Peter Sellers-The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu

Peter Sellers said on several occasions that he had no personality of his own between roles. Those who knew him disagreed. In fact, it has been widely reported that Peter Sellers was selfish, egotistical, cruel and perhaps even a bit mentally ill. He has also been referred to as generous, loyal, shy and nostalgic. A favorite of both Prince Charles and Elvis Presley, the one thing most people agree on is that when he was on his game, Peter Sellers was one of the funniest men ever to make a movie.

Born into a family of entertainers in 1925, Richard Henry Sellers (called Peter) would grow up like many of his age to join the RAF in WWII. Forced by bad eyesight to remain grounded, Peter started appearing as a comic and jazz drummer while still in the service. After his discharge, he would continue performing on the stage and on the skins in small clubs throughout England. It was at the beginning of the fifties, though, when Sellers shot to sudden fame alongside Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe on BBC radio's weekly broadcasts of THE GOON SHOW.

At first listen, any given episode of THE GOON SHOW seems an incoherent mess. Every single moment is chock full of silly voices, odd gags, bizarre sound effects and inappropriately banal musical interludes. Every episode is also laugh out loud funny in a kind of avant garde way that would set the tone for the later popularity of the BEYOND THE FRINGE gang, the humor of the Beatles and even MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS. For the series, Peter created such memorable characters as Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, Bluebottle (who always read his own stage directions), the aged Henry Crun and the flatulent Major Bloodnok. The format of the series being what it was, these roles would often be different in everything but name, voice and general character from episode to episode.

More handsome than the portly Secombe or the rumpled looking Milligan, Peter Sellers heeded the call of the big screen early on. Throughout the 1950's he appeared in a number of memorable but widely varying character roles in British motion picture comedies such as I'M ALL RIGHT, JACK, TWO-WAY STRETCH and THE LADYKILLERS. The latter is important in the Sellers canon as the picture starred Alec Guinness, upon whose early film career one could easily say Sellers would base his tendency to play multiple roles in a single picture. Guinness also loved to appear made up and Sellers would do so often himself.

After years of continued radio success, some comedy records (recorded with a pre-Beatles George Martin) and a steady screen career, Sellers slowly began attracting international attention in such major productions as THE MOUSE THAT ROARED (in which he played multiple roles a la Guinness), George Pal's TOM THUMB, THE MILLIONAIRESS with Sophia Loren and the UK filmed final "Road" picture with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, THE ROAD TO HONG KONG. By the time of his casting as Clare Quilty in Stanley Kubrick's controversial adaptation of Nabokov's LOLITA, Peter Sellers was himself an actual movie star.

After completing two more small, home grown films. THE WRONG ARM OF THE LAW and HEAVEN'S ABOVE, Peter Sellers went Hollywood. Recreating himself as a playboy, he played the part to the hilt for many years through drugs, alcohol, several marriages and a number of high profile romances. Onscreen, he next appeared in the two most important films of his early career--Blake Edwards' THE PINK PANTHER and Stanley Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB.

1963's THE PINK PANTHER tells the story of the eponymous diamond and the jewel thief who's out to steal it. Ostensibly a comedy caper vehicle for old-timer David Niven, Sellers' French police inspector, Jacques Clouseau effortlessly steals every scene he's in. In the blacker than black 1964 nuclear satire DR. STRANGELOVE, he spreads his acting wings in three roles. Sellers appears as the hapless US President, a British military officer on loan to the US and most memorably as the wheelchair-bound title character--a perhaps insane ex-Nazi Presidential advisor. Peter Sellers was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for the film.

While Peter next starred in the delightful THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT, Blake Edwards retooled a stage play he was preparing to film to make it into a vehicle for the return of Inspector Clouseau. Thus was born A SHOT IN THE DARK, many people's favorite performance by Sellers as his signature character.

A heart attack scare around this time slowed his career a bit and smaller roles in big budget, all-star failures such as Woody Allen's WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? and the legendarily bad James Bond spoof CASINO ROYALE (also with Woody) didn't help either. In the classic tradition of film comics from George Formby to Danny Kaye, Peter began appearing in a string of starring vehicles that featured his talents to the delight of his many fans if not the critics. These pictures included THE PARTY, THE BOBO (co-starring his young soon to be ex-wife, Britt Ekland), I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS and the self-financed mess that was THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN.

As incoherent as any episode of THE GOON SHOW ever had been (and even featuring a scene with fellow Goon Spike Milligan), THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN offered up Sellers along with Ringo Starr, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Yul Brynner and a dozen other familiar faces along with a classic theme song (Badfinger's "Come and Get It") but the excesses of the swingin' sixties were quite obvious and not in a good way.

In the early seventies and without a bona fide hit for some time, Sellers slowed down a bit and began taking unusual character parts in smaller films. He also appeared triumphantly onstage with his old GOON SHOW colleagues for THE LAST GOON SHOW OF ALL. The original GOON SHOW broadcasts, in fact, were being syndicated throughout America. Peter's low point may have been 1974's UNDERCOVERS HERO (aka SOFT BEDS, HARD BATTLES) a dreadfully unfunny World War II "comedy" in which he once again portrayed multiple roles--this time six including Adolf Hitler.

Someone else who had been without a real film success for some time was Blake Edwards. The two put their volatile relationship behind them and decided to reteam for THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER in 1975. With Christopher Plummer taking over the David Niven role from the original, this time the sequel emphasized Inspector Clouseau and the picture's resounding international success put both men back on top in Hollywood! Two more follow-ups were made over the next three years and both were huge financial successes. Along the way, Peter also appeared memorably as a politically incorrect Charlie Chan type Oriental detective in Neil Simon's all-star success, MURDER BY DEATH. That film also featured Alec Guinness.

In 1977, Peter Sellers had more issues with his heart and had to have a pacemaker installed. Other than that, though, Peter felt like he was back on top. Unfortunately this meant a return to some of his old habits. One of these was that he married another young actress, Lynne Frederick, and another was choosing poor vehicles, in this case, THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, a tired remake of the Ronald Colman swashbuckling classic with Peter once again in dual roles. Frederick had been his co-star in the picture.

