MovieTome User Contributions - Reviews by alvineaster

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Sam Elliott began to attract attention in a trio of minor films: as Ryan O'Neal's drug-pushing pal in "The Games" (1970), as Ray Milland's ecologically-minded houseguest in "Frogs" (1972), and as Vera Miles' no-good seducer in "Molly and Lawless...
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Sam Elliott began to attract attention in a trio of minor films: as Ryan O'Neal's drug-pushing pal in "The Games" (1970), as Ray Milland's ecologically-minded houseguest in "Frogs" (1972), and as Vera Miles' no-good seducer in "Molly and Lawless John." It wasn't until 1976, however, when Elliott played the lead role in "Lifeguard" -- a modest but well-regarded film directed by Daniel Petrie -- that he emerged as an actor seemingly destined for stardom. A successful career definitely followed but full-fledged stardom somehow remained just out of reach. Just why was this?

Perhaps it might be due to the fact that Elliott had a face, voice, and manner uniquely suited to playing in westerns, but he came along at a time when the traditional Hollywood "oater" was riding into the sunset. (Had he been working during the Golden Age of TV Westerns, he might have made a fine "Flint McCullough" on "Wagon Train.") Perhaps his identification with TV mini-series and made-for-TV movies kept him from attaining "A" status in Hollywood. After all, he followed "Lifeguard" with TV roles in such projects as "Once an Eagle" (1976), "Aspen" (1977), "The Sacketts" (1979) "Wild Times" (1980), "Murder in Texas" (1981), "The Shadow Riders" (1982), "Travis McGee" (1983), etc. By the time this spate of TV had ended, Elliott had reached his 40s and no longer had that "star-of-tomorrow" quality.

Elliott did make one theatrical film during these crucial years -- 1978's "The Legacy" which co-starred his soon-to-be-wife, Katharine Ross. The movie was a second-rate hodgepodge of satanism and black magic taking place at an English country estate and it effectively stalled the career progress made by "Lifeguard." He didn't make another theatrical feature till 1985's "Mask."

Finally, another factor may have entered into Elliott's career. He was a good-looking man who looked even better with his shirt off and thus he played "beefcake" scenes in all of his early movies. (For these scenes he did not, as is often the case, shave his chest.) In "Lifeguard," in fact, he spent a good part of the film wearing nothing more than a pair of red Baywatch-style swim trunks. At one point Elliott even changed into a pair of Speedos trim enough and snug enough to prove, beyond a doubt, that he was "genitally-gifted."

And then came his nude scene in "The Legacy." For no real purpose in the plot, Elliott is shown walking naked into a shower. His back is to the camera but he's seen in full-figure and under bright lights long enough to qualify for the highest rating in the guide to film nudity called "The Bare Facts." Elliott certainly looked good in this scene, being at the peak of his physical powers, (prompting one reviewer to hail his "buns by Michelangelo"), but his willingess to flaunt his body on such a feeble excuse may have tainted him with the label -- "male bimbo." How seriously would A-directors regard an actor who seemed to be angling for a shot at a Playgirl centerfold?

Elliott's "beefcake" scenes eased (but did not cease) after the mid-1980s. By this point, however, his career seemed to stuck at the level of TV work and of playing lead roles in B-movies and character roles in A-movies. The stardom promised by "Lifeguard" never quite came into focus.

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Posted jul 27, 2005 3:36 pm pt

