A-List:
Great Losers in Film
By Josh Spiegel
February 25, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I won't go into my full opinion here (the short take is that the movie looks great, but the characters are absolute morons and, thus, hard to deal with), but what I did take away is that the movie features, as its protagonist, a complete loser. Larry Gopnik, as played by Michael Stuhlbarg, is a college professor in Minnesota, a married man with children, but is a spineless wuss. Losers in film are not rare, though they are rarely the leads of a movie, if only because they'd better win before the movie is over, or else audiences are baffled, to say the least. Despite the fact that I couldn't stand A Serious Man, solid filmmaking aside, I was struck by the idea of the loser as protagonist in film. So, this week's A-List looks back into the annals of film to look at some of the greatest losers ever to hit the silver screen.
Before I get into my list, I want to throw a bone to one iconic character who won't be showing up, for reasons that I'll get into once we delve into my choices: Fred C. Dobbs. Woe to the person who needs to be told what character I'm referring to, but for those whose memories need to be jogged, I'm talking about the lead character of the brilliant drama The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, played by Humphrey Bogart. Bogart is well-known for his craggy features and laconic style, best visualized in Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, but his role as the greedy, paranoid Dobbs is something he rarely played: a complete loser. Because he's Bogart, we may not put that word to his face, but it's clear as he scrambles for even the littlest bit of gold in Mexico. Dobbs is a great loser, and here are five more.
Richard Widmark in Night and the City
Jules Dassin is a director best known for his heist movies Topkapi and Rififi, the latter of which has been paid homage in many films, including the first Mission: Impossible. Before he went abroad, thanks to the scourge of the Red Scare fingering him as a Communist, Dassin worked in the States, crafting some of the darkest film noirs ever to hit the screen. One of the best was 1950's Night and the City, starring the weaselly Richard Widmark as Harry Fabian, a club hustler who desperately wants to "be somebody"; in this case, being somebody means controlling wrestling in the war-torn city of London, even if he's challenged by the menacing Mr. Kristo. Though it seems noble that a man would want to triumph over perceived evil, Harry Fabian is one of the truly unlikable film noir protagonists, a man who is focused on his personal gain, and only his.
Fabian has a dalliance with a good girl named Mary, who would be better off with her neighbor, but she's too easily charmed by Fabian's initial slyness. But he's also fooling around with the wife of the man who employs him and is first willing to get involved in promoting wrestling. Oh, and Fabian's decided to ensnare Kristo's father, an ex-wrestler, into his scheme, all to make sure he becomes the biggest, most feared man in all of London. And at all times, Fabian is born to fail. The dialogue often references his impending doom, which would be surprising if we weren't all imagining exactly how Fabian will end up six feet under. Though Night and the City isn't the most well-known film noir, there's no question that Harry Fabian is a perfect protagonist: hapless, hopeless, and done for.
Joseph Cotten in The Third Man
If there is a better, more atmospheric, darker film noir, I have not seen it. Yes, by the way, you've begun to sense a pattern. Though, as evidenced by Bogart, not all great film losers are in film noir, it's hard to avoid the fact that the best ones are, by and large, in this genre of film. As the lead of The Third Man, though not the title character, Joseph Cotten is one of the more hopeless, yet well-intentioned, losers. He plays Holly Martins, a pulp novelist from America who travels to Vienna when encouraged to do so by his dear friend, Harry Lime. Once he arrives, though, Holly finds out that Harry has died. What's more, as he decides to investigate the mysterious death of his friend, Holly becomes aware that Harry was not so nice a guy, hoarding precious medicine for the Viennese black market.
So, how is Holly such a loser? Well, as I mentioned, his heart is in the right place. Unfortunately, nobody he encounters in The Third Man is in the same place as him, nor do they want to go to said place. Holly wants to do the right thing, but no one, not even the officious policeman who tries to warn him away constantly, is excited to join him. As you probably know, however, Holly's investigation into Harry's death turns down one more surprise: Harry's not dead, having faked his death so he may continue his black-market trade. Though Holly turns Harry over, he does so at his own expense, having lost Harry's woman and his self-respect. What cost pride, then? Holly starts out a nobody, and ends up worse.
