{"id":308,"date":"2013-03-02T13:31:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-02T18:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tr10023.com\/?p=308"},"modified":"2021-02-14T18:16:09","modified_gmt":"2021-02-14T23:16:09","slug":"notable-claude-rains-pictures-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.tr10023.com\/?p=308","title":{"rendered":"Notable Claude Rains Pictures (Part II)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notorious<\/h1>\n
\"Claude<\/a>

Claude Rains in ‘Notorious’: The Nazi mama’s boy.<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Alex Sebastian in \u201cNotorious\u201d (RKO, 1946) is one of Claude Rains\u2019 best parts.\u00a0 As Sebastian, Rains\u2019 performance is so indelible that once you\u2019ve seen it, it\u2019s hard to imagine another actor in the role.\u00a0 After \u201cNotorious,\u201d whenever a picture called for a silky, suave villain, producers would tell the casting agent:\u00a0 \u201cget me a Claude Rains type.\u201d\u00a0 Rains was not, however, Hitchcock\u2019s first choice.\u00a0 Hitch wanted that poor man\u2019s George Sanders, Clifton Webb.\u00a0 To be sure, Webb would have been entirely convincing as a mama\u2019s boy (which he was). He was, moreover, such an unsympathetic screen presence, one would be glad to believe he was also a Nazi.\u00a0 But as a heterosexual in the grip of an obsessive sexual passion for Ingrid Bergman . . . not bloody likely.\u00a0 One can easily imagine his putting clothes on<\/i> Ingrid Bergman, but not his tearing them off<\/i>. \u00a0Hitchcock had to be convinced to let Rains play the role.\u00a0 When he talked to Rains about the part, Hitch asked him, \u201cWhat about this business of a being a midget?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean, a midget?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour wife, Ingrid Bergman, is very tall.\u00a0 There are occasions when we can build a ramp, but have you ever worn elevated shoes?\u201d\u00a0 It was a blow to Rains\u2019 pride, but he bought the lifts and often used them throughout the rest of his career.<\/p>\n

When critics refer to Sebastian as a Nazi mama\u2019s boy, there\u2019s always the sense that they find his being a mama\u2019s boy somehow more objectionable than his being a Nazi.\u00a0 The other famous Hitchcock mama\u2019s boy is also a villain:\u00a0 Norman Bates.\u00a0 In that one, Bates\u2019 villainy only comes out when he actually IS his mama.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what to make of this, other than Hitch was a strange fellow.<\/p>\n

Bergman isn\u2019t good in the first reel, when we\u2019re supposed to believe she\u2019s a hard-drinking tramp, but after the first dozen or so minutes, I\u2019d say it\u2019s the best performance of her career.\u00a0 Cary Grant, for once, doesn\u2019t twinkle and make coy faces, but he goes too far in the other direction:\u00a0 he\u2019s so brutal and unyielding, it\u2019s hard to understand why Bergman puts up with him.\u00a0 He is very good looking and beautifully dressed, but what a swine . . .\u00a0 I keep thinking she\u2019d be better off with Rains, if only he weren\u2019t trying to kill her.<\/p>\n

\"Rains,<\/a>

Rains, Grant, Bergman: ‘We both<\/span> invited you, Mr Devlin.’<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

The most famous scene in the picture is the big party and the furtive investigation of the wine cellar \u2014 it\u2019s Hitchcock at his absolute best.\u00a0 But my favorite scene happens the morning after, when Sebastian in robe and slippers goes into his mother\u2019s (Madame Konstantin) bedroom and tells her that he is in big trouble.\u00a0 \u201cI am married to an American agent,\u201d a memorable line reading that belongs (but isn\u2019t) on the AFI\u2019s 100 Movie Quotes list.\u00a0 Mme. Konstantin responds by lighting a cigarette while she absorbs the news in silence.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t take more than five seconds, but it\u2019s a Master Class in great acting.\u00a0 She conveys more about her character in those few seconds of silence than most actresses could convey in a hundred lines of dialogue.<\/p>\n

\"Rains,<\/a>

Rains, Mme. Konstantin: ‘I am married to an American agent.’<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

But it is Rains\u2019 performance that makes the deepest impression.\u00a0 As usual, he dominates every scene he\u2019s in.\u00a0 He makes the Nazi mama\u2019s boy a more sympathetic character than Cary Grant\u2019s hero.\u00a0 It was his fourth and last Academy Award nomination.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t win this time, either.\u00a0 For this was the year that Clifton Webb was supposed to win for \u201cThe Razor\u2019s Edge,\u201d only to lose out (along with Rains) to Harold Russell in \u201cThe Best Years of our Lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Voyager<\/h1>\n
\"Davis<\/a>

Oh, Doctor! \u00a0Rains: ‘I have a great admiration for people who are clever with their hands. \u00a0I was always so clumsy with my own.’ \u00a0Davis: \u00a0‘I should think you’re the least clumsy person I ever met . . .’<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

About “Now, Voyager.” Its failings are many, but I continue to love it, probably because I’ve always gotten deep satisfaction from transformation stories. The first and final scenes are wonderful, but in the middle there is much to dislike.<\/p>\n

Here’s an important early scene, in which Rains, as Dr Jacquith, America’s foremost alienist, does what he does better than anyone else. \u00a0The material is entirely second-rate, composed almost entirely of platitudes, but he makes it sound like the last word in compassionate sagacity. \u00a0His closing line, “I suggest a few weeks at Cascade . . . ” lets you know that poor, crazy Aunt Charlotte will emerge from Dr Jacquith’s sanitarium as a butterfly from a chrysalis.<\/p>\n