Thoughts on Edward G. Robinson

Pivotal American actor:

He is the first Hollywood actor along with Cagney to think deeper about roles - which is why Cagney/Robinson even top the "great actors" in their era (Muni/March/Tracy) for me. 

The idea of who was this character before the events in the movie take place, the idea of character backstory, arc, psychology that would later go into Bogart and specifically Garfield/Clift/Brando.

This is radical thinking about acting on film especially in that time - that a characters psychological make up influences the behavior in the script and how you show that behavior to an audience in a deeper way - ie not JUST playing sad, but sad out of something else that your character would be connected to. 

Love him and especially in Scarlett Street (1945) one of THE great American male performances (and films) of the pre-50s era and there's not a lot of them - not a lot like this character anyway .......

I did a little profile on him over in the Film/Stage/TV thread that isn't so great enough to repost....but I'll say I think he's an important actor who beat the matinee idol odds, and seemed a smart actor totally in control of what he was doing and knew how audiences viewed him. I find him better in, or at least I prefer, his "weaker" mixed up characters - Scarlet Street, Double Indemnity, and (underrated in) The Old Man Who Cried Wolf--only 70 minutes.

I completely disagree with this claim that Cagney/Robinson were the first Hollywood actors to think deeper about psychological realism or backstories in their approach. That's just revisionist nonsense, imho (maybe because their crime films have more lasting popularity). March and Muni, among others (like Robert Donat and especially Charles Laughton), put an incredible amount of time and detail into creating minute details for their characters, from a physical and psychological perspective, and were known for the amount of preparation they put into crafting a character (Muni was Marlon Brando's favorite actor, even though subsequent generations became less enamoured by Muni). These actors created diaries to craft backstories for their characters. Theirs was actually the "chameleon" approach favoured by some actors today like Daniel Day-Lewis or Gary Oldman, or yes, even Jared Leto. 

By contrast, Cagney and Robinson, while well regarded in their own right, we're seen more as "personality actors". Guys who brought their personalities and star quality to each role (and that star quality is one of the reasons they arguably have a stronger legacy than March, who was easily as physcholically complex an actor as both, if not moreso. But March made the mistake of seeming like a completely different guy in each role, which made it harder for people to identify what a "Frederic March performance" was). Cagney was hired to be Cagney. Robinson was hired to be Robinson, for the most part. Though each knew how to subvert expectations of their screen personas to bring something different in characterisations. I'm sure they put in work into the characters and had instinctive talent, but they weren't the first to think about anything, imho. Same for Bogart. They were just good actors and definitely more charasmatic movie stars than most of their peers.

What aided the more lasting popularity of actors like Cagney, Bogart (and to a lesser extent Robinson) wasn't them being acting revolutionaries who had a greater grasp of "psychological realism" than their peers in that era....it was the fact they they become heavily identified and associated with a single genre (Crime/Gangster/Noir) that endlessly fascinates audiences across generations, in a way some of their arguably more sophisticated acting peers didn't. It's telling that even with Muni, the only films of his that even cinephiles today might have some interest in are his two 1932 Crime films, Scarface and I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang. In hindsight, from a legacy point of view, it was a big mistake for Muni to almost completely abandon the genre after those films. March was probably a better and more psychologically sophisticated actor than all of them, yet never played in Crime/Gangster flicks and is all but forgotten by audiences today, despite winning two Best Actor Oscars.

Anyway, Robinson was always a fine actor and character star (I dunno, I guess his equivalent today would be someone like Christopher Walken or Samuel L Jackson).. His manner and delivery is very much of it's time, so I don't think he'd translate well for a lot of modern/younger audiences outside some of the more classic noirs he's in like Double Indemnity, but he was always watchable. 

I love the guy!! Imo he was one of the most underrated actors of the golden era.

He could do drama, action movies, comedy... Pretty much everything! In his most famous films he had supporting parts and as a result he got overshadowed by his (major stars) leading actors (Cagney, Bogart, MacMurray etc).

Great clip........