Dan Pastorini

Dan Pastorini tended to be a football quarterback from the Joe Namath mode with a reputation for fast cars, high living, pretty girls, cigars, and good eating. Unfortunately, when he played a supporting role in the 1979 movie, "Killer Fish," he...
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Dan Pastorini tended to be a football quarterback from the Joe Namath mode with a reputation for fast cars, high living, pretty girls, cigars, and good eating. Unfortunately, when he played a supporting role in the 1979 movie, "Killer Fish," he was cast as a glum, humorless "baddie" whose chief asset was his physique. (Pastorini played most of his big scene without a shirt.) Not much more than a year later, however, Pastorini found an outlet for his "rebel" streak by appearing in a nude photospread in the December 1980 issue of "Playgirl." This time, he took off more than just his shirt. Many of the photos -- taken inside a showerroom -- were rearview or profile shots which emphasized his bare buttocks but in some frontal shots he was seen nothing more than a sweaty jockstrap which, though it bulged conspicuously, did not seem to be artificially padded. While "Playgirl" readers got a discreet glimpse of the upper fringe of Pastorini's pubic hair, he did not actually reveal what are politely referred to as his "private parts." Perhaps because of his "rebel" image, this photospread did not harm Pastorini's reputation and may, in fact, have enhanced it. Compare this experience to that of Lou Zivkovich, formerly a player for the Calgary football team, who posed for the July 1974 centerfold in "Playgirl." Retired from professional football, Zivkovich worked as a coach and phys-ed teacher in Apple Valley, California, at the time of the centerfold's publication and was promptly fired by the school board. Students rallied to his defense as Zivkovich protested his firing and a court ruled in his favor. Perhaps the negative reaction to Zivkovich's photos had something to do with the fact that, unlike Pastorini, he did not have the reputation as a high-living "rebel" and he worked with young people in a public school system. Besides, unlike Pastorini, Zivkovich openly and unapologetically displayed his private parts. (Even now, more than 30 years later, Zivkovich's is considered the "Titanic" of "Playgirl" centerfolds.) It's unfortunate that Dan Pastorini abandoned his acting career so quickly, since -- with a superior part to that found in "Killer Fish" -- he might sucessfully have found a way to put his high-living personality onto movie film.

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Posted jul 20, 2005 12:40 pm pt

Jim Palmer

Magazine readers in the mid-1970s must have reacted with surprise when they suddenly found themselves staring at a full-page color photograph of a handsome, well-built man in his early 30s wearing nothing but a smile and a pair of Jockey-brand...
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Magazine readers in the mid-1970s must have reacted with surprise when they suddenly found themselves staring at a full-page color photograph of a handsome, well-built man in his early 30s wearing nothing but a smile and a pair of Jockey-brand underwear. And this wasn't just any man but superstar pitcher Jim Palmer of the Baltimore Orioles and he wasn't wearing a modest pair of nearly-knee-length boxers but rather a trimly-cut pair of briefs. What's more, he didn't assume the discreet pose of the usual underwear model but instead boldly presented himself in such a way as to draw attention to the healthy-sized bulge between his legs. Finally, he didn't display the smoothly-shaved chest of the usual male model but rather sported a healthy growth of dark body hair which unapologetically covered the front of his torso from his collarbones down to his briefs' elastic waistband.

Today these features would not be surprising but in the Jimmy Carter era of some 30 years ago, they attracted considerable attention and comment and made Palmer as well-known to the general public as he was to baseball enthusiasts. The magazine ads must have bolstered Jockey sales as well because the company continued their use into the early 1980s. Even now these ads, torn from such magazines as "Sports Illustrated," can be found offered for sale on eBay.

One wonders what Jim Palmer thought of this phenomenon. He projected a wholesome, "guy next door" image -- handsome but not pretty, physical but not threatening -- yet, in a sense, he was being exploited in ways similar to porn actors. This seems especially true when he graduated from Jockey's regular line of briefs to the scanty "bikini" briefs which, just a generation before, could only have been found modeled in "physique" magazines sold, more or less under the counter, to gay readers. Palmer's poses also grew more provocative, culminating in one in which he stands with his left foot firmly planted on the floor while his right foot is raised to rest on the seat of a chair. This pose forced Palmer to stand with spread-open thighs, thus focusing attention on his bulging crotch as surely as if a glow-in-the-dark bulls-eye had been painted on it.