His next choice for a vehicle, though, was truly inspired. Since the early seventies, Peter Sellers had been enamored of author Jerzy Kosinski's book, BEING THERE. Finally, after nearly a decade, Kosinski agreed to allow a film version with Peter and to write the screenplay. It was, to say the least, an unusual role for the chameleon Sellers. BEING THERE tells the story of Chance, an old, simple man who has spent his entire life being taken care of by others only to be suddenly thrust out into the real world. Rather than being totally lost, his simple wisdom is misunderstood, misinterpreted, acted on and praised by powerful men up to and including the President of the United States, for whom he becomes an advisor. Shirley Maclaine and veteran Melvyn Douglas co-star. BEING THERE was touted by critics and fans worldwide in 1979 as Sellers' best work and one of the greatest motion pictures of the decade. Douglas won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Peter was thought to be a shoe-in for the Best Actor statue. In a controversial and devastating moment for the actor, Peter Sellers lost to Dustin Hoffman (for an enjoyable but hardly comparable performance in KRAMER VS KRAMER). In spite of that, he had made what was clear to all as his best film and his best performance ever. Then he decided to make THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU.

Usually one can trace the slow decline in an actor's career leading up to a terrible final film. With Peter Sellers it was more like a lightning-fast plummet. Now granted that BEING THERE would be virtually impossible to follow under the best of circumstances but Peter's health was in decline, his sanity sometimes in question and his timing very, very off. Sax Rohmer's evil Oriental mastermind personified the "yellow peril"of an earlier era and had last been played onscreen by Christopher Lee in a series of painful to watch potboilers that had ended a decade earlier. An attempt at re-issuing the original books in the US in the early 1970's had met with little success. Marvel comics was only able to win with its long-running comic book adaptation by emphasizing the character's newly created heroic son Shang-Chi in a role that combined Bruce Lee action with TV's KUNG FU-style philosophy. In time, the strip would barely reference its original source material. In all cases, the problem was that the inherent racism in Fu Manchu had just become no longer acceptable except perhaps in context of its time.

THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU went through a horrible backstage gestation which ultimately led to Sellers firing director Piers Haggard and taking the reins himself. Unfortunately, this lack of a single vision shows all around and the picture becomes at times a straightforward homage to the original novels and at others a very lame and unfunny spoof of same.

Sellers completed the shooting under very stressful work and personal circumstances. Then he was ready to move on quickly to other things. In fact, after a few years away from the role, he had an ace in the hole. He had been writing another Clouseau film, this one entitled THE ROMANCE OF THE PINK PANTHER and to be made without the participation of Blake Edwards who had gone on to several hits without Sellers. Peter was also tied to varying extents to other projects including a remake of UNFAITHFULLY YOURS (eventually done by Dudley Moore). While preparing to do all of those, he shot some bank commercials for television. He was scheduled to have a dinner reunion with Milligan and Secombe when his heart attacked him yet again and he died.

It was nearly two months later when THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU opened. The studio marketing department went out of its way to tie the comedy to the popular PINK PANTHER franchise, going so far as to ape the traditional newspaper ad campaign that featured multiple cartoon ads for the picture. Nothing helped--not even the macabre interest in seeing Sellers one last time onscreen. The critics and public alike ignored and/or reviled the film. It would also be the final film of David Tomlinson who chose to retire after a long and distinguished acting legacy.

In the picture, Peter Sellers yet again portrays two roles. Here, he is Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, the now retired Scotland Yard Inspector who has fought and been captured by the cruel and vicious Chinese doctor over and over to the point where torture has somewhat warped his brain. Nonetheless, he is the expert called on by American FBI agents (the great Sid Caesar wasted here and US TV actor Steve Franken) and the Yard's Tomlinson (of MARY POPPINS and LOVE BUG fame) when the 168 year old Fu (called Fred--a GOON SHOW reference) begins a new reign of terror.

The ostensible "fiendish plot" involves the need to steal the ingredients of the elixir that keeps the villain alive after the last few ounces are used to put out a fire accidentally started in a clever early sequence by Burt Kwouk (Cato in the PINK PANTHER films).

Along the way, the heroes team up with an undercover female agent played by the lovely Helen Mirren (PRIME SUSPECT, THE QUEEN) in what is one of the most thankless roles of her amazing career. For no apparent reason other than perhaps Sellers' ego, Mirren's character is easily seduced by the aged Fu Manchu and switches sides for the remainder of the film. This includes several music hall bits and a long and silly sequence of an outdoor barbecue to which the villains try to lure a victim.

Sellers plays Smith as a weary but obviously more astute version of Clouseau. While the character would seem to intended to be the heart of the film, he is instead ignored for long periods of time. The Fu Manchu role offers some chances for scenery chewing but the Oriental cliches and the slant-eyed makeup make it hard to enjoy, especially for modern audiences.

Had they played it straight as in some sequences, the whole thing might have worked on a kind of camp level a la TV's BATMAN but instead, silliness and incomprehensiveness abound. The ending in which Fu Manchu talks to Nayland Smith of their long-running battles and how they're necessary opposites seems to be headed in an interesting direction but then it's simply dropped in favor of the rejuvented megalomaniac's Elvis Presley impersonation!

In a bizarre coda to the up and down career of Peter Sellers, there was one last film in which he recieved top billing. 1982's THE TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER saw Blake Edwards ghoulishly editing together old footage and even outtakes of Sellers from earlier Clouseau outings and padding it with a storyline of a reporter (Joanna Lumley) interviewing friends, enemies and co-workers of the missing Inspector (including Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk and David Niven whose voice had to be redubbed by Rich Little) in an attempt to find him. Yet another follow-up, THE CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER ended with Clouseau having had plastic surgery to become...Roger Moore?

More than two decades later, Steve Martin, a comic whose work Peter Sellers had reportedly praised, would revive the PINK PANTHER films for a new generation. They weren't bad but the critics all seemed to say that the one thing that they were sorely missing was Peter Sellers.

Peter Sellers reputation has grown in the years since his death with THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU rarely revived on television or mentioned when one thinks of the actor. The average fan remembers the great British comedies, the classic Hollywood years, THE GOON SHOW and most of all, Clouseau. There have been at least a half dozen biographies of this man with no personality of his own. In 2004, in perhaps the ultimate ironic tribute, actor Geoffrey Rush gave an award winning performance in the title role of THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS, a hard-hitting deconstruction of the myths and legends that still surround this complex and continually fascinating performer.

Carole Lombard-To Be Or Not To Be

Looking at her vintage publicity pictures, you would think that Carole Lombard was yet another in the seemingly endless line of Hollywood glamour girls. In real life, however, that was far from the case. In fact, Carole Lombard was very different from the standard model cover girl on many levels. Perhaps that inability to pigeonhole her uniqueness has been why her legend has not aged as well as some. Instead, today, she is a bit of a cult figure even amongst film buffs. Once discovered, she is, however, a revelation.