William Holden in Sunset Boulevard
Is there a more baffling protagonist in film noir than Joe Gillis, the lead of Sunset Boulevard? Here is a man who has a future, but throws it away, all for the hypnotic snare a strange and lost woman has on him. Joe is a washed-up screenwriter who ends up tying himself to ex-star Norma Desmond. Gillis, as played by the sardonic William Holden, is often hateful to Norma, professing to despise her and her quirky, off-putting ways. Norma, as I'm sure you know, tries as hard as she can to live in the past. In the past, she was famous. In the past, there was no one more famous, more powerful in Hollywood, than her. Now, she's old (though, in this film, old equals 50-years-old) and forgotten. She lives with a former lover and director, played by Erich von Stroheim, and uses younger men like Joe to remind herself of her fame.
So why doesn't Joe leave? He hates it so much, right? Well...maybe he doesn't. Though, as it was referenced in American Beauty's opening scene, Joe ends up facedown in a swimming pool, he has some unspeakable, unknown interest in Norma. Maybe it's living in some form of luxury, maybe it's the fact that he doesn't have to do anything when Norma is providing for him, but Joe is unable to extricate himself from this wholly one-of-a-kind situation. He could get out, meet a new girl, move in somewhere else, but Joe is too weak to do anything but snipe and snark all day long. We're meant to be sympathetic, or something close to it, when we first realize that Joe's not long for this world. But, though he is self-aware and self-deprecating, Joe Gillis is just another in the line of film noir's weak, weak protagonists, too lazy and selfish to do anything smart.
Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity
Billy Wilder, the same man who directed Sunset Boulevard in 1950, first broke into Hollywood stardom with his 1944 film noir Double Indemnity. Though he's best-known for his more crowd-pleasing films, such as The Fortune Cookie or even the darker The Apartment, Wilder's noir films are among the greatest. As the would-be shrewd and wise Walter Neff, Fred MacMurray is at his lowest, his slimiest and his worst. Neff falls hopelessly in love with Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), a femme fatale to end all femme fatales. She wants to murder her husband, take all of the money, and ends up getting Neff involved. Suffice to say, seeing that this is a film noir, the plan doesn't exactly go as it should, with Neff ending up telling his story to his boss via tape recorder as he lays dying.
Yes, Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity share one vital connection, with the framing device of the dying or dead narrator telling us how he got to that point. However, the main difference is that Neff, while being weak and spineless, doesn't really hate Phyllis. The screenplay, by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, is filled with double entendres and heated flirtations between Neff and Dietrichson. There's no vitriolic hate here, or not nearly as much of it. Of course, the strongest relationship here is between Neff and his boss, Barton Keyes, as played by Edward G. Robinson, who plays a good guy here, trying to be understanding even though his employee is a criminal. Theirs is the one that is most touching, even though Neff remains weak to the very end, self-involved as he draws his last breath.
Tom Neal in Detour
I know, I know. You're probably scratching your head right now, racking your brain as you try to figure out exactly what movie I'm talking about. I would not blame you if you weren't too familiar with Detour, a 1945 film noir directed by Edgar Ulmer. This movie, made on the poverty row of Hollywood, is one of the cheaper, well-known film noirs. Tom Neal, the lead, plays Al Roberts, a mopey, down-on-his-luck musician who wants to head to California to live with his girl. Along the way, he meets a chatty, friendly shyster who drives him part of the way. Too bad the shyster ends up dead, and Al has to clean up the mess. When Vera, a fellow hitchhiker, realizes that Al is driving a dead man's car, she decides to recruit him in blackmailing the dead man's family.
More than in any other movie here, Al is about as whiny and weak as they get. This is a noir of a man's own making. Al appears to be scott free early on, but once Vera comes into his life, he's unable, unwilling to do anything, until it's too late and he's easily caught. Neal is borderline obnoxious here, as someone who's just too easily convinced that he's stuck in the situation he's been forced into. At so many junctures, Al could get out of his problems, but he just won't leave. In general, Detour is a fascinating film noir, filmed quickly, incredibly short, yet incredibly evocative and indelible. Neal may not be the greatest actor, but for the role of Al Roberts, he is perfect in his wimpiness.