"Laughton had a stormy, complicated marriage to Elsa Lanchester that lasted from 1927 until his death in 1962. He was gay, and Laughton’s era was not, of course, hospitable to same-sex relationships, although the older he got, the more affairs he had, and the more frequently he would confide in people. (As he took a drive with Robert Mitchum during the filming of Night of the Hunter, Laughton confessed to his star that “there is a strong streak of homosexuality in me.” Mitchum’s priceless response: “No shit! Stop the car!”) Most good actors can suggest sexual undercurrents driving their characters, but Laughton treated desire, even in murderers like those in The Big Clock and Jamaica Inn, as an outgrowth of the mind, not merely a physical urge."
http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.de/2015/02/charles-laughton-actor-as-artist.html
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 9 February 2015 18:57 (nine years ago) link
Knew he was gay but never got the slightest hint from roles of any interest in sex. Food though...
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 February 2015 19:01 (nine years ago) link
I'm kind of astonished at the existence of that submarine movie in the FF series where Tallulah Bankhead has to choose between him, Cary Grant and Gary Cooper.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 9 February 2015 19:03 (nine years ago) link
he's much fun in Advise and Consent and Ruggles and I've no complaints about Captain Bligh.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 February 2015 19:04 (nine years ago) link
..and he's still my image of Javert.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 February 2015 19:05 (nine years ago) link
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.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 9 February 2015 19:05 (nine years ago) link
he was on Gore Vidal's checklist, it seems. :o
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 9 February 2015 19:08 (nine years ago) link
Tom May be crazy, Hobson's Choice is a great movie.
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 10 February 2015 20:51 (nine years ago) link
well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ5UIuAa0eM
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 14 February 2015 02:58 (nine years ago) link
And?
― Up the Junction Boulevard (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 14 February 2015 03:48 (nine years ago) link
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.
― circa1916, Saturday, 14 February 2015 06:19 (nine years ago) link
I own this
http://s1041.photobucket.com/user/spin13/media/VINYLTHREE/2014-02-21080329_zpsa699b584.jpg.html
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 14 February 2015 07:58 (nine years ago) link
this
http://www.discogs.com/Elsa-Lanchester-Songs-For-A-Smoke-Filled-Room/release/3650127
"Remarks" by Charles
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 14 February 2015 08:00 (nine years ago) link
apparently he directed a couple sequences of his Maigret movie
http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/blog/?p=1725
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 18:44 (nine years ago) link
^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.)
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 27 February 2015 02:38 (nine years ago) link
how's the YT print?
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 February 2015 02:46 (nine years ago) link
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
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Friday, 27 February 2015 09:38 (nine years ago) link
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.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 February 2015 12:04 (nine years ago) link
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.
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 May 2015 04:28 (eight years ago) link