Carole Lombard was, at her best, a comedienne of the highest order. Onscreen, she was never afraid to look silly and often allowed herself to appear distinctly unglamorous. She was also quite passable in more serious, dramatic roles. Offscreen, by all accounts, she was "one of the boys." She was bawdy and tough, smoking and cussing and drinking as well as any Tinseltown tough guy ever did. She was secure in her own sexuality and everyone else's, too. Director Mitchell Leisen said of her, "We called her the Profane Angel because she looked like an angel but she swore like a sailor. She was the only woman I ever knew who could tell a dirty story without losing her femininity."

She was also very popular. At one point in the 1930's she was said to be the highest paid movie star of either gender in Hollywood.

Born Jane Peters, her family left Indiana early for the West Coast where she began her screen career as a child actress in the last decade of silent pictures. By age 15 she had dropped out of school to act full time. Changing her name to Carole Lombard along the way, she became one of the last of comedy legend Mack Sennett's fabled "Bathing Beauties" as the once-great director tried (and ultimately failed) to hold on to some measure of his rapidly fading success. When sound films very quickly took over the industry at the end of the decade, Sennett could not survive the transition. Lombard, however, was a natural for talkies.
While many screen stars who had been popular could no longer survive for various reasons, plenty of others were finally given an opportunity and ran with it. With her smooth voice and easygoing manner coupled with an innate sense of comic timing, Carole Lombard easily adjusted to the new style of acting required by talkies. She starred in both heavy dramas and light comedies becoming more popular with each appearance. In one of those appearances, she co-starred opposite actor William Powell in a film entitled MAN OF THE WORLD.

The film itself was a minor melodrama but Powell--a silent movie heavy whose sophisticated style would make him a hero in early talkies--and Lombard (only half his age) hit it off and they were married. Although their marriage was short-lived, the two would remain close friends. In 1932, Lombard was cast opposite the rising King of Hollywood, Clark Gable. The only co-starring picture for the pair was NO MAN OF HER OWN but the two would become lovers four years later, finally marrying in 1939. By all reports Gable was absolutely entranced by her tomboyishness and sexual openness.

Lombard's co-stars during this period were some of the best in the business--Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, George Raft, Charles Laughton, Gary Cooper and Pat O'Brien among them. Then came the picture that really put her on the map and essentially created the new style "screwball comedy"--1934's TWENTIETH CENTURY.

The Great Profile, John Barrymore, not quite yet descended into a besotted parody of himself, chews every scene as well as ever a scene was chewed as a once-great Broadway producer/director trying to lure back his greatest star (Lombard) during the course of a coast-to-coast train ride on the Twentieth Century Limited. Carole matches him note for note as she defines the term "diva" in her efforts to avoid his increasingly complicated plans to woo, steal or in any other way get her back.

Sadly, it was back to melodrama for awhile after that. Soon enough, though, as the box office receipts and good reviews piled up, Lombard was doing another screwball comedy--this time opposite Fred MacMurray in 1935's HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE. In 1936 came one of her most memorable roles as a zany heiress (a popular type in late thirties comedies) opposite ex-husband William Powell in MY MAN GODFREY, now a bona fide comedic classic. Although their marriage hadn't worked, their chemistry onscreen was and remains a joy.

By the time Clark Gable's messy divorce allowed the pair to finally wed, Lombard held enough power in Hollywood to pick and choose her vehicles resulting in less films but more A list material such as NOTHING SACRED, MADE FOR EACH OTHER and, in 1941, Alfred Hitchcock's atypical comedy MR. AND MRS. SMITH. Then she chose what would be her final film, TO BE OR NOT TO BE.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE was conceived by director Ernst Lubitsch as a scathing satire of the Nazis then overrunning his native Europe. Considered a director of great wit and sophistication and master of the so-called "Lubitsch Touch," his choice of subject matter was somewhat controversial, especially as the United States had not yet entered World War II. The attack on Pearl Harbor would occur during the latter days of the picture's production.

The great director had envisioned Jack Benny in the lead role all along. Benny, the great radio comedian, had performed sporadically in films throughout his career but most were inconsequential comedies in which he played himself or a variation of his stingy radio persona. Here, he would at last be given the chance to prove he was an actor. He would praise Lubitsch for actually directing him, also, saying that in the past directors had just pointed him and told him to be funny.

Benny's co-star was set to be actress Miriam Hopkins, a rather stern looking woman whose screen career was on a downswing. When Benny and Hopkins did not hit it off, she was let go and retreated largely to the stage and later television. She was replaced by Carole Lombard.
The story of TO BE OR NOT TO BE harkens back to Lubitsch's own beginnings, dealing as it does with a small acting troupe in Poland lead by one Joseph Tura. Tura (Benny) is an egotistical performer known for his outstanding portrayals of HAMLET with the repertory company. His sexy wife, Maria (Lombard) is also in the company and unbeknownst to her husband is carrying on a flirtation (at least) with a young flyer. Every time Tura is on stage beginning his classic soliloquy, the flyer (Robert Stack) stands up from his second row seat and exits backstage for a quick assignation in Maria's dressing room.

As the Nazis take over, the hapless troupe becomes embroiled in a plot that calls on them to utilize all of their acting skills to stop a German spy with the help of Mrs. Tura's lover. In spite of the dark subject matter, Lubitsch keeps a light hand (as opposed to Chaplin's heavier one in THE GREAT DICTATOR) and there are genuine laughs aplenty even as the Nazis are shown up as the evil but foolish megalomaniacs they tended to be. It all leads up to a classic ending in which Tura, once again peforming his beloved HAMLET sees his rival-turned-friend stay seated in the second row...while another young man in the third row rises and exits to...?

The chemistry between Benny and the effervescent Lombard both onscreen and off was perfect. As with many others in Hollywood, the ever-outrageous Lombard became a favorite of Jack's and the two developed a quick and close friendship. Both actors are said to have felt that TO BE OR NOT TO BE was their best vehicle ever.

Carole was set for another comedy entitled THEY ALL KISSED THE BRIDE but as the United States entered World War II, husband Gable was enlisted as the chairman of the Hollywood Victory Committee. As such, he sent Lombard off to her native Indiana to host a bond rally. By all accounts an inspiring success with more than two million dollars in bonds sold, Carole afterwards telegraphed her husband that he had "better join this man's army." She then boarded a plane with her mother and a number of other people to fly back to California. On January 16, 1942, the plane carrying them crashed into a mountainside near Las Vegas killing all on board.

