I don't write about television movies very often although I do see a fair number of them in the course of my obsession with watching unknown films; most of them (and they are not all disease-of-the-week) soon fade from the memory. However there are exceptions, foremost of which are those which feature well-known stars late in their careers. For example the only time that Bette Davis and James Stewart ever appeared together was in a weepy TVM from 1983, "Right of Way". Another favourite of mine, Katharine Hepburn, was magnificent in an earlyish TVM with Laurence Olivier, "Love Among the Ruins" in 1975. Walter Matthau also appeared in some thought-provoking made for television movies. All of these actors made more than one television film, normally superior to the run of the mill, and none disgracing their cinematic legacy (if not necessarily of equal standard).
What makes the above film so special is that it was not only the only TVM that James Cagney ever made, but he was 84 at the time and it was the last film of his long career. He plays a former welterweight champion boxer, now confined to a wheelchair, bitter and isolated in his vast New York townhouse, with only his day-carer, the wonderful Art Carney, for acerbic company. Into his life comes the grand-daughter he has never known, played by a very young and able Ellen Barkin, who is really there to try to cadge some money for her wastrel boyfriend, played by an equally young Peter Gallagher, who is in debt to the mob in a big way. The growing affection between the old man and the talented youngster turns to disappointment when he discovers how he is being used, and the final tearful denouement is a killer. The old Cagney is contrasted with the cheeky young Cagney by incorporating some boxing clips from his early films, and we can still see signs of the brash persona that was his. Some people might say that actors should leave their careers while their image remains in tact, rather than risk letting us see how time wreaks havoc; personally I wouldn't miss seeing a film like this one for the world -- even if it was made for the idiot box.
2 comments:
I do like Cagney :) I don't think actors should leave when age takes it's toll, they give a little something extra because they have the experience and you've sort of grown up with them. I do hate it when they try to play a much much younger person though. Rache
Did you not think that Ellen Barkin made a good fist of her role and certainly did not fall short - Gallagher, on the other hand, was less believable both as a wastrel
dreamer and as one capturing her undying love.
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