Despite what some would consider "indignities," however, Palmer's reputation did not suffer because of these ads and he accepted his increasingly iconic status with good humor. Though he must have received financially-tempting offers, he did not follow the example of fellow athletes Jim Brown and Dan Pastorini who posed naked for "Playgirl" magazine. This reticence must have been due to Palmer's innate sense of what is proper rather than to any fear that he would not "measure up" if he stepped out of those briefs and, in the parlance of the 60s, "let it all hang out."

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Posted jul 18, 2005 11:59 am pt

Edmund Purdom

Edmund Purdom had one of the greatest one-two drives toward stardom of any actor in film history. In 1954 he played the title role in 20th Century-Fox's biggest production of the year -- a lavish, indeed spectacular adaptation of Miki Waltari's...
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Posted jul 13, 2005 2:02 pm pt

Robert Horton

Robert Horton began his career in the early 1950s with several undistinguished parts in minor Hollywood movies. He ended his career in a somewhat similar vein, coupled with the so-so "Man Called Shenandoah" show and a modest attempt to veer onto...
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Robert Horton began his career in the early 1950s with several undistinguished parts in minor Hollywood movies. He ended his career in a somewhat similar vein, coupled with the so-so "Man Called Shenandoah" show and a modest attempt to veer onto stage in such musical comedies as "110 in the Shade." In between, for five seasons running from fall of 1957 to spring of 1962, he achieved success and national fame as frontier scout Flint McCullough on "Wagon Train," one of the dominant shows during the Golden Age of TV Westerns. Aside from Sam Elliott, it's hard to think of any other actor who would have been so right for this, one of the great roles in television history.

One curious aspect of Horton's career, however, has been rarely mentioned -- his tendency to wind up in scenes playing a victim of torture. This began in one of his early movies, the 1952 "Pony Soldier," in which he plays one of his rare villains: a fugitive killer who's captured by Indians anxious to execute him for his crimes. The Indians tie his left leg with a long rope to one horse and his right leg to another. The two horsemen then plan to ride hell-bent in opposite directions so that Horton will be snapped in two like a Thanksgiving wishbone. Ouch!

Fortunately or unfortunately, Tyrone Power rescues Horton by promising the Indians that he'll suffer white man's justice at the end of a noose. Before the movie's over, however, Horton's shot dead while making an escape attempt.

Violence against Horton continued in MGM's 1954 movie, "Prisoner of War." Playing an American GI inside a North Korean POW camp, Horton endures various torments and indignities which culminate in him being tied to a wooden framework, crucifixion style, and left to suffer through days of slow torment. Horton plays this scene stripped to his military-style undershorts, thus showing off his surprisingly-hairy chest and his 42-31-40 physique which, at age 29, was in its prime.

Horton's torments continued in the "Wagon Train" series. In the 1-15-58 episode, he's staked out by a vengeful Indian, spreadeagle style, and left to roast, bare-chested, under a scorching sun. Horton's hairy torso, gleaming with sweat, remains one of the most memorable images from 1950s television.

In the 12-30-59 episode of "Wagon Train" those pesky Indians again had Horton in their clutches and, once more, he plays a "beefcake bondage" scene rich in sado-masochistic and homo-erotic undertones. This time he hangs by the wrists, shirtless, from a horizontal pole, his feet dangling above the ground. Once more his chest hair glistens with sweat and this time viewers had an unapologetic look directly into Horton's furry armpits.

Finally, in the 12-13-61 episode, Horton -- once again stripped to the waist -- found himself tied to the side of a wagon so that he can take 20 lashes from a bullwhip across his bare back. Horton was nearly 37 years old when he filmed this scene yet his physique retained much of its youthful muscularity and his chest, unlike that of many actors, remained defiantly unshaven.

Just why Horton had to endure all these tortures during his acting career may be due to a variety of factors, but the fact remains that he suffered through them all in convincing style, prompting the affectionate thought: Long may he writhe!

