Wed 22 Mar 2023
An Archived Movie Review: SAN QUENTIN (1946).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[15] Comments
SAN QUENTIN. RKO Radio Pictures, 1946. Lawrence Tierney, Barton MacLane, Marian Carr, Harry Shannon, Carol Forman, Tony Barrett, Raymond Burr. Directed by Gordon Douglas.
An out-and-out plea for prison reform, done in pseudo-documentary style, turns out to be a pretty good gangster movie. Lawrence Tierney plays an ex-con, former head of the Inmates Welfare League, who takes it personally when Barton MacLane makes a daring escape.
And MacLane is a killer, no doubt about it. In his gang are Tony Barrett, one of my all0time favorite radio actors, and Raymond Burr, another voice from radio. (He also made it big on TV.) The acting is a little stiff at times, but the action is fast and furious.
– Reprinted from Movie.File.2, June 1980.
March 22nd, 2023 at 6:43 pm
That phase in Tierney’s career when Hollywood was trying to make a standard leading man out of him like trying to fit a square peg in a series of round holes. Luckily for him and us they soon knew he was something else and best cast in darker roles than crusading ex cons.
March 22nd, 2023 at 7:49 pm
Raymond Burr and making it big on television. In the early 1980’2 Raymond was touring in a play, Underground, they hit Toronto at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, and Burr was in an apartment in our condo complex. Harbour Square on Lake Ontario. I sat with him over coffee a few times. This is Ray on Perry Mason. “I hated it.’ Me:’Wel, look what happened.’ Ray: I know, but it was happening anyway. The problem was everyone else got to go home, but I was stuck learning reams of legal jargon.’ Me: ‘And you couldn’t leave?’ ‘I wanted to leave the show after five years, but CBS was throwing so much money at us, it was impossible..’
Years later, Claude and I became friends with Don Weis who directed a few Mason shows, but many Ironside. She asked Don, who the best actor was that he ever worked with. In a second, the answer Alan Alda came out, followed by a beat, but Raymond Burr was the best reader. By that time, Teleprompters were in play, and Burr was the producer.
March 22nd, 2023 at 7:51 pm
David,
Lawrence Tierney did not have a dark side, he was a lunatic. I know Scott helped him financially, but even he kept away.
March 22nd, 2023 at 9:57 pm
Perhaps the story is not true, but it sure sounds as though it could be. Tioerney was cast in a recurring role as Elaine’s father on SEINFELD, but he scared the rest of cast so much on the set (playing around with a knife or some such), that he ended up playing the part only once. They didn’t want him back.
March 22nd, 2023 at 10:44 pm
The girl who played Elaine was afraid of him. Smart kid.
March 22nd, 2023 at 11:23 pm
Lawrence Tierney in “Born to Kill”
F-r-e-a-k-y.
March 23rd, 2023 at 9:07 am
Barry,
It’s never occurred to me that Alan Alda could act. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any range on him at all. From earnest milquetoast to mildly sarcastic milquetoast. He’s like a living, breathing Kermit the Frog. If he’s acting and he’s really a mean dude with a nasty disposition I’ll eat my hat. It reminds me of that Paul Mooney joke about how Wayne Brady makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X. You could use that on Alda and say: Alan Alda makes Phil Donahue look like Abbie Hoffman.
March 23rd, 2023 at 3:08 pm
I’ve seen some competent work by Alda. He was in an Elmore Leonard flick (‘The Moonshine War’) opposite Widmark & McGoohan; he was in a horror movie opposite Jurgens and Bisset (‘The Mephisto Waltz’). And his weekly role in MASH called on him for a wide variety of duties.
More recently I believe he played a bad guy opposite Denzel in that White House murder mystery.
I wouldn’t call him a great actor but he always seemed decent enough, relative to his middling rank in Hollywood.
March 23rd, 2023 at 3:56 pm
FYI:
Murder At 1600 starred Wesley Snipes, not Denzel Washington, with Dennis Miller as his detective partner.
