King of Actors
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | King of Actors |
| Original title | Prince of Players |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1955 |
| length | 96 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Philip Dunne |
| script | Moss Hart |
| production | Philip Dunne |
| music | Bernard Herrmann |
| camera | Charles G. Clarke |
| cut | Dorothy Spencer |
| occupation | |
| |
King of the actor is an American film biography about Edwin Booth from the year 1955 . The film adaptation is based on the book Prince of Players by Eleanor Ruggles .
action
The young Edwin Booth is a responsible and conscientious companion on the theater tour of his father, the actor Junius Brutus Booth. While he keeps him from drinking further between events, he practices the Shakespeare plays his father is playing backstage during the performances . Over the years Edwin grows into the acting profession and still has to listen to himself again and again that his younger brother John Wilkes Booth will eventually become the bigger actor. But it is Edwin, who on April 2, 1857 with his father during a screening of Richard III. on stage in San Francisco . This was supposed to be the start of a major theater tour, but because Junius keeps forgetting his text, he withdraws from the contract with Prescott. He is no longer an actor and will not allow himself to be humiliated on tour. Edwin steps in for this and earns his first fame with his game. But before he can prove to his father that he is a worthy actor, Junius dies.
On the other hand, Edwin does not consider himself a good or even the best actor. When he visits his little brother John in Washington, DC , where he's playing with The Taming of the Shrew at Ford's Theater , he has to answer his question if John is a good actor. Edwin admits to him passion. But experience would only come with hard work. It is far too easy to live on your father's name. Acting quality has to be earned, which is why Edwin is going on his next theater tour through the south. During this trip he met the young actress Mary Devlin, who impressed him with her confidence in the text of Romeo and Juliet . Respect turns into love and love turns into marriage. During all this time she supported him in his goal of becoming the first American to travel to London to play Shakespeare. But before the trip, Edwin receives a letter from his sister Asia, who is concerned about John's confused political ambitions. Edwin travels to him and tries to bring him to his senses by offering to come to London as a co-star. But John refuses, after all, real life is out there and not on stage.
Edwin's portrayal of Hamlet is a huge success in London to tumultuous applause. However, he cannot enjoy his triumph when he notices that the box in which his wife was sitting is empty. He travels to her and receives the reassuring message from the doctor that the pregnant Mary is doing well under the circumstances. After Edwin played Hamlet for six more weeks at the Prince Charles Theater , his first child was born. After a few years, he finally moved to New York City with the family , with Mary becoming increasingly weak. He takes loving care of her, but she won't see the premiere of his Hamlet because of a cure. Instead, Edwin impresses the New York audience alone in all the sold-out performances, although he cannot enjoy the applause, as he keeps looking into the only abandoned box of the theater, where his wife should actually be sitting. The loneliness later drives him to alcohol, whereby he is no longer able to play. In the distance, Mary finally receives a letter stating how bad things are for her husband, so that she wants to break off her cure on her own initiative against the prescription of the doctors, whereby she suffers a fainting attack. Edwin can only arrive and be close to her on her deathbed.
Edwin spends a long time at the grave and has conversations with Mary, repeatedly asking her for advice. Only after a while does he leave the cemetery to play in the theater. But only a short time later Abraham Lincoln is murdered by John, which also changes Edwin's public reputation. Instead of cheering him on, people ask him never to go on stage again. No actor should ever go on stage again. Edwin won't let himself get down. No actor should suffer from John's act. After all, Edwin has to go on stage. He doesn't care that an angry mob is sitting in the audience to take revenge on them. As the curtains open, the audience starts yelling at him and throwing objects at him. They drive all actors off the stage, only Edwin remains stoically seated. Rather, the angry mob recognizes what Edwin just showed for courage, applauds him and respects him. But Edwin only looks at the empty box where Mary always sat and hears her mentally quoting Romeo and Juliet: Well, good night! Separation woes are so sweet, I must have shouted good night until I saw the morning.
criticism
"The film is best" when it shows all the Shakespeare acts, said Bosley Crowther of the New York Times . Burton is also "most impressive" when he portrays Booth as an actor. It is particularly annoying that the "mild and conventionally constructed" love between Booth and Mary Devlin has no chemistry between the actors. There is simply no “warmth and theatrical attractiveness”. Overall, however, the film adaptation with its “mighty, majestic flair” was a success.
The lexicon of international films said: "The excerpts from Shakespeare dramas, staged with care and intensity, convince more than the representation of human conflicts and the profiling of the characters in the actual film plot."
background
Originally Marlon Brando was supposed to play the lead role of Edwin Booth. But after he described the cast of John Wilkes Booth by John Derek as "amusing imagination" and insisted on "no actor, and certainly not a classic actor" to play, the role of Laurence Olivier was offered. Richard Burton himself was only the third choice. Brando mocked the script at a Hollywood party and said of the cast, “It's just a showcase for Burton to show us how bad he is as a Shakespeare actor. I turned it down because the film had too many of Booth's most famous listed plays, Hamlet in particular. I wanted a more in-depth study of Booth's fascinating and tragic life. When Fox couldn't get a top actor like Olivier or me, they chose a third rate actor, with even worse skin. ”That moment finally marked the beginning of a decade-long rivalry between the two actors.
Like Olivier, Burton was also contractually bound to the film producer Alexander Korda . He had three more films to make for his seven-film deal. Although both he and his stepfather Philip Burton called the script a "shame," he accepted because of his interest in playing Shakespeare.
For the portrayal of Queen Gertrude in Hamlet , the theater actress Margaret Webster was originally requested. However, after it was found that she was on the blacklist , it was decided in favor of her partner Eva Le Gallienne .
The discussions between Dunne and Bernard Herrmann about the film music lasted about a week. Both decided against Burton's will not to play any music during the theater performances, as the scenes themselves corresponded to "musical numbers". However, there were also different opinions. During the last take, Herrmann decided to have his theme played by the first violinist Louis Kaufman, while Dunne himself favored a solo obist.
Philip Dunne made his debut as a film director with the feature film. Originally he was only supposed to produce it. But he turned down all the directors suggested by Darryl F. Zanuck because they lacked the necessary “sensitivity”. So Zanuck decided that Dunne should direct it himself.
The film, which was produced for around US $ 1.57 million , had its world premiere on January 11, 1955 in New York City . It was released in West Germany on June 24, 1955. Since then, the film has not been released on VHS or DVD .
Web links
- King of the actors in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- King of the actor at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bosley Crowther: Prince of Players (1955) on nytimes.com, January 12, 1955, accessed May 1, 2013
- ↑ King of Actors. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Darwin Porter: Brando Unzipped: A Revisionist and Very Private Look at America's Greatest Actor , Blood Moon Productions 2006, p. 402.
- ↑ Melvyn Bragg: Rich: The Life of Richard Burton Ebook , Hodder 1988
- ↑ Milly S. Baranger: Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater , University of Michigan Press 2004, 254.
- ^ Steven C. Smith: A Heart at Fire's Center. Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann . University of California Press 1991, pages 185-187.
- ^ Ronald L. Davis: Words into images: screenwriters on the studio system , University Press of Mississippi 2007, p. 58.
- ↑ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series) . Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1 , page 249.