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Posted jul 13, 2005 11:21 am pt

John Russell

John Russell, born in California in 1921, drifted into movies following his World War II military service, but Hollywood never quite seemed to know what to do with him and his parts were mostly minor ones in quickly-forgotten productions. Finally,...
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Posted jul 9, 2005 2:51 pm pt

Born in 1930 in the blue-collar suburb of El Monte, just east of Los Angeles, Glenn Corbett seems to have drifted into acting and for a few years he hovered, hopefully, in that "stars of tomorrow" category. In 1959 he played a lead role in Sam...
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Born in 1930 in the blue-collar suburb of El Monte, just east of Los Angeles, Glenn Corbett seems to have drifted into acting and for a few years he hovered, hopefully, in that "stars of tomorrow" category. In 1959 he played a lead role in Sam Fuller's well-regarded B-movie, "The Crimson Kimono," in 1960 he lent support to none other than James Stewart in "The Mountain Road," and in 1960 he starred in "Homicidal" -- the poor man's "Psycho." Then, in 1963, he replaced George Maharis in the popular "Route 66" television series. After these modest but promising credits, however, his career dwindled into disappointment and near-obscurity. This is puzzling since he had the requisite looks, presence, and talent, so perhaps his failure to "catch fire" can simply be ascribed to the lack of the right part at the right time which would have given him that final nudge into stardom. Still, Corbett -- who died prematurely of lung cancer in 1993 -- lives on in the auctions of eBay where his "beefcake" photos remain popular items. Back in the early 1950s Corbett modeled for physique magazines wearing nothing but a smile, a glow of sweat, and a filled-to-capacity posing strap. These magazines were marketed to gay readers at a time when such sales lurked in the shadows of illegality and Corbett probably didn't mention them much in later years lest he fall victim to the assumption that any man photographed in a posing strap must be a homosexual. (Actually many "straight" men found work as physique models, if only to earn a bit of extra money. Other actors who emerged from the pages of "beefcake" magazines include Gary Conway and Dennis Cole.) Perhaps now, in more tolerant times, Corbett would be willing to discuss this aspect of his early career. After all, he had the kind of body any young man would have been proud of, and using this body to further his ambitions would mark him as a person of genuine interest. Curiously, despite the fact he looked so good when stripped to near-total nakedness, his film career rarely exploited his "hunk" appeal.

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Posted jul 8, 2005 4:27 pm pt

Michael Woods

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Michael Woods, (born in Detroit in 1957), had a brief "Golden Age" running from 1985 through 1988 during which he seemed headed for the upper reaches in the acting profession. In 1985 came his cops-vs-mafia TV series, "Our Family Honor," followed...
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Michael Woods, (born in Detroit in 1957), had a brief "Golden Age" running from 1985 through 1988 during which he seemed headed for the upper reaches in the acting profession. In 1985 came his cops-vs-mafia TV series, "Our Family Honor," followed in 1986 by the Jaclyn Smith TV-movie: "Rage of Angels - The Story Continues." He continued working in 1987 with a TV series called "Private Eye" and a movie with Diane Lane titled "Lady Beware." Then, in 1988, he played Robert Mitchum's son in one of TV's biggest mini-series, "War and Remembrance." And after that ... Well, at age 31, his career stalled and the road to stardom got detoured into something close to obscurity. What happened? The "Private Eye" series, stylishly set in the 1950s, might have offered him his best chance of recognition but the network didn't seem to know what to do with it and it disappeared without a trace. (True, the concept had its faults but the potential for this series was definitely there.) At least Woods still has "Lady Beware" to his credit. It attracted only modest notice at the time of its release but since then it's acquired, if not a cult, at least a small circle of admirers drawn to it feminist outlook and its hard-to-categorize mood. Woods plays the villain in this movie, an obsessive stalker who focuses his unwanted attention on Diane Lane. In the movie's most memorable sequence, he breaks into her empty apartment, takes a bath, and then wanders about in nothing more than a towel looped around his waist. At one point he breaks into a dance and his illegal visit culminates when he spreads Lane's negligee on her bed and then, dropping the towel, prostrates himself on it in a bizarre sexual fantasy. One gets an oblique glance of his bare buttocks at this point but mostly the sequence concentrates on views of Woods' bare chest which is nicely thatched with a growth of black hair. Many people watching this sequence probably find themselves thinking: "I'd like to run barefoot through that hair."