Alan Alda’s character showcased what has turned out to be his performing specialty ever since MASH: insufferable self-righteousness.
I suppose that the acting comes in from the character being Alda’s opposite politically.
I do recall that when Alda met his well-deserved fate in 1600, the audience in the theater cheered …
March 23rd, 2023 at 6:21 pm
H’mmm. Fair enough.
But what about ‘Same Time Next Year’ by Neil Simon?
‘The Seduction of Joe Tynan’? Alda wrote the script; starred in the lead.
‘The Four Seasons’ –wrote the script, directed, and starred.
To me, these don’t fit the theory laid out above.
March 23rd, 2023 at 7:14 pm
To add to my slagging of Alda—I submit that Donald Sutherland was a much more entertaining Hawkeye Pierce.
March 23rd, 2023 at 8:22 pm
Well guys, the man I quoted actually worked with him, not a fantasy. And acting is playing the part successfully, in Alan’s case, year after year. Put that in your pipes, and smoke.
March 23rd, 2023 at 9:25 pm
First off:
Bernard Slade wrote Same Time, Next Year.
Beyond that:
Which theory are we talking about?
All of the Alda characters described here are, to at least some extent, heavily self-involved here – and all of them wind up paying a price for it.
That was also true of Alda’s Hawkeye – and his most notable episodes were those when his self-righteousness would double back and bite him in the ass.(Examples abound, especially in the MASHes that he wrote himself).
Such is my observation, anyway …
March 23rd, 2023 at 11:22 pm
We seem to have derailed ourselves from talking about a rickety old black-and-white gangster movie to a fairly thorough examination of the TV and movie career of Alan Alda.
Not that that’s a bad thing! I only mention it because…
…no past on this blog should have exactly 13 comments!
March 24th, 2023 at 1:03 am
My goof as I reviewed Alda’s bio. I coulda swore Same-Time-Next-Year was a Simon work. Browsed too fast. A little farther down Simon is credited with ‘California Suite’. But, I skimmed with a cursory eye. Beg pardon.
In any case. Alda’s performance in the former, (Same-Time-Next-Year) has decent actorly range. Right?
I’ve read the script for ‘Joe Tynan’ and I’ve seen and enjoyed ‘Four Seasons’.
Alda is not exactly a slouch, these were big movies, emotionally true, and critically acclaimed. He helmed both.
I know sod-all about his politics but I’m guessing he is an ardent liberal. Maybe too zealous. Might be, that turns people off? I wouldn’t know.
All I’m saying is that when it comes to being a milksop he did okay in at least two “tough guy” genre flicks early in his arc. One horror, one crime.
Is he gangly and lanky? Yeah. But if you know your onions, you know tall guys with long arms are hell to fight.
The theory I see proposed above that he exudes insufferable self-righteousness. May well be true.
I’m not disagreeing, only stating that I haven’t seen it. Of course, I haven’t followed Alda’s career closely at all.
But from where I stand, a bloke who wrote ‘Four Seasons’ and ‘Joe Tynan’ seems like he’s fairly down to earth.
If he’s gotten too ‘lib’ in the past few years then I’m sorry to hear it. I can readily admit how that might make him repellent to some viewers.
I 100% agree that Donald Sutherland was supreme as Pierce in Altman’s feature.
Nevertheless, Alda was gifted for TV acting. He had a marvelous ‘everyman’ quality. Numerous episodes of MASH are well worth re-watching. He was the anchor of that whole program. Wayne Rogers and 50% of the other casting were rather stiff in almost every episode; whereas Alda would usually gallop away like a crazed horse. Hilarious and infectious humor.
Review the episode where Col Blake (Maclean Stevenson) searches the Swamp for stolen loot, shakes the stovepipe, and winds up with an Al Jolson blackface. If that doesn’t make you laugh aloud then we simply don’t see eye-to-eye.
Fins!