All America was grief-stricken. Her TO BE OR NOT TO BE co-star Jack Benny could not go on that week and had to cancel his radio performance. Lombard was to have been his guest star. When word began to trickle in, Gable rushed to the scene of the crash with friend Spencer Tracy. Gable felt a great sense of guilt in having sent her on the trip that led to her death and, as often happens, drank to excess for some years afterwards. Professional that he was, he finished the film he was making (SOMEWHERE I'LL FIND YOU, ironically directed by the same director who had helmed Gable and Lombard in NO MAN OF HER OWN) and then, in response to her final message, enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Over the next couple of years he reportedly flew suicide missions on a regular basis. Hitler himself is said to have placed a huge bounty on the actor's head as his capture would be a maor propaganda victory.

Gable's former co-star Joan Crawford took over Lombard's role in THEY ALL KISSED THE BRIDE and donated all of her salary to the war effort. Ex-husband Powell would later team with his new wfe Diana Lewis to do the then expected radio adaptation of TO BE OR NOT TO BE in tribute.

When TO BE OR NOT TO BE opened in theaters later that year, it was NOT a hit in spite of the curiosity factor due to the tragedy. There were complaints that it was too serious to be funny or to funny to be taken seriously. Other factions felt strongly that the Nazis were not a subject suitable for mirth in any way. They said it was truly tasteless. Jack Benny's own father was said to have been initiallydisgusted by his son's character appearing in a Nazi uniform in the picture. Even though it was billed as "the picture everyone wants to see"...not enough saw it or liked it. Lubitsch in particular suffered as he had produced the film under the banner of his own company. He was said to have lost his vaunted "touch" and his career did not really recover. After a massive heart attack the following year, he made only four more films before his death in 1948. For Benny's part, it was business as usual as America's top radio comedian for another 15 years or so before moving into television but his intermittent film career would yield only a couple more pictures before concluding with the infamous (but not really that bad) THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT.

As new stars rose during and after the war, Carole Lombard's star faded. It was revived in the 1970's with the book and subsequent film GABLE AND LOMBARD. The biopic, with James Brolin and Jill Clayburgh in the title roles, may not have been all that good but it did present the name of Lombard to many younger fans who had never before been aware of her. Thus, as her movies turned up on television or in revival houses during the latter part of the sevnties nostalgia boom, Carole's star began to ascend again. This time, the crowning jewel in her cinematic crown was said to be TO BE OR NOT TO BE! It became so popular that it was even remade, this time starring the husband and wife team of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. Now considered a definite classic and historically important document of the changing attitudes toward the Nazis, the original 1942 TO BE OR NOT TO BE was added to the prestigious National Film Registry in 1996. Carole Lombard would have been proud.

John Wayne-The Shootist

I doubt that many film historians would argue with the statement that John Wayne is the most mythologized actor in Hollywood history. In a career that peaked more than forty years after it began, "Duke" Wayne quite literally grew to be larger than life. Offscreen he was said to be an epic drinker, a brawler, a homophobic right wing nut, a true patriot, a draft dodger, prejudiced against Mexicans and Native Americans, a good father, a bad husband, a loyal to the end friend and an enemy you did NOT want to have. As with all legends, there was probably at least a little truth in most of those statements.

On the big screen, however, he was typecast as the ultimate hero of his day. He saved the stage, caught the rustlers, saved the fort, rescued the girl, safely landed the plane, won World War II, routed the commies and practically won Vietnam as well! In the early days, he even found time to lipsynch a few songs as "Singin' Sandy."

He grew up with the name of Marion Morrison but preferred the nickname "Duke" given to him by family as the young Marion was never away from his dog of that name. It was as Duke Morrison that he entered films in the late 1920's in backstage jobs and bit parts. For 1930's western THE BIG TRAIL, director Raoul Walsh offered him a bigger role and gave him the stage name, John Wayne. Years of B Westerns followed, churned out quickly and offering John Wayne as a charismatic alternative to fading cowboys such as Buck Jones and Hoot Gibson and a standout amongst the younger crowd that included the likes of Gene Autry and Bob Livingston.

In 1939, he appeared as the Ringo Kid in John Ford's A western STAGECOACH. It was an iconic, star-making performance if ever there was one. From there it seemed like it was all gold for John Wayne. For his mentor Ford alone, he made more than a dozen more appearances, all now considered classics--FORT APACHE, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE, etc.

In the 1940's he become equally as well known for his heroic war films such as THE FLYING TIGERS, THE FIGHTING SEABEES and BACK TO BATAAN. The joke became that John Wayne single-handedly won World War II but in reality, he did not go to war like many other Hollywood heroes did. Wayne received a family deferment in the beginning and later additional deferments (possibly encouraged by his studio, Republic Pictures) for work. It became a controversial issue that dogged the star throughout his life.

Nevertheless, the hits just kept on coming and by the late 1950's and even into the tumultuous '60's, John Wayne was consistently topping the box office polls and charts. At one point, he even became one of the relatively few real-life celebrities to star in his own comic book. More than ever going into the decade of hippies and civil unrest, John Wayne's onscreen and offscreen characters seemed to merge. He even beat cancer in the mid-sixties!

Duke was married three times--all to Latin women--and over time all of his sons followed him into the business in one capacity or another. He established his own production company and started making his own vehicles, all of which helped perpetuate the "John Wayne" character.

In 1969, he played Marshal Rooster Cogburn in TRUE GRIT. Except for the eyepatch, the character wasn't really all that different from the stock John Wayne character but the film offered more of a chance for characterization than normal and Wayne rose to the occasion, taking home the coveted Best Actor Oscar for his efforts. He would return to the character a few years later. Immediately after TRUE GRIT, however, it was back to business as usual with a number of inconsequential but very popular westerns and even a couple of modern day cop thrillers with unintentional camp elements. Then, for the first time in more than than four decades came a year without a John Wayne movie. Finally, a year later, was THE SHOOTIST.

With its elegant Richard Amsel poster, its A-list director and its hand-picked supporting cast, its obvious from the beginning that 1976's THE SHOOTIST is not a typical John Wayne vehicle. If the viewer is looking for a rip-roaring traditional western, he should look somewhere else. If you want to see an expertly filmed, multi-tiered story of the passing of time and tradition with surprising performances by nearly all involved, this is it.