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Posted jul 7, 2005 5:23 pm pt

Jack Scalia

Jack Scalia's first "exposure" came in the late 1970s when he posed in French-style briefs for a series of magazine ads sponsored by Eminence Underwear. These ads may have been inspired by a highly successful ad campaign for Jockey Underwear which...
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Jack Scalia's first "exposure" came in the late 1970s when he posed in French-style briefs for a series of magazine ads sponsored by Eminence Underwear. These ads may have been inspired by a highly successful ad campaign for Jockey Underwear which featured baseball pitcher and future Hall of Famer, Jim Palmer of the Baltimore Orioles who was born six years before Scalia. Though both sets of ads featured a good-looking "hunk" stripped to the barest of essentials, notable differences could be found between them. Palmer's ads presented him as an amiable, hairy-chested "jock" whose hearty smile deftly removed any threat which his athletic prowess might have presented. He had an easy-going, all-American, guy-next-door quality which would make him a welcome addition to any locker-room. Scalia, on the other hand, projected the sultry sexuality of a French Riviera gigolo who tended to shave his chest and who sometimes deigned to "service" the needs of older women with money to spend. He didn't smile much, which only added to his dark, brooding image, and he posed with seeming carelessness in languid positions. Curiously, while Scalia's ads had about them an obvious aura of sensuality in clear contrast to the "innocence" embodied in Palmer ads, there was the matter of the bulges found in the briefs which the two men modeled. Palmer was often blatantly positioned in such a way as to draw immediate attention to his bulge, especially in those instances featuring him in bikini briefs. In one such ad, for example, he stood with his left leg on the floor but with his right leg lifted and planted on the seat of a wooden chair. With his legs thus spread apart and with his hips thrust ever-so-slightly forward, Palmer's well-filled crotch inevitably became the focus of the ad. (Jockey always made it clear that this crotch was neither padded nor retouched.) On the other hand, Scalia's ads tended to draw attention to his face rather than to the bulge in his briefs. It wasn't as though there was anything inadequate about Scalia's "endowment" -- his bulge strained the cloth almost as much as Palmer's -- but the decision had obviously been made that Scalia's one-in-a-million face deserved special attention. Not surprisingly, Scalia's acting career -- which grew out of his modeling career -- has also been based on his face and on the fact that he looks good with his shirt off. (Rare is the movie or TV show which doesn't find an excuse to strip Scalia down as far as circumstances will permit.) However, while the enviable combination of handsome face and attractive body opened many doors for Scalia in the course of his career, it also tended to categorize him as a "pretty boy" best suited for "throw-away" entertainments. As a result, there's probably not a single production in Scalia's quarter-century acting career which is worth remembering, and his increasing maturity has not yet nudged him into parts of strength and substance. Also hindering Scalia has been a failure, to date, on finding a genre in which he can comfortably specialize. Sometimes he's the good-looking leading man in romances, other times he's a comedian with a twinkle in his eyes, and sometimes he's the tough-guy hero in action movies. Seeing him in one kind of movie often makes it harder to accept him in another. Still, his ability to make a good living as a actor for the better part of three decades -- even though he's never achieved "A" status -- is no small accomplishment, and he must take comfort in the fact that his Eminence ads from the late 1970s are still sought-after pin-ups that fetch respectable prices on eBay.

