If you only know Kirk Douglas from awards ceremony awkwardness in his 90s, you don’t know the man’s acting pedigree. Now a centenarian, Kirk Douglas is among the last actors standing from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Douglas doesn't often earn the same credit as other actors of his era. Despite three nominations, he claims only honorary Academy hardware. But his performances are diverse and challenging. Douglas was known for inserting his own direction into movies and meticulously learning lines.
For the uninitiated, allow me to steer you toward a few Douglas performances that show his range. There are many I left out and some I have not seen (Paths of Glory) and plenty of dogs (anyone remember Greedy, his last film before his stroke) and TV appearances (Chester J. Lampwick, the true creator of Itchy and Scratchy.
Anyway ….
Lust for Life
Because it’s beautifully filmed and Douglas bears an uncanny resemblance to Van Gogh.
Douglas is top-notch as the Dutch surrealist. Anthony Quinn won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for eight minutes of screentime as Paul Gaugin while Douglas’ Oscar prospects ran into Yul Brunner and the King and I.
Vincente Minelli’s direction turns the screen into a canvas, giving life to Van Gogh’s paintings.
Lonely are the Brave
Because “a westerner likes open country. That means he's got to hate fences.”
Douglas called this his favorite of own films, and I can’t argue. He plays the last 19th century cowboy in New Mexico and runs afoul of the law and the one-armed man from The Fugitive. It’s an effective look at someone fighting to hold onto a free-spirited life in a modernizing world.
Ace in the Hole
Because it’s one of the darkest films of
its day and aged well. The sub-subgenre of Kirk Douglas movies set in
New Mexico has only two entries but both are rich. Panned at the time,
Ace in the Hole has become a favorite of critics and many directors.
Billy Wilder directed this ugly look at the press manipulating the
public. When a mine cave-in traps a man, a hotshot reporter tries to
cash in.
Originally released as The Big Carnival, it has since been reevaluated to modern praise.
The Vikings
Because it’s fun.
Ernest Borgnine is the Viking king Ragnar, with Douglas as his son Einar (despite Douglas having two months on Borgnine in real life), Tony Curtis as his half-brother and Janet Leigh as the object of both brothers’ affections. Douglas’ proclivity for performing his own stunts is on full display as he deftly walks across the oars of the long ship. The film also benefits from location shooting in Scandinavia.
Spartacus
Because it’s so much more than the climactic “I’m Spartacus!” scene.
Stanley Kubrick lacked total control and disavowed the film, but Douglas and a talented cast (a Best Supporting Actor win for Peter Ustinov) bring the goods. Everyone whose scene a CGI army march across the scene deserves the experience of thousands of soldiers parading in formation on the Spanish plains. It might be bluntly moralistic at times, but this epic is replete with powerful scenes.
20,000 Leagues under the Sea
Because the acting and the effects hold up sixty years later.
Douglas is the earthy harpooner clashing with James Mason’s Captain Nemo. Plus, Douglas gets drunk with a seal and plays sea shanties on a turtle-shell guitar. The movie is a technical marvel for the mid-1950s, capturing the spirit of the Jules Verne novel and pushing boundaries in its underwater scenes along with the infamous surface-level battle with a giant squid. I dread the inevitable remake that tries to top the battle with an animatronic squid with a computer-animated one.
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