John Bernard Books is the last shootist--a fancy name for gunfighter--and it's 1901. The century has turned, Queen Victoria has died, the horse and buggy days are ending and Books finds himself a living anachronism. He's also dying of cancer and makes a conscious choice to settle in a town and die quietly. Unfortunately, his reputation precludes that. Even as the once proud man finds himself having to ask for help there are still those who want to make their reputation by killing him. A lifetime of violence has made him philosophical about life and death but he still has to deal with his own infamy. In the end, he realizes that he has to take control of his own destiny in his own way. Even then, though, he has to deal with its effects on others.

THE SHOOTIST offers the single best acting performance by Wayne. As charismatic as ever (and sporting an uncharacteristic mustache and a small goatee), he is at turns forceful, tender and surprisingly subtle at times as he negotiates his character's final days. Perhaps because it paralleled his own real-life fears, Wayne seems more invested in this role than any that came before it. John B. Books, like Wayne, won every fight he was ever in but now he was in one he knew he simply couldn't win.

Duke is aided tremendously by director Don Siegel and some lovely cinematography. Known for his action films like DIRTY HARRY, Siegel here paces everything just right as we watch Books trying desperately to maintain his sense of dignity in the face of mounting odds from all sides.
Arguably the best supporting cast ever found in a John Wayne picture, nearly every single role is filled with a familiar face in fine form. Lauren Bacall gives a nurturing performance as the boarding house owner who slowly warms to the humanity of the ailing shootist. She easily channels both her own natural strengths as well as the sensibilities of a widow and mother in her character's position.

Future director Ron Howard (post AMERICAN GRAFFITI but pre-HAPPY DAYS) is all gangly and gawky as Bacall's son Gillum who idolizes Books and in the end gets his chance to be the top dog gunfighter and literally throws it away, much to the satisfaction of the dying legend.

Handsome Hugh O'Brian (TV's WYATT EARP), scraggly Richard Boone (TV's Paladin) and character actor Bill McKinney (of DELIVERANCE infamy) are the trio Books selects as his possible assassins. Harry Morgan (M.A.S.H.) is the long-winded modern Marshal of the town, John Carradine the undertaker. There's also the ever-delightful Scatman Crothers who has a marvelous scene haggling with Books over the cost of buying his horse. Jimmy Stewart has the small but pivotal role of the doctor who confirms to Books that he's dying of cancer. Other familiar faces include Sheree North, Rick Lenz (from TV's HEC RAMSEY with Richard Boone) and ancient character actor Dick Winslow. Even a throwaway part of a cute girl on a streetcar near the end is the then unknown Melody Thomas (Scott) who went on to many years on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS.

Opening with scenes from earlier John Wayne films used as flashbacks to John Books' life and ending with the character's violent death, THE SHOOTIST comes across like nothing less than the culmination of the actor's long career--an elegiac tribute to John Wayne--which is exactly what it turned out to be. It was also not really a hit. In some fairly large markets, it didn't even open in major theaters. Nonetheless, the following year, John Wayne was given the People's Choice Award for favorite actor.

Wayne reportedly planned all along to retire after THE SHOOTIST although there were a number of published reports at the time that he was considering another project. Any additional film or films would inevitably have been anticlimactic. In fact, the only other project that materialized was a series of bank commercials for television for which he was widely criticized. It was said that they were "beneath him."

Over the next few years, John Wayne was given tribute in many places and in many ways, from roasts to medals to statues. He appeared on various television shows as himself until his own cancer inevitably resurfaced and his health fell into decline. At his death in mid-1979, he was eulogized as John Wayne, American and the tributes kept flowing. John Wayne had already had his most elegant tribute, however--THE SHOOTIST.

Lou Costello-The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock

America loved Lou Costello. The New Jersey-born comic had tried and failed to make it in movies in the late 1920's only to return and rule the top of the Hollywood box office as part of the comedy team of Abbott and Costello fifteen years later. A natural athlete, Costello had turned to Burlesque after only a handful of film roles. There he did a clean-as-a-whistle comedy act making him quite the novelty. Straight men were also a staple of burlesque comedy the same way stooges were in Vaudeville. When comic Lou met straight man Bud Abbott, he knew he had met the best straight man of them all and decided not to let him get away. Abbott and Costello became a winning team. Their fame soon carried them to radio where popular appearances with songstress Kate Smith would net them their own long-running series soon enough.

Utilizing familiar to them wordplay routines and variations thereof, the duo clicked with the American public. Costello developed a brash, loud, naive comic persona with more than a little of Curly Howard thrown into the mix. Catch phrases like, "HEEEEEEEY, ABBOTT!" and "I'm a baaaaaaaad boy!" abounded. For his part, Abbott seemed content to perfect the straight man role. Gruff and grouchy onscreen he was the ostensible leader of the team but in real life very much his partner's sidekick.

Hollywood reached out to the team tentatively at first, offering only roles as supporting comics in the lackluster ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS. They handily stole the show with their recycled burlesque patter routines including the now-classic "Who's On First?". Over the next 16 years, in spite of Lou's temper, Lou's ego and a series of personal setbacks and tragedies (including the death of his infant son), Lou Costello and Bud Abbott appeared in no less than 36 starring vehicles. During the war years, they were favorites with soldiers overseas and their films often were among the biggest monymakers of any given year.

The team's popularity faded in the post-war era and the Bud and Lou pictures settled into formulaic "Abbott and Costello Meet..." properties after the major comeback success of 1949's ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. By the early fifties, though, the duo moved into the new medium of television with regular stints hosting the COLGATE COMEDY HOUR and a syndicated series of their own. During all this they continued to pump out film comedies on a regular basis.

Always a volatile mix, the easygoing Abbott (so different from his on-screen persona) was often lost in Lou's quest for public adoration. The two went their seperate ways in 1957 after a particularly lackluster vehicle incongruously titled after the semi-dirty rock and roll song, DANCE WITH ME HENRY. Although Abbott espoused nothing but love and admiration for his partner on a live episode of THIS IS YOUR LIFE honoring Lou just after the shooting on the film had been completed, the long-brewing tensions (as well as long-brewing financial issues) between the two men drove them apart. Abbott never made another film. Costello made only one.

Lou appeared as almost a semi-regular on Steve Allen's television show for awhile and then began taking straight character parts in episodes of TV series such as WAGON TRAIN. After that, he began shooting on his first and unexpectedly his only starring solo film, THE 30 FOOT BRIDE OF CANDY ROCK.