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Posted jul 6, 2005 1:32 pm pt

Ethan Wayne

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The youngest son of the legendary John Wayne, Ethan -- named after the character his father played in "The Searchers" -- probably found many doors opened for him as the result of his family name. At the same time, he probably found his Hollywood...
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Posted jun 24, 2005 1:22 pm pt

Ty Hardin

Warner Bros. brought Ty Hardin into the "Cheyenne" TV show to put pressure on the show's star, Clint Walker, who'd become involved in a contract dispute. After this dispute had been settled, Walker came back to the show but by then, Warner Bros....
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Warner Bros. brought Ty Hardin into the "Cheyenne" TV show to put pressure on the show's star, Clint Walker, who'd become involved in a contract dispute. After this dispute had been settled, Walker came back to the show but by then, Warner Bros. had acquired sufficient faith in 28-year-old Hardin to entrust him with his own TV western, "Bronco," which aired 68 episodes from 1958 to 1962. Hardin's character displayed similarities to the one played by Walker -- the laconic loner, handsome and well-built, who undergoes various adventures while traveling through the American West -- and as in the case of Walker, though to a lesser degree, excuses were found to get Hardin to take off his shirt. At these moments a divergence between the two actors became apparent. Whereas Walker's chest was so thickly-thatched with black fur that his nipples were barely visible, Hardin's chest had a boyish smoothness unmarred by a single hair. (Perhaps a razor helped achieve this effect.) Another difference soon became evident as well. Whereas Walker's "Cheyenne" had such a restrained, almost monkish quality that it became difficult to imagine him having any kind of sex, Hardin's "Bronco" had an undeniably sensual quality. One could easily picture him visiting a frontier brothel and giving complete satisfaction, several times during the course of the night, to one of the brothel's "working girls." While this gave "Bronco" a dimension that "Cheyenne" lacked, the former character could never match the latter's iconic quality. For example, though "Cheyenne" was once stripped of his shirt and tied to a tree branch in preparation for a horsewhipping, not a single lash ever struck his exposed back. Marring the skin of that perfect torso would have been something close to sacrilege! On the other hand, in an episode titled "The Last Resort" which aired on November 17, 1959, "Bronco" found himself stripped to the waist, tied to a T-shaped whipping post in the middle of a frontier town, and sentenced to 40 lashes for "attempting to steal another man's woman." After only seven or eight lashes, however, Hardin is set free, but by then his back has been cut and bloodied enough to disqualify him from iconic status. (Though it occurred on a TV show, this whipping ranked 26th in the book: "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.") The success of "Bronco" led to a film career for Hardin which briefly flourished in the mid-1960s. After this he began appearing in low-budget films made in Europe, most of which were of little interest. In many cases, however, these movies found opportunities to display Hardin's bare chest which still retained its smooth, almost boyish look, even when its owner had aged into his 40s.

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Posted jun 24, 2005 6:11 am pt

