Charles Laughton - S & D...?

also his eye-rolling and trilling in Jamaica Inn is really something to see. Must've driven Hitchcock bananas.

I remember really liking him in The Suspect.

he was on Gore Vidal's checklist, it seems. :o

Tom May be crazy, Hobson's Choice is a great movie.

well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ5UIuAa0eM

And?

NPR played one of his Grammy Winning Spoken Word pieces on Thanksgiving while I was driving to my parents' house and I was so wrapped up in it I didn't realize I completely missed my exit and was driving wherever for a good half hour. That and Night of the Hunter (which I adore) are all I know of him, so it's probably time to look further.

I own this

http://s1041.photobucket.com/user/spin13/media/VINYLTHREE/2014-02-21080329_zpsa699b584.jpg.html

this

http://www.discogs.com/Elsa-Lanchester-Songs-For-A-Smoke-Filled-Room/release/3650127

"Remarks" by Charles

apparently he directed a couple sequences of his Maigret movie

http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/blog/?p=1725

^He's excellent in this, maybe best when he's listening to manic-depressive Franchot Tone shout at him that he'll never get the goods on him. (Tone and director Meredith were both big lefties, and both show up w/ Laughton in Advise & Consent of course.) The film itself is a bit traveloguey and has a few unfortunate musical stings, but 1949 Paris is something to see, and the Hitchcock-style chase on the Tower has nearly no process shots, nearly all in the sunlight with the actors and their stuntpeople.

(It's been restored by UCLA from the only existing materials -- prints, not good ones -- so watch on YT if you don't see it on the rep schedule.)

how's the YT print?

Recently read a version of the anecdote below in James Harvey's excellent book about movie acting, Watching Them Be, which includes a verygood chapter on Laughton (I think Harvey found it in the Simon Callow biography):

Laughton's worst fear materialized while directing Henry Fonda in the play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954). Fonda, angry at the play's development and execution, lashed out at Laughton by sneering. "What do you know about men, you fat faggot?"

http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/present-accounted-james-harveys-watching

oh man -- I had no idea Harvey wrote a new book. Romantic Comedy in Hollywood and Movie Love in the 50s are among my favorite film books.

man, Ruggles of Red Gap is pretty much the bomb. CL is brilliantly reactive, and the supporting cast supplies everything he needs. Well-oiled McCarey, prob one of his 3 best comedies.