George Raft

[rudyfan]

Since George came up in the Cinecon thread thanks to the screening of Rumba, I thought I'd start a new post here so as not to derail the Cinecon thread.

George seemed to have a decent run in the early Paramount days and early in his Warner career. If my recollection of some film history is correct, he certainly made some very poor choices in films either to work in or refuse to take part in.

He was good loooking, in a pretty boy way. I liked him in Scarface and Each Dawn I Die and have a silly fondness for They Drive by Night (okay, Ida Lupino!). But, am I alone in thinking he really was just a terrible actor? To me he was a much prettier version of Ricardo Cortez. Must give him credit, he certainly worked fairly steady in shrinking roles. Not to mention he dated just about everyone beautiful in Hollywood.

In thinking of the Paramount period, I've always wanted to see The Glass Key. Anyone seen it? How does it compare to the Alan Ladd film? Is there any comparison?

[Mike Gebert]

He was a monotonal actor. That could be used effectively-- sometimes being minimal next to a whirling dynamo like Cagney can be a good choice. (Sometimes stars who are too energetic are frightening. See Tom Cruise.) The audience will identify with the more normal-seeming guy. Still, how he was a star at Warners for so many years is one of Hollywood's mysteries.

Like Cortez, a certain heavy-lidded, almond-shaped face Valentino thing kicked off his career, until-- like Cortez-- sound made it clear that he wasn't from the old country.

[drednm]

Raft seems to have been effective in a small range of roles I agree his quietness made him stand out against Cagney et al.

Raft also had a humorous side in films like Night After Night in which he seemed to almost be spoofing his glitzy Broadway persona. I'm not sure any of his films captured the Broadway Raft.

As for Ricardo Cortez, I like him in several talkies, especially when he's playing "against type" as a cad as in The Firebird.

While Cortez (born Jacob Krantz) always seemed "ethnic" somehow, Raft mostly escaped this kind of typecasting by playing ethnic and white-bread parts.

[greta de groat]

I've always had an odd fondness for George Raft and still do. In high school i used to watch Souls at Sea over and over and was for some reason more smitten with his character than with Coop's (i'm not sure how i'd react now, Cooper didn't appeal to me until later). And while The House Across the Bay was no Dark Passage, it was still one of my favorite San Francisco movies. I need to see that again, it's been years. And though Mae West does run off with Night after Night, i always found the rest of the film enjoyable too.

I was delighted that he stayed active as long as he did and would turn up in small parts. I was always happy to see him around.

greta

[rudyfan]

I've always had an odd fondness for George Raft and still do. In high school i used to watch Souls at Sea over and over and was for some reason more smitten with his character than with Coop's (i'm not sure how i'd react now, Cooper didn't appeal to me until later). And while The House Across the Bay was no Dark Passage, it was still one of my favorite San Francisco movies. I need to see that again, it's been years. And though Mae West does run off with Night after Night, i always found the rest of the film enjoyable too.

I was delighted that he stayed active as long as he did and would turn up in small parts. I was always happy to see him around.

greta

Great, I just suggested House Across the Bay to TCM. Sounds like my kind of movie!

[Ray Faiola]

I enjoy his RKO features very much. I always thought he missed a bet by not doing more in radio.

[Jack Theakston]

Even in his later years, Raft still gave interesting performances. Check out the 1952 British Lippert import, ESCAPE ROUTE (released in '53 in the US as I'LL GET YOU). Good performance in an unpretentious mystery-thriller by Raft.

Then of course, there's his wonderful cameo in THE LADIES MAN.

[R Michael Pyle]

I've always felt that George Raft was as wooden as a log as an actor, but, you know, I've slightly - and that word is genuine - slightly changed my mind this year. I purchased nine Raft films from vintagefilmbuff.com, and a couple of them are dynamite. Quality of the prints is quite decent, too. But! The biggest surprise was the quality of - Raft! Especially good was "She Couldn't Take It" (1935), not far removed in its humor from "It Happened One Night" from the previous year, and both with hilarious Walter Connolly. Raft was a revelation: he handled the comedy quite well. "Rumba" and "Bolero" at least showcased Raft as a dancer, as did "Dancers in the Dark" (1932). "Limehouse Blues" has wonderful Anna Mae Wong in it, and it plays like typical Raft, rather wooden, but interesting, nevertheless. "Pick-Up" was another revelation. This one had Sylvia Sidney, and she was gorgeous in this one. It was a very good story, too. Another I liked was "Undercover Man", although the story is incredible in the sense that it stretches credulity to the breaking point. Nancy Carroll was his co-star. "Midnight Club" was not particularly good, but it gave an interesting combo with Clive Brook, Helen Vinson, Alison Skipworth and Raft. As for "The Glass Key", I think both versions are very good in their own ways, and each has strong points. The Raft version plays a lot more like 30's gangster style films, while the 40's version is very 40's. I also like Raft in "Each Dawn I Die" and even "Invisible Stripes", but the latter has Bogart and former a great Cagney. Raft was so surrounded by talent he couldn't fail in those, even though he's like a wooden stick in both. But, if you can find it, and you can at the URL I've given, get "She Couldn't Take It" and learn George Raft all over again.

[rudyfan]

I purchased nine Raft films from vintagefilmbuff.com, and a couple of them are dynamite. Quality of the prints is quite decent, too.

Thanks for the link, are they legit, or gray market? Seems to me, upon review of some of the titles, the films are not PD.

[silentstar5]

George Raft is a bit of a mystery to me too for the reasons previously stated. Perhaps it was a bad boy sexual machismo in an era when many wives selected the films to attend. The bad boy has had a long run in film history. Ruby Keeler would be my choice for female equivalent in the blandness department. How in the heck she ever made it is a mystery to me. Endlessly tapping away looking at her feet for all those years. Lets cast them in a make believe film called Guns and Tap. Role reversal though. She will have the machine gun and he will do the tapping. Yah right.

[drednm]

and yet the teenaged Ruby Keeler was rumored to be the wildest thing on Broadway!

[boblipton]

I haven't seen Raft's dancing vehicles, so I can't comment on those. What I have seen of his Paramount stuff is so-so. He seems like a competent, if not terribly interesting supporting player. His Warner's and RKO stuff is much more interesting: he seems weary, most of the time, but able to produce a burst of energy for an explosive final. It's that feeling of waiting for him to explode that makes him interesting to me.

Later on, he seems to just be trading on being George Raft, which was the sort of thing that used to puzzle me as a kid: people who were famous for being famous.

Bob

[George Kincaid]

Raft does a wry self-parody in the 1967 Casino Royale as (guess what) an American gangster. He flips a coin through the final barroom brawl scene. He fires a pistol, then looks at the people standing next to him. "This gun shoots backward! I just killed myself." I always liked Raft's understated style. There are a efw early Looney Tunes that play on that manner.

[rollot24]

Raft does a wry self-parody in the 1967 Casino Royale as (guess what) an American gangster. He flips a coin through the final barroom brawl scene. He fires a pistol, then looks at the people standing next to him. "This gun shoots backward! I just killed myself." I always liked Raft's understated style. There are a efw early Looney Tunes that play on that manner.

And let's not forget Some Like it Hot where he says, to a coin flipping hood, "Where'd you learn a cheap trick like that."

[Norma Desmond]

I'm surprised no one mentioned George Raft in what I think was his greatest role as the legenadary Steve Brodie in THE BOWERY. This is a first rate moviewith a first rate cast. Like Sinatra, he had his own personalrelationship with the Mafia.


NORMA