Clint Walker

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At the height of his fame on the "Cheyenne" show, Time Magazine reported that Clint Walker stood 6'6" tall, weighed 235 pounds, and sported measurements of 48-32-36. It also reported, only half-jokingly, that he was required to take off his shirt...
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At the height of his fame on the "Cheyenne" show, Time Magazine reported that Clint Walker stood 6'6" tall, weighed 235 pounds, and sported measurements of 48-32-36. It also reported, only half-jokingly, that he was required to take off his shirt at least once in every episode of "Cheyenne." Seeing Clint Walker stripped to the waist certainly qualified as one of the memorable sights in the Golden Age of the TV western, but these "beefcake" appearances never seemed like the vain "showing off" of an egotistical leading man. Walker played "Cheyenne Bodie" in too quiet and modest a way for that kind of thinking. His "Cheyenne" had the qualities of strength and dignity and courage but he appeared divorced from the passion and lust which might have been found in a big, handsome man in his physical prime. You just couldn't imagine a naked "Cheyenne" waking up next to a sore-but-happy dance-hall girl. Walker's restrained, almost passive nature is well illustrated in the "Cheyenne" episode from October 23, 1961, titled "The Young Fugitives." Walker earns the enmity of a vengeful man named Crawford who, along with his gang, get the jump on Walker. Crawford then utters those immortal words: "Take his gun and strip off his shirt. Tie him up." This is followed by: "I want my whip." We soon see the outstretched arms of a bare-chested Walker being tied at the wrists to a horizontal tree branch. Crawford gives his whip to his son, saying: "You whip him, Alfred." Alfred, however, objects. "No one's gonna tell me to horsewhip a man. Not even my own father." Moments later Walker is cut free, (without having received a single lash across his broad, sweaty back), and proceeds to put his shirt back on. Perhaps the show's makers felt that Walker had become too much of an American icon to suffer the flesh-tearing indignity of a whipping. It would be like spray-painting graffiti on the Statue of Liberty! Walker's behavior during this scene, however, is typical of his "Cheyenne" character. He doesn't resist the unjust and painful punishment about to be inflicted on him, nor does he object to it. He simply stands there, head bowed in silent acceptance, waiting for that first lash to cut and burn its way across his exposed flesh. It may be an exaggeration to describe him, at his moment, as Christ-like, but there is something definitely Christian, something "turn-the-other-cheek" about his behavior. One wonders if today's audience would accept this kind of behavior on the part of one of its most rugged "action stars." However, the late 50s and early 60s were a different era. Walker's frequent displays of his gloriously-hairy chest -- at a time when many actors shaved theirs -- was generally regarded as an innocent display of an attractive physique, whereas now viewers might see in these displays a blatant dose of homoeroticism. In any case, Walker's career never again reached the peak of his "Cheyenne" days, though he did appear in three worthy big-screen westerns directed by Gordon Douglas: "Fort Dobbs" in 1958, "Yellowstone Kelly" in 1959, and "Gold of the Seven Saints" in 1961. (In all three films his shirt came off, prompting some critics to suggest that they'd all been filmed in "pecs-o-rama" or "torso-scope.") Perhaps Walker's innocent personna simply couldn't adjust to the turmoil of the 1960s. The fact remains, however, that Walker's bare torso remains one of the great landmark sights in American movies and television and, without the possible exception of Tom Selleck, nothing quite like it has been seen since then.

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Posted jun 23, 2005 11:45 pm pt

Mike Henry (I)

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Looking for a younger, sleeker, more "modern" Tarzan to replace the aging Jock Mahoney, producers selected 6'3" 228 pounds Mike Henry -- a linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams who already had a bit of acting experience. (Also considered at this...
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Looking for a younger, sleeker, more "modern" Tarzan to replace the aging Jock Mahoney, producers selected 6'3" 228 pounds Mike Henry -- a linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams who already had a bit of acting experience. (Also considered at this time: the New York Giants' Frank Gifford.) After losing about 20 pounds off his waist and legs, 27-year-old Henry reported to Mexico in 1965 where "Tarzan and the Valley of Gold" was shot. This was followed by two more films, (both shot in Brazil), "Tarzan and the Great River" and "Tarzan and the Jungle Boy." All three productions experienced problems due to weather, accidents, and governmental red-tape, and Henry suffered a 20-stitches facial bite from a chimp as well as bouts of dysentery, food poisoning, and a liver infection. Unhappy with these experiences and with the way producers were treating him, Henry then turned down the lead in the Tarzan TV series, (which subsequently starred Ron Ely), and never again played Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Apeman." This was unfortunate since, with his dark good looks, with his body by Michelangelo, and with his unshaven chest, Henry probably looked more like Tarzan than any actor before or since. True, Henry's acting had obvious limitations but these mostly involved his line readings and they could have been avoided by making his Tarzan less a man of words and more a man of action. Unfortunately, the producers at this point were seeking to "modernize" Tarzan into a kind of James Bond figure who wore business suits while flying on jet airplanes and who was at home with all the trappings of modern technology. This resulted in softening and taming the Tarzan character so much that he lost that primal, savage quality which had enabled him to triumph over the various hazards of jungle. Henry was thus deprived of the brooding, dangerous quality which he could have projected and instead was asked to play a suave, sophisticated Tarzan -- an approach which only emphasized Henry's failings as an actor. Henry's three Tarzan movies -- released in 1966, 1967, and 1968 -- aren't much seen today and, admittedly, they're little better than Saturday matinee material, but the visual pleasure of seeing muscular Mike Henry squeezed into that bulging loincloth remains intact and one can't help but wonder how much more successful he might have been had proper handling brought out his considerable strengths.

