shadow of a pale horse (1960)

[miscellanium]

baby boy. baby

the "is this worth watching for lawrence dane" rating: 5/5

this is the role that launched his career. the apparent controversy over its content certainly helped, but he really does give a terrific performance here considering he would've been just 22 and still new to acting. (it was filmed in january of 1960, according to the director's account, and his 23rd birthday would have been that april.) he's a bit limited by the dire straits his character finds himself in, so he's not given a lot of substantial dialogue but when he needs to deliver real emotion then BOY does he deliver. also he is just so handsome here; when you combine this with his friend gordon pinsent describing him as "the Very Tall, Dark, and Ruggedly Handsome Lawrence Z. Dane" with a tendency to be "immediately drawn to the most beautiful girl in the room" when they were working together on another 1960 production, it's easy to believe he had plenty of luck with his flirting.

the other actors are good, especially the man who plays rigger (father of the man dane's character is accused of killing). it's a stage-y production because it is meant to be a televised play, and it's interesting seeing how theatrical styles and expectations have changed since the 1960s.

the plot: in a remote australian mining town during the 1800s, a man's son is found dead. near the body is a drunken young ex-convict named jem, played by dane. the boy's father wants to hang jem right then and there, but jem is defended by his boss and the father is persuaded to hold a trial instead. in an attempt to ensure fairness, jem's boss is assigned to prosecute him and his defense is left in the hands of the dead boy's father.

spoiler alert, jem is hanged. if the viewer wasn't already dismayed by the sense of injustice suggested throughout the play, dane's performance makes it pretty upsetting. this was the crux of the controversy - the show's sponsor, General Motors, felt that the scene was too graphic and pulled its sponsorship but the CBC decided to air the show anyway. all of the reviews at the time mention this and praise the CBC for pushing through.

however, the version i got from LAC includes the sponsorship! (i also had to do some editing because it was digitized with a couple scenes out of order somehow but anyway.) given the director's description of the filming, i think the LAC version was a slightly censored re-run. that said, being able to see, what, 99% of it is enough to make me agree with the reviewers who took notice of him. david macdonald wrote for the ottawa journal that "A group of Australian outlanders hanged a young Ottawa actor on television the other night and a star was born." he went on to quote the director paul almond saying "Larry Zahab is a very powerful actor. I have great hopes for him" and editorialized that "Indications are that Mr. Almond's hope has not been misplaced." gordon bell with the calgary albertan wrote that "The debut of young Ottawa actor Larry Zahab on the national TV scene marks the opening of a potentially fine acting career." i'd like to think they were both right, even if he didn't land very many leading-man roles.

and about the director's description of the filming.... according to a lengthy anecdote in almond's book "the inheritor", dane decided to pull the mother of all pranks and pretend that a harness malfunction led to him being well and truly hanged while this was being filmed essentially LIVE. talk about good method acting i guess?? i love what this tells us about him lol. becoming an actor certainly helped him get over his shyness quickly by any rate.

this is a crucial part of his filmography and personal history and i'm so glad i could finally witness it. in order to respect the agreement i signed with the CBC/LAC and not be blacklisted as a researcher, lol, i will not be hosting this anywhere online for now. please contact me if you are interested in viewing this production.

highlight: just look at those gorgeous eyes. wish it weren't fading in from another shot but still. beautiful man.

because this was his first major work i also wanted to include the title card and his credit!

he plays a very cute drunk.... would've liked to drink with him








chest hair.........










he is SO cute im gonna scream,, he always seems to genuinely have fun playing with kids whenever a role calls for it




yes i am thinking exactly what you might expect










Very Tall indeed... and he's not even fully upright here!! screaming white cat gif






the moment of the verdict :(










after he's brought to his feet and looks out the window at the gallows being built - it feels authentic especially because he doesn't shy away from "ugly" crying. if you didn't feel bad for his character earlier while watching this then you will now! same thing when he breaks down crying again a couple more times as this scene goes on :(


i do wonder if this was the director's idea or his own.... an effective way to communicate character either way

and that's the last we see of him before his support is pulled and he's hanged, not counting a shot of his shoes. very easy to see how he would've made a real splash with or without the sponsorship controversy. my partner wants me to mention how they think he sounded like zoolander in this because of the australian accent he was trying to do and 1) Thanks I Hate It and 2) none of the reviews i've found criticize his voice or accent. guess that didn't seem very important back then. i think he was fine lol since he was obviously going for a voice that sounded on the young&dumb side and it fits the character. but it is interesting to see how even his first big role is dogged by his apparently chronic inability to do convincing accents, haha.

accent aside, every time i watch this i have renewed appreciation for him as an actor and how he improved as he matured. it's a bit past the anniversary of his death (march 21) but i still wanted to celebrate his life in a fitting way, so if you read all the way to the end then thank you for appreciating him with me!

Comments

[mikithegreenkiwi]

What intrigued me the most about his performance were two things, that it was his first and the death scene (and I think it's kinda ironic that given that scene was so well played like most of his subsequentail parts had him die in a way or another).

Even if it felt a little acerb and raw in his performance, this play brought me to tears more than one time, because he really gave a lot. I think even if the story is pretty moving, without him playing Jem it wouldn't be the same, because it really worked right.

I still shake thinking about it, thinking about the tone of his voice and his expressions during the whole play.
and i am glad I embarked this journey in his cinematography, because I would've missed something that would've stayed with me for a long time.

[pendulumscale]

ty for including my zoolander comment lol. he wasn't criticized for it because zoolander wasn't around yet! tbf, many of the actors didn't have great accents, so he didn't dramatically stand out. the accent itself was okay, but you're right he was definitely going for young and dumb with his voice. i do think it's very funny that the two films you've rated so highly (aside from the short he's in where he really wants to fuck in the bathroom) end with him being tied up and killed lol. do you think there's a reason he came back to this sort of dramatic death scene for himself with his own production? i imagine you'd feel a little cheated as an actor to give it your all (and convincingly) only to have your performance cut!

[miscellanium]

that's a really good question! it is a very specific way of dying, especially in rituals - his is a pretty elaborate death scene compared to what the other characters get. if there's an interview out there where he revisits his experience with pale horse and/or talks specifically about his rituals death scene i haven't found it yet, but it's believable to me that they'd be related. he was clearly determined to keep trying for success, whatever the context; originally he was going to play the role of harry but (depending on the sources i've read) investors wanted a bigger name for the lead/he was persuaded he'd be better as mitzi, so i could see this being something where he decided that if he was going to be typecast into another a big death scene he'd make the most out of it, haha.