THE 30 FOOT BRIDE OF CANDY ROCK is the story of a nebbishly small town inventor and how his young bride is accidentally turned into a giantess. It's supposed to be a comedy. The first thing one notices is that after more than a decade of presenting a familiar character to his audiences, Lou Costello is herein playing someone different. Yes, his character is the town rubbish collector but he's also a good-hearted genius who has invented a sort of talking magical computer box.

Dorothy Provine loves him in spite of her father's wishes. Provine is absolutely stunning here in an early role but it's hard not to realize constantly that she's 31 years younger than Lou! He and Abbott had already teamed up by the time she was born! The fact that Costello actually looks and seems older than his 52 years doesn't help at all.

Throughout the film, Lou gives a restrained, muted performance and since line-reading was never his strong suit, he comes across as very stilted in heavy dialogue scenes...and there are more than a few. There's little of the manic, comic energy that made America love Lou for all those years. It's as if in trying to broaden his image, no one--including him--bothered to take into account his comic strengths or acting weaknesses.

The plot is fairly one-note. Dorothy's big and doesn't like it so Lou determines to change her back. The whole thing had been done more seriously earlier in ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (and some of the more interesting plot ramifications would have to wait several decades until ATTACK OF THE 60 FOOT CENTERFOLD). One surprisingly risque (for 1959) gag has the inventor attempting to explain his girl's plight to her father (a blustery as ever Gale Gordon) only to have him mistake the news that his daughter is "big" to mean she's pregnant! After that he insists the two get married! There are a series of unfunny time travel gags and the expected encounters with the armed forces all leading to the inevitable happy ending.

Along with veteran radio and TV character actor Gordon, Lou and Dorothy are backed up by a good cast including a surprisingly uncredited Peter Leeds (longtime straight man to Bob Hope, Stan Freberg and Johnny Carson), old-timer Jimmy Conlin, the nearly ubiquitous Charles Lane and even Spike Jones comic vocalist Doodles Weaver. None of them does much with the throwaway script.

THE 30 FOOT BRIDE OF CANDY ROCK finished shooting in late 1958. Lou Costello died of a heart attack in March of 1959, three days shy of his 53rd birthday and five months before the release of his final film. Had he lived, it would have been interesting to see where his career would have gone. Although an amiable presence, his acting left much to be desired in this picture and his familiar comic timing was sorely missed. On the other hand, his more serious turn on WAGON TRAIN hints that had he been able to put his need to be the star aside he might well have been able to move on to a long career as a character actor.

There is a statue to Lou in his hometown of Paterson, New Jersey, welcoming visitors to a lovely park also named for him. The legacy of Abbott and Costello grew with time and the two are now rightly considered amongst the comedy immortals. Their classic "Who's On First?" routine is in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. There have been books, cartoon series, biopics and a successful release of all of their old movies on DVD. The legacy of the team is intact. Whole new generations of Americans love Lou Costello. THE 30 FOOT BRIDE OF CANDY ROCK has thankfully lived on as little more than a trivia question.

Grace Kelly-High Society

It's hard to think about Grace Kelly the movie star. That image is supplanted in one's brain by the more lasting image of Her Serene Higness, Princess Grace of Monaco, a role she essayed for 25 years--far longer than her 6 year film career. Still, fully half of her dozen theatrical releases from the early 1950's can be legitimately referred to as classics and in most of those cases due in no small respect to her appearance in them. She was an Academy Award winning actress and quite possibly the most naturally beautiful woman ever to appear on the big screen.

Grace Kelly's Philadelphia family had progressed into high society by the time she came along in 1929 and most members were not thrilled with her later choice of a theatrical career. One of her early stage appearances was, in fact, in a version of the popular play THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. The PHILADELPHIA STORY, in one way or another, would figure throughout the rest of her life.

In 1940, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY was a movie that actress Katherine Hepburn had fought to have made as a starring vehicle for herself. The resulting Oscar winner was a delightful, sophisticated screwball comedy that more than holds up even today. Hepburn plays Tracy Lord, a somewhat cold, divorced society woman about to be remarried when her ex unexpectedly shows up with a reporter and a photographer to sell tabloid coverage of the big event. While still harboring obvious feelings for the ex-husband (played charmingly by Cary Grant), Tracy finds herself surprisingly drawn to the easy-going reporter (played by Jimmy Stewart). Hilarity, as they say, ensues.

Grace was just eleven years old when THE PHILADELPHIA STORY came out. A decade later, after quite a bit of television, she began her own film career reluctantly, not wanting to abandon her beloved live performances. Her second film would be Fred Zinneman's prestigious, award-winning, iconic western HIGH NOON with Gary Cooper. According to some sources, she fell right into the anything goes Hollywood lifestyle, having affairs with both Zinneman and Cooper during the shooting.

Ava Gardner, married to Frank Sinatra during this period, co-starred with Kelly and the aging Clark Gable in MOGAMBO a year later. Gardner had a wild woman reputation and by all accounts did her best to drag Grace into it whilst filming on location in Africa...apparently with some success. Upon returning to Hollywood, however, Kelly met another who would mold her into a real movie star.

Much has been written about the psychological aspects and implications of director Alfred Hitchcock's relationship with Grace Kelly and in most versions, Kelly herself comes off as fairly oblivious to them. Whatever the truth, the relationship worked to make her into a true movie star starting with DIAL M FOR MURDER in which she's a woman attempting to fight off an attacker hired by her own husband and leading directly into REAR WINDOW where she plays sidekick to PHILADELPHIA STORY's wheelchair-bound James Stewart (who would become her lifelong friend and deliver the eulogy at her funeral).

Kelly then fought for the title role in THE COUNTRY GIRL, a downbeat, black and white film co-starring aging crooner Bing Crosby (note the trend to cast Kelly opposite older male co-stars) as a has-been alcoholic entertainer. It won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. By some accounts, Crosby had already been sleeping with her--along with actresses Inger Stevens and Katherine Grant--in the wake of his wife's 1952 death. In 1957, Grant would be the one he would ultimately marry.

A year later, teamed by Hitchcock with yet another aging actor, PHILADELPHIA STORY's Cary Grant, Grace Kelly made what would be another pivotal film in her brief career--TO CATCH A THIEF. Grant was cajoled out of an attempted retirement to play opposite the much younger Grace in what many often cite as some of the sexiest flirting scenes in film history. Like his former co-star, Stewart, Grant also would become a lifelong friend and would later appear with Princess Grace in what may have been both his and her final television appearance. TO CATCH A THIEF would also lead indirectly to her meeting Prince Rainier of Monaco.

