Another film legend and link to Hollywood's great past has left us -
Farley Granger has died, aged 85. He passed away on Sunday of natural causes at his home in Manhattan. My indelible memories of Granger are from his two works with one of my favourite directors, proving to be an early casting success story in
Alfred Hitchcock's career. Hitch used him twice, both times as seemingly well-to-do young men who through that little devil on his shoulder, giving into seduction and through tapping into that darker side we all we have within us, became not completely as wholesome as his boyish good looks and well-mannered demeanor would suggest. He is of course more sympathetic in
Strangers on a Train as Guy Haines, a guy who unknowingly to him after making a throw-a-way comment to Bruno Anthony (
Robert Walker) on a train about wishing his adulterous wife was dead, becomes an unwilling part of a morbid pact to each kill each other's source of grief, allowing them each to have alibi's and no connection with their victims.
In the movie, based on Raymond Chandler's re-working of Patricia Highsmith's novel, Granger is basically Hitch's own vessel to explore his own deep fears of being accused of committing a crime he didn't commit, but perhaps thought of. The casting was a stroke of genius and although Robert Walker has the showy, flamboyant and more scene-chewing and charismatic role, it's Granger's honesty and vulnerability to be walked over that we find ourselves feeling close to him. He is one of the more sympathetic protagonists in all of Hitch's filmography and according to the fabulous book 'Hitchcock/Truffaut', the master of suspense envisioned the movie originally as a
William Holden vehicle thinking he was a 'stronger presence' but one can't watch Strangers on a Train now and imagine that an actor of such a strong, masculine presence would quite work in the same way. In Hitch's a few years earlier and sadly lesser seen crime classic
Rope - Granger's character is a more willing participant in a deadly encounter. I'm sure you have all seen Strangers on a Train but don't dismiss Rope as a lesser, gimmicky film from Hitch. Sure it was above all an experimental, directorial artistic endeavour (shot completely in 10 minute long takes, disguised to have zero cutting) but there's a great story to it and three actors working at the top of their game and with fiery chemistry playing off each other that makes it all work, including the great
James Stewart who appears in the second act. Rope finds Farley Granger as a recent graduate who commits a heinous strangulation murder of an innocent classmate, egged into into participation by his close friend (so close in fact, that in 1940's less open-minded cinema, it's very subtly suggested they are gay) to see if they can both commit the perfect crime! Not only that but they want to see how far they can get away with it by hosting a party, in which the victim had been invited to (along with his girlfriend and parents!!!) where they have instead stuffed his deceased body into a trunk in the apartment, which will be used as a food table! Such a sinister movie... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYufeSJXeIU Although as good as Granger is as a young man literally breaking down on screen by the guilt and realisation of what he has done, it's undoubtedly Jimmy Stewart who has the best moments in the film as his eyes reflect his own knowledge that he is as guilty as they are in hearing that these boys only committed the crime because of his misguided and foolish ideas/lectures to them about how murder is justifiable if the person is a lesser in society. Such a great movie and if you haven't seen Rope, I highly recommend that you track a copy down of it today.
Because of his boyish charm and ability to have eyes that always personified a look of being worried that he was about to get found out at any moment, he carved a formidable few roles in the film noir genre. This was an arena he was almost born to play in and he should really have been on the mind of more casting directors. He was wonderful in Anthony Mann's
Side Street...
And
Nicholas Ray's frenetic chase noir and debut film
They Live By Night, a clear precursor to Bonnie and Clyde and which came a classic and defining point in Farley's career, despite attempts by the studio (and some bad timing as Howard Hughes was just taking over the studio) to dump the movie unceremoniously in Britain.
And in the odd, left field role of his career, as Austrian lieutenant Franz Mahler in Visconti's lavish
Senso... I'll admit that I haven't seen much more of Granger's career post his 40's and 50's work but his high profile leading roles became fewer and fairer between. Clearly his openly gay sexuality always played against him, sadly, but as do did film directors who couldn't get over just how good he was as the man accused, guilty or not, in his Hitchcock works. Perhaps a compliment to how memorable a stamp he put on Hollywood in just those two films alone. As well as his acting career, Granger also spent time in the U.S. Navy during World War II and acted extensively on broadway. He'll be missed.