Climbing Acting's Ladder The Hardest Way

Career (1959) Deserves Blu-Ray Revival

Why isn't this Hal Wallis drama better known? I watched (Amazon Prime) and was captivated by its story of an aspiring actor (Tony Franciosa) who fails and fails, ones in his orbit including Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Carolyn Jones ... all excellent. Wallis by the late 50's was mired in Jerry Lewis and Elvis, but could still mount serious projects and do Paramount proud. Trouble for Career, as speculated then and since, was public unawareness, if not indifference, to struggle for stage fame, a milieu captured well here, but who'd care? Wallis might have shot in Gotham, chose instead not to, which was no help to verisimilitude, as many took it to streets by late 50's, especially postwar talent who'd begun in live TV and wanted to keep settings real. Wallis was traditional, studio taught, and so figured a backlot would work same as it had since yore days at WB. To this he was misguided, though I'm guessing pared budget had something to do with sticking close to home. Paramount was on fumes by the late 50's, stunning receipts from The Ten Commandments an ongoing mortgage lifter. Career, with only $1.4 million in domestic rentals, lagged behind DeMille oldie Samson and Delilah, brought back a same year to wowzer $2.1 million. What with that and Jerry Lewis returning $3.1 million with Don't Give Up The Ship for Wallis, you can forgive the producer for sticking mostly to fluff.

Acting role models by 50's Method takeover were presumably those who made success with the technique, but earlier on, where Career takes place (immediate postwar), lamp was still lit by glories of a John Barrymore, whose films still play at a cameo-size cinema that Dean and Tony attend for inspiration. Question then --- were Barrymore oldies really unspooling in Greenwich Village during the late 40's, and did aspiring actors go see them? There is a portrait of JB hung in Franciosa's single-room flat, while Carolyn Jones' agent office has theatrical posters of Edwin Booth and Joseph Jefferson. For scenes set later in the 50's (Career being something of a saga), Booth and Jefferson are replaced by The Desperate Hours and The Rose Tattoo, both hits on Broadway. Hollywood takes a beating, all yes people and natural habitat for back-stabber Dean. A walk across the Paramount lot naturally passes a man dressed in Indian costume (what, no elephant?), such visual cues an oldest cliché where action is set on Hollywood lots. Sword-sash and mustachioed "Eric Peters" is depicted as biggest star at the lot, him no actor and not even much of a personality --- a Career slam on Errol Flynn?

Wallis always cast well, courageously at times, had built a stock company from arrival at Para where he set up shop as an independent. He and Career writers understood ordeal of players desperate to play, their willingness to try and be knocked back for what amounts in most instances to a lifetime. We forget what a tiny percentage of actors make the grade, success being unknown to 99% of ones who take the bloody field. Anthony Franciosa, then at beginning and ultra-Method phase, hit performing summit here, saw decline that some said resulted from bad on-set behavior, swung to 60's television where he'd be "Tony" in lighter series work. Franciosa captures aching need to go, and stay, on a working stage. Had Career been more of a success, he may have copped at least an AA nomination. Latter might have been accorded as well to Dean Martin as legit director gone Hollywood, his Communist past a sled to 50's blacklist, this angle fairly unique to Career. HUAC themes became common enough to 70's and later look-backs, but here was tackling the theme early, Martin's "Maury Novak" an opportunist who joined the Party during the 30's to get work, which made me wonder --- how many others took a same route? Dalton Trumbo was an uncredited writer on Career, so there is more than whiff of authenticity here.