Mnemosyne still speaks

A couple of recent incidents have reassured me that my memory is still functioning, at least in some particulars. The first occurred during my eager rewatching on DVD of Crime Wave, which I had first seen several years ago on Turner Classic Movies. I've mentioned before that the movie included an unforgettably weird performance by Timothy Carey, who has been referred to as a "Method character actor" (whose method? Stanislavsky's or Rasputin's?). This screen capture proves my memory was not at fault.

In this scene, Carey has been introduced to Phyllis Kirk, who plays the wife of an ex-con whom a group of San Quentin escapees are trying to enroll in a bank robbery. The lascivious intentions of the hoods have before been betrayed by the actor on the right of this scene, who is credited as "Charles Buchinsky"--and at that point in his career, Charles Bronson was at least attempting to act. Carey, the seated criminal, is trying to convey by this facial rictus that he is both charmed by Kirk and trying to charm her. Unbelievable.

The other event happened while I was rereading a book that I had first read probably 35 years ago. During one portion, I started laughing uncontrollably--every phrase, every clause, released gales of laughter, paroxysms of cleansing mirth--the kind of laughs that make you dizzy while you try to catch your breath. And I recalled that I had laughed at the exact same passage all those years ago. I don't think one's sense of humor changes all that much over time.

How's by You?

I had been planning to do a little piece on Timothy Carey anyway, but the mood I've been in lately is perfectly summed up in this still of Carey in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, in which Carey plays one of the three French soldiers (along with Ralph Meeker and Joe Turkel) shot for their unit's refusal to fight during a battle in WWI.

I first noticed Carey in One-Eyed Jacks, a Western initially directed by Kubrick, but then directed by its star, Marlon Brando, after a falling-out between the two. Carey plays a thoroughly odious piece of work whom Brando kills after Carey attacks a girl. His character seems just intelligent enough to be evil.

In Paths of Glory, Carey is more pitiable than hateful, but in his other work for Kubrick, he plays Nikki Arane, a racist member of the gang of robbers in The Killing. This wasn't the only time Carey worked for an A-list director; he was also in John Cassevetes's Minnie and Moskowitz and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Carey also did a lot of television work; he appeared in a couple of episodes of Columbo as the proprietor of a greasy spoon--typecasting, if you ask me.

Carey has been dubbed a "Method character actor," and Quentin Tarantino dedicated Reservoir Dogs to him. Carey also worked for years, a la Orson Welles, on his own auteur project, The World's Greatest Sinner, in which he plays an insurance salesman who...ah, it's too ridiculous to summarize.

I was thinking about Carey because one of his films, Crime Wave, is being released as part of Warner Bros. fourth volume of Film Noir classics. And if you need any more proof of Carey's, ah, unique qualities, just check out his publicity still on IMDB.