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Posted jun 23, 2005 6:42 am pt

Victor Mature

Victor Mature\'s elevation from \"well-known actor\" to \"movie star\" probably occurred in 1949 when he appeared in one of Cecil B. deMille\'s most popular spectacles, \"Samson and Delilah.\" Viewers seemed drawn to the sight of the muscular...
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Victor Mature\'s elevation from \"well-known actor\" to \"movie star\" probably occurred in 1949 when he appeared in one of Cecil B. deMille\'s most popular spectacles, \"Samson and Delilah.\" Viewers seemed drawn to the sight of the muscular Mature being blinded by a red-hot sword and then being chained to a millstone which he\'s forced to endlessly turn for his Philistine tormentors. Wearing little more than a loincloth and a coating of sweat produced by his back-breaking labors, Mature -- often nicknamed \"the Hunk\" -- displayed the kind of physique loved by movie cameras and Paramount Pictures prominently featured his \"body-in-bondage\" image in much of its \"Samson and Delilah\" advertising.

Four years later 20th Century-Fox cast Mature in another Biblical epic and the first movie in CinemaScope, \"The Robe.\" Now Mature\'s physique could be displayed on the w-i-d-e screen and film-makers responded by creating a scene in which Mature, playing the slave Demetrius, suffers agonies in a Roman torture chamber apparently reeking with the stench of sweat and urine. Stripped to a loincloth both smaller and bulgier than the one he wore in \"Samson,\" Mature reclines face-up on a table, his spreadeagled limbs tied at the wrists and ankles, while a wooden beam is painfully pressed down in crushing fashion over his stomach. When he still refuses to divulge any information, a Roman soldier lashes his bare chest with a multi-stranded whip, leaving bloody gashes on Mature\'s already-bruised skin. (Though Mature\'s performance here is one of his best, and though Richard Burton\'s performance seems slack and uninspired, Burton received an Oscar nomination for \"The Robe\" whereas Mature did not.)

Three years later, in 1956\'s set-in-India but shot-in-Morocco \"Zarak,\" Mature once more found his shirt being removed so he could show off his torso while suffering some more on-screen torture. In the first reel of \"Zarak\" he\'s sentenced to be flogged to death for making advances to his father\'s young and beautiful wife. The flogging takes place in the village square where the well is located with Mature\'s hands tied to a horizonatl bar located above his head. He winces but does not cry out as the whip cuts into his bare back. His death-sentence is soon commuted and Mature manages to walk away from the village, but in the final reel he\'s again sentenced to death-by-flogging and this time the sentence is carried out to the final lash. (For some reason, though, the film-makers allow him to keep his shirt on for this scene.) Perhaps no other movie star has been flogged twice in the same movie and perhaps no other movie star has played a character who is whipped to death during the course of the film.

Though now in his early 40s, Mature had one more example of \"beefcake torture\" left in his acting career. In 1958\'s black-and-white \"Timbuktu,\" he plays an adventurer who\'s captured by rebels in the French Sahara. The leader of these rebels, John Dehner, has Mature staked out spreadeagle-style on the sandy floor of his tent. Naturally, Mature\'s been stripped of his shirt to once more show off that impressive physique and the \"X\" position adds a sexual undertone to the scene by speading apart the victim\'s legs. To \"persuade\" him to \"talk,\" Dehner has a large poisonous spider dangled by a thread over Mature\'s face. The spider drops closer and closer to Mature whose eyes widen in dread as the deadly arachnid draws increasingly near to his exposed flesh. It\'s an imaginatively-created scene and a worthy close to Mature\'s career as Hollywood\'s #1 \"hunk in bondage.\"

Fittingly the 2004 book, \"Lash: The Hundred Greatest Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies,\" is dedicated to Victor Mature -- \"the back that launched a thousand whips.\"