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| 1934-2023 |
My favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinnings.
--Alan Arkin
The Russian Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966)
Catch-22 (1970)
The Last of the Red-Hot Lovers (1972)
The In-Laws (1979)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
A diverse collection of what I assume are his favourite films.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, it's actually a diverse collection of my favorite Arkin film performances, though the films themselves are not necessarily favorites (Catch-22 is a mere shadow of Joseph Heller's novel, but I thought Arkin was perfect as Yossarian.) And there are other favorites of mine that I didn't show because I couldn't find the clips, such as the cantankerous, dying (but nevertheless funny) father in 1990's Coup de Ville; the amiable, not-dying-but-old-enough-to-be-his children's grandfather father in 1998's The Slums of Beverly Hills, and for a good dramatic turn, the elderly Soviet spy in 1996's Mother Night (based on Kurt Vonnegut's novel.) But Arkin was good in just about everything he did.
DeleteHe was a true great!
ReplyDeleteHe was at that, Mitchell.
DeleteThe last thing I saw him in was "The Kominsky Method" with Michael Douglas. He was excellent, as always. RIP
ReplyDeleteDebra, I have not seen The Komiskey Method, but I don't have a difficult time believing Arkin was excellent in it.
DeleteFor anyone interested, I just found out Eva Marie Saint--Carl Reiner's wife in The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, though that's far from her greatest role--turns 99 today. Happy birthday, Eva.
ReplyDeleteHello Kirk, I was kind of surprised to see Arkin here, since I don't think of him being that old--probably because it is a very long time since I have seen any movies or television. Time indeed catches up with everyone.
ReplyDelete.
I join you in Birthday Greetings to Eva Marie Saint.
--Jim
Jim, going just by the clips I have here, Arkin outlived Carl Reiner, Jack Gilford, Sally Kellerman, and Peter Falk. And Arkin himself was outlived by the still-living Eva Marie Saint, ten years his senior.
DeleteThe Russian Are Coming! is one of those films that if I catch it on TV by accident I'll watch it again and again.
ReplyDeleteMike, here's a bit of TRACTRAC trivia for you. Alan Arkin's grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants, and he grew up in a house where Russian was spoken alongside English, which is why he had the accent down pat.
DeleteBeautiful blog
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rajani.
DeleteI have only watched Edward Scissorhands in its entirety. However, I do remember seeing his face in a lot of other films. May he rest in Peace.
ReplyDeleteJM, Alan Arkin's heyday as a leading man was the late 1960s throughout the '70s. From 1980 on, it was mostly supporting roles.
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