RIP Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin has died at 89. His brand of comedy didn’t quite click with me, but it sure did with a lot of people. He was a Hollywood staple for many years, and had a wide range of roles. RIP.
ADDENDUM: A comment jogged my memory into recalling that I really liked Arkin in the movie “The In-Laws,” in which he was linked in a kind of Odd Couple with a zany Peter Falk. A sample:
I wasn’t a big Alan Arkin fan either, but this scene in “Grosse Pointe Blank” in which Arkin plays shrink under duress to John Cusack’s contract killer is priceless:
–“GROSSE POINTE BLANK Alan Arkin is an Unwilling Therapist to John Cusack”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HohnhL5svo
I read about this today and I was surprised that he was still with us (until today).
He wanted( badly) to be a latter day groucho, even though I liked him at times, he wasn’t.
I’d forgotten about that one,
I AM the bombardier!
I was not aware that his role in “The Russians are coming, The Russians are Coming” was his debut. Liked the movie and his portrayal of someone with conflicting requirements and unknown circumstances, but still professional, struck me as top notch.
Had to laugh at folks who didn’t really care for him but liked his role in xxxx or yyyy.
At least he played in movies that were fun, and featured real people acting. Or at least trying to.
Eighty-nine. To go so young, says the guy who is about to celebrate 88, maybe. One day at a time.
My how perspectives change.
RIP
Had to laugh at folks who didn’t really care for him but liked his role in xxxx or yyyy.
OldFlyer:
What’s so strange about that? Arkin was in several dozen films. I liked him in one or two.
I thought “Catch-22” starring Arkin was terrible.
he was often a curmudgeon, yossarian was more of a cynic, the book was more about mccarthyism, and the movie more about vietnam,
I and I alone have made a grave mistake, I confused Alan Arkin with Alan Alda.
huxley, I didn’t say it was strange. I said I laughed.
I agree about Catch 22. I don’t know if it was terrible; but, it certainly wasn’t my cup of tea. Probably because I did not understand the deeper meaning that others attached to it.
Miguel, I am confused. I am trying to link Catch 22 to Vietnam, since the book on which the movie was based was published in 1961. I saw it as a fairly straight forward, dark parody of the military, with a setting during WWII. Maybe I missed the point that the movie, which did come out in 1970, was meant to be a rather obscure statement about Vietnam. I suppose that anything, and everything, in the ’70s could be linked to Vietnam. No wonder I didn’t care for it.
huxley, I didn’t say it was strange. I said I laughed.
OldFlyer:
OK. Why did you laugh?
Never mind.
I very much liked Catch-22 the book and I very much disliked Catch-22 the movie.
However, I also think that it was an impossible book to transfer to the screen. It was a book where the author’s voice was really the main character, and that doesn’t translate well. Plus, the back and forth in time was a big part of the book and that’s hard to convey in a movie. And the characters were so outlandish I think they were best pictured in the imagination.
Arkin played student Alejandro Pym in the Second City sketch (circa 1960) “Football Comes to the University of Chicago.” Video excerpt: https://vimeo.com/195830483. Intro and Morton Throckmorton: Eugene Troobnick; Coach: Andrew Duncan; Morgenstern: Seven Darden.
For the complete audio version of this (and “Museum Piece” with Arkin as a beatnik and Barbara Harris as a museum-goer), listen here: https://archive.org/details/lp_the-second-city-writhes-again_alan-arkin-jack-burns-avery-schrieber-b
Catch 22
ugh hated both the book and the movie.
Liked Russian are Coming and Grosse Pointe Blank
also liked him in The heart is a Lonely Hunter
As a sideline, Arkin wrote science fiction stories, two for GALAXY in August 1955 and November 1958, and one for FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION in August 2001.
You can read the GALAXY stories here:
http://www.luminist.Org/archives/SF/GAL.htm
As a sideline, Arkin wrote science fiction stories…
Leo Armery:
I like Arkin better already. Thanks!
So last night’s “wake up in middle of the night” movie was … “Catch-22.”
I saw it when it came out in 1970 and was disappointed. It was based on an irreverent, critically acclaimed, 60s novel. It was directed by Mike Nichols, who had also done the indelible generational film, “The Graduate.” And it came out right after the countercultural, anti-military hit, “MASH.” Plus it had a dynamite cast, even including Orson Welles.
How could it miss?
