One of my favorite Noir actors is featured on Turner Classic tomorrow. Robert Ryan will star in several Film Noir features but probably the best of the films being shown is “On Dangerous Ground” with Ida Lupino. Ryan was not a conventionally handsome actor and later played hardened characters in films like Bad Day at Black Rock, but in the late forties and early fifties, he starred in some of the great “Film Noir” classics.
Robert Ryan had this craggy face and deep voice with a dull and kind of plodding honesty in his delivery that never wavered. His was the type of character that was often seen as the second banana. He was one of the protagonist’s buddies who always backed him up in battles of the Old West or World War II.
Set your “Tivo’s” to record if you are a fan of ‘Noir films” because there are quite a few featured including “Clash by Night” with Marilyn Monroe, “The Racket” with Robert Mitchum and “Born to be Bad”, also directed by Nicholas Ray.
Tomorrow evening on Turner Classic they are going to feature one of the best pairings of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the Shakespearean comedy, “The Taming of the Shrew.” And later that night they are airing a very rarely seen but wonderful film with Burton and one of the greatest actors of all time, Peter O’Toole called “Becket.” Must-see for all serious film buffs!
Six Degrees of Film 