29 thoughts on “Karl Malden Movies”

1. Added Steve’s Karl Malden You Tube Video to the page. Our thoughts found on his video channel are found below.

   I guessed correctly. I have seen 16 of the movies listed here and 19 when looking at our Karl Malden page. Good video. Malden is an actor whose television career out shadowed his movie career. His movie career on the above video shows he had a very impressive movie career as well. Favorites would include #1 On The Waterfront, #4 The Gunfighter, #9 Cincy Kid and #14 Nevada Smith. I was sad that Beyond the Poseidon Adventure did not make the cut. Voted up and shared at UMR.

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   1. Hi Bruce, yes it saddened me too leaving out the Michael Caine classic ‘Beyond the Poseidon Adventure’ from this list, plans to make a further sequel ‘Curse of the Poseidon Adventure’ were abandoned after Beyond failed to break box office records.

      Your tally 16, mine 15 and Flora out in front with 22. Thanks as always for the vote, share and comment.

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2. Karl and Brando were great friends and in effect a two-man ‘mutual admiration society’. Malden nicknamed Marlon “The Boy Wonder”; and when Brando came to make One Eyed Jacks he vetoed the Paramount executives’ intention to cast Tracy in the part of Dad Longworth and gave the role to Karl. Marlon could do that because his own production company Pennebaker [so called after his mother’s maiden name] made One Eyed Jacks with Paramount the distributors. Marlon had installed his father as the head of Pennebaker Productions

   Anyway I don’t think the Tracy/Brando teaming would ultimately ever have happened. I don’t know what Marlon thought of Spence; but Tracy hated Brando with an intensity that probably only Old Cantankerous was capable of. Also neither at that stage of his career would have surrendered top billing [regardless of what Doubting Thomases like The Work Horse think big stars like Spence and The Great Mumbler were fanatical about their billing]. As it tuned out indeed Karl was excellent as Dad. STEVE: Please see the minature above of the Streetcar quartet that WH has provided. I have told you before that when even off-screen and/or in informal setting stars who have worked together tend to stand in the order of their billing for the movie [s]!

   UNRELARED TRIVIA-JASON STATHAM’s “PARKER”
   Watching that I was reminded of Danny Kaye in 1947’s The Secret Life of Stevie Mitty. Mitty fantasises that, severely wounded, he is sailing a ship to safety by grappling with its huge steering wheel. The heroine worries that in his condition he will kill himself. “Don’t worry,” he assures her “I’ve just got a broken arm.”

   Critics at the time concluded that the sketch was a friendly send-up of the big action heroes of those days like The Duke, Laddie, Power and Flynn. However the fadeout of Parker reminded me as well of my Jimmy’s It’s a Wonderful Life because the movie concludes with one of the characters thinking that maybe that mega killing machine, Jace, is an angel who has been send down to do good on earth!
   Listings are in Parts 2 and 3.

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3. HI FLORA

   Glad I could pass on to you a story about one of our mutual idols.

   He certainly must have been popular among his fellow actors to be able to get that diverse dinner party together!

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4. Hey Bob…..well…..Joel did give about a third of Brando’s performances a 4 star rating…..so you would think Brando would have had those movies in the collection. If only the internet would have around back in Joel’s days. I am sure instead of hearing how a movie is “certified fresh”…EVERYBODY would have been saying…..the movie is “certified hirschhorn”…..lol.

   Glad our Malden page (1) let you and Flora share some thoughts and (2) brought some light on Mr. Widmark. Good feedback as always.

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   1. HI BRUCE

      Giving about 1/3 of Marlon’s performances 4 stars is not too bad actually considering that Brando was like the little girl in the nursery rhyme who “when she was good she was very, very good but when she was bad she was horrid”! – he certainly made a lot of bummers as well as classics.

      However 1/3 is about 12 and I’m sure that some actors would kill to be recognised for around a dozen 4 star performances and anyway Brando demonstrated an enormous capacity to survive gigantic flops [though I have always paid tribute to your site for demonstrating that the extent of some of those flops was exaggerated and a film historian on the radio argued that some of them did turn a small profit for their studios so you seemed to have reflected that in your stats. A couple of Garbo’s movie for which you record ab adjusted domestic gross of just $40 million were also profitable according to Wiki because of low costs].

      As Frasier’s father Martin Crane expressed it when he was explaining to Roz Doyle why her dog should not be allowed to jump up in furniture whereas Martin’s “special” dog Eddie [and maybe Asta!] deserved that privilege “The great ones always live by their OWN rules. Babe Ruth held his bat in way that the experts disapproved of!”

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5. HI BRUCE Yes your Malden page had lots of nostalgic links for me. Not only did Marlon and Karl become mates when they appeared on stage together in the late forties in Streetcar*** but Karl was also great friends with my Richard.

   I’ve told this story before [and it should interest Flora too]. Widmark arranged a private dinner party for four the other 3 being Karl, Marlon and Sir Sean Connery. The latter two had expressed an interest I meeting each other and Karl set it up via his pal Richard. Sean and Brando got into a drinking competition and ended up on their ear so that Widmark [apparently a teetotaler] had to arrange for them to be carted off in a taxi at the end of the evening. I’m sure Ollie Reed would loved to haven been invited to that circus!

   I think that I’ve also mentioned before that Paramount wanted Tracy for the part of Dad Longworth in 1961’s One Eyed Jacks but Brando who had massive clout at least at the start of the 60s insisted upon and got his pal Karl. It probably would not have worked between Marlon and Spence anyway because the latter loathed The Great Mumbler and it’s difficult to see Brando taking to a cantankerous guy like Tracy.

   However I have always been tortured by the unsolved mystery of who would have got top billing in a Tracy/Brando flick. AFI recognizes both as Top 10 Legends but Marlon was more prominent as a star in the 1950s whilst on the other hand Tracy yielded to no man in respect of billing – not even the Great Bogie.

   I like your miniature from One Eyed Jacks and the posed one of the 4 Streetcar performers. You will notice that the 4 are placed in the precise order of their billing in the movie [and there are guys on this site who try to tell me that billing doesn’t matter!]. ***By the way for another good miniature of Karl and ole Mumbles in action in Streetcar on stage Google if you wish “Brando takes Broadway, on the Set of Streetcar Named Desire 1947.” At first I thought it was not Marlon but Jason Statham or The Rock who was in action! Hope the teaching and new tasks are going well for Team Cogerson

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   1. Thanks for relaying the story of Richard Widmark’s party. I was not familiar with that story. Widmark was indeed a teetotaler. He drank a lot of milk.

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