In another bit of foreshadowing, Grace next appeared in THE SWAN, being courted by an older Prince (played by Alec Guinness). In her by then rather public private life she was being courted by, and eventually became engaged to, Prince Rainier. Soon enough she would become a real-life princess. But first...there was one more movie.

Grace Kelly eschewed high society for an acting life that eventually brought her to, of all places, HIGH SOCIETY. Made in 1956, this musical version of THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, the play and film that had already affected her life in so many ways, was a crowd-pleaser of the highest order. With its basic story intact, the addition of Technicolor, songs by the great Cole Porter and a rare instance of perfect casting and perfect timing, HIGH SOCIETY glows as both a musical and a comedy.

Frank Sinatra, still riding high from his 1953 comeback in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, forms a winning combination with both Kelly and his old musical rival, Bing Crosby. In one of his trademark affable performances, Der Bingle, once again more than 25 years Kelly's senior, brings their off-screen chemistry to the fore and works well as her character's true love.
In fact, the Oscar-nominated song on which Crosby and Kelly duet, True Love, is a highlight of the film and became a lasting favorite with the crooner, being trotted out again and again over the years in concerts. On a live album version toward the end of his life, daughter Mary Frances comes out onstage to sing the female part and Crosby adlibs, "Hello Grace."

In spite of that star power, as in the original, this is the story of Tracy Lord (inspiration for the name of later adult star Traci Lords) and her journey from ice goddess to warm, loving woman on a mildly manic wedding day. Although certainly no Katherine Hepburn, Kelly makes the part her own by playing upon her own background and perceived film personality as a rather cold performer. The contemporary publicity regarding her engagement to the Prince (her engagement ring in the film is reportedly her real one from Rainier) no doubt brought an extra level of interest to the picture. Her storybook wedding the following year put an end to her beloved acting career.

HIGH SOCIETY is also the final completed film of veteran character actor Louis Calhern who plays Uncle Willie. Calhern had made his movie debut in 1921. Although he had begun another film afterwards, he died during production and had to be replaced.

Bing Crosby continued his long and successful show business career for another two decades before dropping dead on a Spanish golf course after winning a round of golf. Sinatra would soon transform into his "Chairman of the Board" persona becoming a more powerful and influential person than ever but a more controversial one, too.

Grace Kelly became Princess Grace, a beloved figure to residents of Monaco and the world. It wasn't really a storybook life but then is there such a thing? From the beginning, the Prince banned all of her films from being shown in Monaco, apparently preferring his people not to think of her as an actress. In 1962, Alfred Hitchcock was said to have successfully lured Grace back into the fold to appear in MARNIE, in the role eventually filled by Tippi Hedren. Most sources indicate that she let the will of her people prevail and bowed out.

As herself, she introduced and/or narrated a number of arts or charity related films and televison shows in the ensuing years including the 1966 all-star anti-drug movie, POPPIES ARE ALSO FLOWERS and 1977's THE CHILDREN OF THEATRE STREET. The director of the latter, Robert Dornhelm, was working on a little-known and uncompleted project called REARRANGED with the Princess at the time of her death in 1982. Some sources indicate that it was to have been a return to acting but probably not.

In less than a decade as a movie star, the beautiful, willful, sophisticated and funny Grace Kelly climbed ever upward with few missteps and left Hollywood on a very high and popular note. The woman who had wanted little to do with high society ironically reached the pinnacle of her chosen career in HIGH SOCIETY. As her life changed so dramatically after that, Grace Kelly--as Princess Grace--would become the very definition of high society.

Ronald Colman-The Story of Mankind

By request for Terri Riegler

Another British actor with a long and varied Hollywood career was Ronald Colman. Although known for his mellifluous voice, Colman actually started out early in silent films, becoming nearly stereotyped as a great lover in the Valentino mold (often teame dwith actress Vilma Banky) before mixing in adventure with such classics as the original BEAU GESTE. In the early days of sound, his voice helped him easily make the transition that other stars were unable to make. In 1929, Colman appeared in the first of two performances as "Bulldog" Drummond, one of those dashing, roguish but sophisticated mystery-solving gentlemen who dotted the B pictures throughout the thirties and forties and later (along with their female counterparts) ruled the TV airwaves. It got him an early Academy Award nomination. Soon enough, though, he had risen to even bigger and better things. As Hollywood began to produce more and more classic, literary-based fare throughout the next decade, Colman was there. He starred in RAFFLES, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, IF I WERE KING and the still-unsurpassed romantic adventure that is LOST HORIZON.

Perhaps feeling Ronald Colman, born in 1891, was getting a bit old in a field that even then doted on the ludicrous "flavor of the month" concept, his output lessened in the early 1940's but he was not ready to be relegated to has-been status by any means. 1942's RANDOM HARVEST brought a second Best Actor nomination and in 1948 he actually won the Oscar for A DOUBLE LIFE.

By that point, Colman had taken a perhaps unusual career turn by becoming a semi-regular on radio's long-running JACK BENNY SHOW...playing and parodying himself as Jack's veddy British neighbor! His wife, Benita, appeared also and their enjoyable, good-natured mocking of cliches and conventions associated with British Hollywood brought them their own successful series on both radio and television, THE HALLS OF IVY.

With his cultured and widely imitated voice, the actor was a natural for radio and began to take less and less film roles. One that he did take, in 1950, was CHAMPAGNE FOR CAESAR, an absolutely delightful spoof of television, advertising and intellectuallism co-starring Vincent Price before he got typecast in horror roles.

Around that same time, a young man named Irwin Allen, a former publicist, was wetting his feet as a film producer by making a couple of lackluster solo comedy features with his friend Groucho Marx. In 1953, however, his fortunes changed when an Allen-produced documentary, THE SEA AROUND US, went on to win the Best Documentary Oscar. Over the next few years, Allen looked for and found a number of unique properties to produce. One of these was THE STORY OF MANKIND.

THE STORY OF MANKIND was a classic 1921 children's book--the first to win the coveted Newbery Award--written by the marvelously named Henrik Willem van Loon. The book, now public domain and available in its entirety online at various places, is a thick collection of historic episodes that influenced the world as it came to be.

For the movie, it was decided that a framing device would be needed. Allen, in spite of huge television success in the 1960's with LOST IN SPACE, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA and other science-fiction series would return in the 1970's to all-star big screen disasters. It all started however, with THE STORY OF MANKIND...a disaster of the other kind.

