at the start of this month, although it may be in the queue behind something that sort of boggled me later. My brain and movies are difficult right now. (My brain and anything.)

[moon_custafer]

*hug offered*

[teenybuffalo]

I've been thriving on his performance in "Treasure Island" for many years. Between him and Boris Karloff in "The Bodysnatcher" I think I have a Type, and it's blatant villains with big teeth who beam and laugh and talk as if they sincerely like you while actively trying to murder you. I've been chasing that high ever since. Robert Newton was OK in "Around the World in 80 Days" but it's not worth seeking out for him; it's a relatively thankless role.

[moon_custafer]

Yeah, and it was his last performance, I think. (I was startled when I read he played Fix -- I thought 'Wait, wasn't that Peter Ustinov?' and then I remembered Ustinov was Fix in the 1990s tv version)

Affably Evil villains aren't usually my Type, exactly, but I can see the appeal and they're certainly fun to watch.

(Edited again): At some point I may have to show you some of the tie-in material for the video game Team Fortress 2, because you might enjoy the character of the Medic. I know I do.

[teenybuffalo]

Is Team Fortress 2 the game where there's a lot of fanart shipping a genial mad scientist-looking guy with a huge muscleman, and showing them doing a lot of cute, incongruous domestic stuff? If so, I am extremely happy to be convinced ^__^

[moon_custafer]

The Medic and Heavy (Heavy Weapons Guy)! Yes, that's them: https://youtu.be/36lSzUMBJnc?si=0oJlwM8xrI7du8Aa

[teenybuffalo]

HE'S PERFECT

[moon_custafer]

HE'S VOICED BY ROBIN ATKIN DOWNES

Srsly, several of the voice actors for this game have lately been doing live zoom talks with the fans, or making videos where they play their characters doing crazy stuff. They really seem to have fun with it.

[moon_custafer]

Also Newton's performance in this one is more like "terrifying huge guy who is sincerely trying to Not Hulk Out while he converts people to Christianity," and it's wonderful.

[teenybuffalo]

Oo! That is potentially appealing. One of the roots of my obsession with him as Long John Silver is that Robert Newton really gets across how Silver is a very smart and carefully self-censoring person surrounded by violent twits with no self-control, and it's getting harder every second not to lose it. So I can see where he'd be good in this way.

[moon_custafer]

Ferrovius is sort of… more afraid of his own nature than he is of anything else? His big worry about being martyred is that he’ll give in to temptation and fight back (he’s right).

Earlier on, though, this is played with comedically when some twit slaps him in the face, remind him that he’s supposed to turn the other cheek (think the guys with the ice cream cones bullying Harrison Ford in Witness). Ferrovius puts up with it. Then he insists it’s his turn to slap the other guy so he can practice pacifism, but the dude faints from terror before it can get that far, and Ferrovius settles for blessing him.

[kore]

Shaw would be REALLY smug about that, no doubt.

[moon_custafer]

He absolutely would. I suspect it's much the reaction the original play received, and I'm positive it's the reaction he described getting for Major Barbara.

[sovay]

and I'm positive it's the reaction he described getting for Major Barbara.

In the 1941 film of which Robert Newton is great, incidentally.

[moon_custafer]

You've mentioned it. I need to go watch that one.

[sovay]

You've mentioned it. I need to go watch that one.

*cough*

It was one of my introductions to Robert Newton, the other as I have likely mentioned being Jamaica Inn (1938). I will forever hold a grudge against Samuel Goldwyn for not casting him as Heathcliff in the 1939 Wuthering Heights even though his entire career would have been different; he was Wyler's first choice; there was test footage which I would give a lot to see and which was probably junked the second Goldwyn thought Newton wasn't attractive enough, the jerk.

[moon_custafer]

Newton looked pretty much exactly like book!Heathcliff.

[sovay]

Newton looked pretty much exactly like book!Heathcliff.

He would have been ideal! The screenplay would still have been the screenplay and Goldwyn would probably still have reshot the ending (over Wyler's refusals; he had another director do it), but seriously.