Watching it again, I give it more credit than I did back then, when I was too disappointed that it wasn’t enough like “MASH” or “The Graduate.”
“Catch-22” is well-shot, often beautifully. I can see how each scene makes a decent little vignette. I can imagine how Mike Nichols might have thought he was making a good film.
It’s just that the individual scenes don’t land much of a punch and together they don’t connect well. It’s more like a sequence of absurdist 60s out-takes strung together.
Then, there was the Alan Arkin problem. He was positioned as the Next Dustin Hoffman, but he just wasn’t. I’m glad he found other things to do, he had a decent career and he made it to 89.
I loved the book Catch 22 and unlike most of the other commenters, came to like the movie.
When I was in high school I worked as an usher at a movie theater. That was back in the days when the ushers stood on the isles and escorted people to their seats with a flashlight. Standing on the isle, I had to watch the movie dozens of times and came to enjoy the portrayals of the book’s characters by the the actors and comedians. Bob Newhart as Major Major Major, Orson Welles as General Dreedle, etc.
well in part its too long, heller had a good war experience, someone compared milo to sosthenes behn, the telecom magnate who negotiated between axis and allied parties,
I think Arkin tended to do the kind of roles in the 60s and 70s that Charles Grodin did in the 1990s, both to excellent effect.
My own Grodin favorite was his playing an uptight, ultra-organized guy vs. a chaotic schlub (played by Jim Belushi) in 1990s’ “Taking Care of Business”.
Also, a lesser role as one of the “ghosts” in the Robert Downey Jr. kinda-sorta rom-com “Heart and Souls” from 1993. RDJ plays a kid who was born right adjacent to a bus accident that killed four people. Their ghosts get attached to the kid, and they entertain him, until about age 7 or so, when they believe they are having a deleterious affect on his childhood development, and withdraw. Fast forward 20y, and they believe he’s screwing up a good relationship with a girl, so they drop back in to advise. At this point, they also find out that RDJ is supposed to help them “complete” something they meant to do in life, before they can move on… humor ensues, with great acting performances by the main five of the ensemble (Grodin, RDJ, Kyra Sedgewick, Tom Sizemore, Alfre Woodard)
I assert that both are excellent, fun movies, for those of you who have not seen them. YMMV.
Arkin was also one of the two main cops in the largely forgotten buddy-cop comedy, Freebie and the Bean. I recall seeing it in the theater when young (ca. 14), and finding it hilarious. Saw it again about 5y or so ago, and it really wasn’t funny. Don’t know for sure why that changed, whether it was the times, my age, or what. Some comedies are like that. Some things that were hilarious at one point no longer are.
This is true of many comedies. I recall the Sylvester Stallone picture Oscar, directed by John Landis, which used him as a straight man, which he was perfect for. It was absolutely hilarious when I first saw it in the theater. Saw it a second time a year later and it wasn’t vaguely funny. No idea why that changed so much.
Sometimes it can be explained away as “topicality”, such as the old TV show Laugh-In, which was seriously good in the late 60s. Saw it again in the 1990s and there wasn’t a single laugh to be found anywhere. Strange how comedy can switch like that.
It’s not just age, though, there are older comedies — such as the Marx Brothers’ efforts, Monty Python, or even better, “Who’s On First?” by Abbott and Costello, which are utterly hilarious no matter how many times you see them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ve20PVNZ18
Chris B — interesting side note about Heart and Souls which I mention above. The Kyra Sedgewick character plays a waitress in a bar at the beginning of the film. There is a comedian performing at the bar, doing his monologue. Though it is never stated in the film itself, a fan of Bob Newhart would recognize it as one of Newhart’s routines. Even more interesting is that it is Bob Newhart’s son playing his father and doing the monologue in the film.
I remember him in “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.” Did we actually like the Russians more in the mid-60s than we do today? Alan Arkin, Walter Koenig, David McCallum, Elizabeth Montgomery in a famous “Twilight Zone” episode.
Arkin was great in “The Slums of Beverly Hills,” but I thought his Oscar for “Little Miss Sunshine” was in the old tradition of giving supporting actor/actress awards as something like lifetime achievement awards. He also tried his hand as a Puerto Rican dad in “Papi.” Does that one still see the light of day?
“Catch-22” has also been a limited run cable television series. I didn’t hate any of the versions, and didn’t love any of them. There were very funny moments in the book, the movie, and the television series.