Touting "the biggest star cast ever on one screen," the ads for the film fail to mention that few of them even appear in the same scenes together due to the very episodic nature of the picture. Technically, for instance, this is also the final film for the Marx Brothers...but only because Groucho (Allen's old friend you'll recall and possibly influential in getting other stars to join up by his presence), Chico and Harpo all appear seperately in brief vignettes.

The framing sequence that was decided on featured an interstellar courtroom setting in which a tribunal was formed in heaven in order to determine if mankind had gone too far by discovering the so-called "super H-Bomb." Vincent Price, by now associate dwith more sinister roles than not, appears as the devilish Mr. Scratch to argue for the eradication of all mankind. For the defense, we are offered "the Spirit of Man" as embodied by a most earnest (you knew we'd get back to him eventually, didn't you?) Ronald Colman.

Dressed initially like some noir film detective, Colman chews the scenery throughout as he debates Price's devil figure as to what the ultimate fate of the human race should be. As earlier in CHAMPAGNE FOR CAESAR, the interplay between Price and Colman is fun but the rest of the film becomes an interminable he said/he said history lesson with lots of stock footage (an Allen trademark) and such bizarre casting as Peter Lorre as Nero, a young Dennis Hopper as Napolean Bonaparte and a not-so-young Hedy Lamarr as Joan D'Arc.

If you were wondering, Colman's character prevails and we're allowed to survive as a species but we're put on alert--much like in the earlier THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL--that the powers that be will be keeping an eye on us.

If it all sounds kind of comic-booky, there was, in fact, a comic book adaptation from Dell Comics! The adaptation, however, in spite of presenting Price and Colman prominently on its cover, reportedly eliminates completely their appearances and the framing sequence itself.

A spectacular failure, it became, as previously stated, Irwin Allen's first disaster movie and probably drove him into what would become his very successful television career. Vincent Price continued a slow career ascension that took him from the depths of the blacklist days to the status of film legend in spite of a number of bizarre blips such as this in his resume. Following this picture, Ronald Colman, already a film legend, was according to at least one report, cast in THE VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED but he died the following year without being able to do the picture. The role he was reported to have had was filled by another aging but dapper actor, George Sanders...who also married Colman's widow Benita.

In the years since, THE STORY OF MANKIND has become a trivia question while real Colman films such as LOST HORIZON have endured in revivals and restorations. That incredible voice has inspired numerous parodies and cartoon voices and comic book artist Steve Ditko even based his character DOCTOR STRANGE on Colman's visual look during the strips peak period (Initially it had been seemingly based on Price!). Later on, post-Ditko, as the character was finally given an origin story, it was based in part on LOST HORIZON. Many Ronald Colman movies continue to turn up on television...but for some reason, THE STORY OF MANKIND hardly ever shows up at all.

Basil Rathbone-Autopsia de un Fantasma

Philip St. John Basil Rathbone, in spite of his South African birth, was one of the quintessential British actors of Hollywood's Golden Age. He was probably also the best swordsman in Tinseltown which makes it all the more ironic that his dark features cast him primarily on the losing ends of swordfights in his films. He lost to Errol Flynn in CAPTAIN BLOOD and THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, Tyrone Power in THE MARK OF ZORRO and even Danny Kaye in THE COURT JESTER. Beginning with 1939's THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, however, Basil Rathbone became the big screen's definitive embodiment of master consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes.
Rathbone essayed the role in period pieces as well as contemporary, anti-Nazi films. He went on to play Holmes on radio, on record and on stage but reportedly was never truly happy with his association with the character.
As one of the truly memorable character leads, the actor also appeared in the title role as THE SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, as the future Richard III in TOWER OF LONDON, Tybalt in ROMEO AND JUKIET and even dapper modern day detective Philo Vance in THE BISHOP MURDER CASE. By the mid 1950's, he was still getting the occasional lead in lower budget films such as 1956's THE BLACK SLEEP (featuring Bela Lugosi's last real performance) but was mostly appearing quite successfully as a character actor on the new medium of television.
As the sixties dawned, the distinguished actor wrote his autobiography, IN AND OUT OF CHARACTER in which he steadfastly refused to say much about his movies or, in fact, much that was interesting at all. His film career picked up again but now he had been pigeonholed once more...this time as a horror actor. Horror films both serious and spoofy were all the rage at the time, though, and the aging Rathbone lent some relative class to such fare as TALES OF TERROR, THE COMEDY OF TERRORS, THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI and, heaven help us, HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE. Mixed and matched with such other survivors of the genre's earlier days as Lon Chaney, Jr, Vincent Price, Boris Karloff and John Carradine, Rathbone was still in demand at a time when his contemporaries had long since passed on or faded into obscurity.

Then he went to Mexico.

AUTOPSIA DE UN FANTASMA (AUTOPSY OF A GHOST) is a colorful, episodic Mexican horror spoof which apparently was never released in English. Also appearing are John Carradine and American actor Cameron Mitchell (whose erratic career features a number of projects like this). The plot, as near as I can make out after 4 long ago years of high school Spanish (and with some help from IMDB) presents Basil as the ghost of a Spanish nobleman to whom Satan (Carradine) offers the chance to live again but only if, through various guises and disguises, he can get a woman to love him. There's also a mad scientist (Mitchell), wacky robots, a couple of crazy women, a bikini-clad blonde, a cute kid in a Superman costume, stooge-like characters and famed (and annoying) Mexican child-like comic,Chabelo. Quite frankly, the skeleton sidekick has some of the best scenes.
Rathbone, as ever, attempts to maintain some dignity whilst looking vaguely Shakesperean at times. Carradine has some amusing moments as the ridiculously clad comic opera devil with a removable tail that seems to have a mind of its own. Add some surprisingly good cinematography, an unexpectedly Beatlesque opening theme and some manic comedy bits and it's just not as bad as it seems it should be. The absolute highlight of AUTOPSIA DE UN FANTASMA, however, is its use of puppets. Throughout the picture, the ghost trades dialogue with a life-size skeleton but even better is the fiery opening credits sequence, all done with puppets! Skeletons, devils, bats and white-sheeted ghosts (or is that a KKK member?)!
Rathbone returned to the US and later in 1967 dropped dead on the streets of NewYork City. AUTOPSIA DE UN FANTASMA was released posthumously in Mexico. It didn't matter, though. By that point, with TV showings endlessly, Basil Rathbone was left with the epitaph he had dreaded..."Sherlock Holmes has died." Rathbone even made one last posthumous cameo in a dubbed in voice from decades earlier. It was in Disney's 1986 animated featureTHE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE. He was the voice of...Sherlock Holmes.