Charlton Heston films on TCM: ‘Summer Under the Stars’ series continues with Ben-Hur, The Big Country
It’s Charlton Heston Day on Thursday, Aug. 28, on Turner Classic Movies.
Charlton Heston was a graduate cum laude of the Paul Muni School of Acting Juz Like Them Historical Figures. Muni (Louis Pasteur, Emile Zola, Benito Juarez, etc.), for his part, learned his schtick – memorize dialogue, apply make-up, ham it up – from George Arliss (Benjamin Disraeli, Voltaire, Alexander Hamilton, Cardinal Richelieu, etc.). It’s unclear who taught Arliss, but whoever it was should have had his teaching credentials incinerated.
Well, too late now…
Heston overplays Gen. Andrew Jackson in Anthony Quinn’s disastrous The Buccaneer (Claire Bloom deserved far better), Gen. Charles Gordon in Basil Dearden’s atrocious Khartoum (Laurence Olivier fares even worse as The Mahdi), and John the Baptist in George Stevens’ tedious The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Ben-Hur, The Big Country
It gets worse: Charlton Heston also overplays Judah Ben-Hur in the mammoth – as in big, heavy, dead – pseudo-historical Ben-Hur, arguably William Wyler’s weakest movie after he became an “A”-level filmmaker.
As usual, Academy members disagreed with me: Ben-Hur won a total of 11 Oscars, including best picture, best direction, best actor (ouch!), and best supporting actor (Hugh Griffith, chewing on the scenery, the camels, the desert sand, you name it). Ben-Hur also happens to be one of the most commercially successful films of all time. (I much prefer the 1925 version starring Ramon Novarro. It’s shorter, it’s prettier, it’s silent – you don’t have to listen to the neuron-murdering dialogue.)
The science-fiction drama Soylent Green has its fans – the film marked Edward G. Robinson’s last screen appearance – while Major Dundee also has its admirers, though it was originally butchered by Columbia.
The Big Country is another Wyler-Heston pairing; one that is infinitely superior to the more successful Ben-Hur. Perhaps that’s because Heston has what amounts to a supporting role; the real lead belongs to Gregory Peck (my idea of a male film star) and Jean Simmons (my idea of a female film star). Burl Ives won the best supporting actor Oscar for his tough rancher.
As for Irving Rapper’s drama Bad for Each Other, any movie featuring Lizabeth Scott is worth a look.
Charlton Heston films on TCM: ‘Summer Under the Stars’ schedule (EDT) – Aug. 28
6:00 AM Bad for Each Other (1954)
Director: Irving Rapper.
Cast: Charlton Heston, Lizabeth Scott, Dianne Foster, Arthur Franz, Ray Collins, Ann Robinson.
82m7:30 AM The Buccaneer (1958)
Director: Anthony Quinn.
Cast: Yul Brynner, Charlton Heston, Claire Bloom.
120m10:00 AM Khartoum (1966)
Director: Basil Dearden.
Cast: Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier, Richard Johnson, Ralph Richardson, Alexander Knox, Johnny Sekka, Nigel Green, Michael Hordern, Peter Arne, Hugh Williams, Zia Mohyeddin, Ralph Michael, Douglas Wilmer, Edward Underdown.
136m12:30 PM The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
Director: George Stevens.
Cast: Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Charlton Heston, Michael Anderson Jr., Carroll Baker, José Ferrer, Van Heflin, Angela Lansbury, Pat Boone, Janet Margolin, David McCallum, Roddy McDowall, Sal Mineo, Claude Rains, Sidney Poitier, Joseph Schildkraut, John Wayne, Shelley Winters.
199m4:00 PM Ben-Hur (1959)
Director: William Wyler.
Cast: Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O’Donnell, Sam Jaffee, Finlay Currie, Marina Berti.
222m8:00 PM The Big Country (1958)
Director: William Wyler.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Charlton Heston, Carroll Baker, Charles Bickford, Burl Ives.
167m11:00 PM Major Dundee (1965)
Director: Sam Peckinpah.
Cast: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, Senta Berger, James Coburn, Michael Anderson Jr., Mario Adorf, Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Jody McCrea.
136m1:30 AM Soylent Green (1973)
Director: Richard Fleischer.
Cast: Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Edward G. Robinson, Brock Peters, Paula Kelly, Stephen Young, Joseph Cotten, Mike Henry, Roy Jenson.
87m3:30 AM The Hawaiians (1970)
Director: Tom Gries.
Cast: Charlton Heston, Geraldine Chaplin, Tina Chen.
134m
“Charlton Heston Films on TCM” notes
TCM website.