Brian Aherne on the Screen

If talent and good looks were all that it took to become a Hollywood legend, then Brian Aherne would be remembered alongside such contemporaries as Clark Gable, Cary Grant and James Stewart: not just as an actor revered by vintage film aficionados, but as a star who continues to shine brightly, whose name remains familiar to newer generations. One of the most classically handsome leading men to grace the screen, Aherne was also one of its most accomplished actors. That combination should’ve assured him of celebrity, if not longevity — but it didn’t. Studios began wooing him in the early ’30s, but within a decade, they’d washed their hands of him. He hadn’t been eager to play by their rules, and they were no longer willing to play by his.

The Curious Career of James Craig

James Craig’s Hollywood career has been reduced to so many apocryphal stories, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. His IMDb bio insists that “tall, rugged James Craig's career as an MGM contract player blossomed in the 1940s. This was due in large part to his strong physical and vocal resemblance to the studio’s top leading man, Clark Gable.” That would all be well and good — if any of it were true.

Dissecting William Dieterle

A fuller version of this essay — complete with photos, filmography, footnotes, etc. — is now available at Amazon Kindle, as an e-book entitled William Dieterle: A Forgotten Giant. Click here to purchase.

Is there another Classic Hollywood director whose reputation has been as tarnished by time as William Dieterle (1893-1972)? He helmed his first two Hollywood films in 1931 and, by year’s end, was already being praised as a prodigy. (The New York Times applauded his “artistry and fertile brain,” predicting he “could make a poor story interesting and a good story a masterpiece.” Variety forecast “a worthy spot in the megaphoning field.”) By the time 1932 drew to a close, he had another half-dozen titles in release, and the response from critics grew reverential. They eyed him as an original: a storyteller with a keen understanding of human nature; a jack-of-all-trades who excelled in every genre, from romantic comedy to costume drama; and an innovator whose camera roamed with impressive freedom, at a time when the technical constraints of the early sound era typically held movement to a minimum.

Errol Flynn Goes to War

This essay has nothing to do with Errol Flynn going to war. (He tried to enlist in every branch of the service during WWII, but was declined for health reasons.) It’s not even about the five wartime films he starred in between 1942 and 1945. It started that way — thus the title — but once I saw those five, I wanted to see more of Flynn, and ending up viewing all the films he did for Warner Bros. between 1935 to 1950: from his first starring role in Captain Blood to his final film before he began exploring freelance options, Rocky Mountain.