21 thoughts on “Robert Preston Movies”

1. HI STEVE Please see below exchanges of posts between WH and me about Robert Preston. They are a hard act to follow but on reflection I should not have said that Robert “never reached Ladd’s HEIGHTS in stardom” – my son would not approve!

   Overall the POSTERS that pleased me most are (1) Island of Love (2) a brilliant set for Typhoon (3) foreign language one for Best of the Badmen (4) both ones for North West Mounted Police (5) Reap the Wild Wind (6) Wake Island (7) All the Way Home (8) Dark at the Top of the Stairs (9) 1st one for How the West was Won (10) 1st one for Music Man (11) Child’s Play [Robert inherited that part only because the Great Mumbler withdrew from the movie] (12) final one for The Music Man and last but not least (13) first-class ones for Laddie’s Wild Harvest, Whispering Smith and This Gun for Hire.

   My pick of STILLS (1) Robert/Lamour in Typhoon (2) with Stanwyck and Stephen McNally (3) Robert with Lamour and Preston Foster (4) a nostalgic film magazine cover for North West Mounted Police (5) The Last Starfighter (6) Robert with my Greg and Joan Bennett (7) with McQueen (8) Robert alone with Lake (9) Robert with the iconic Ladd/Lake team (10) Victor/Victoria (11) very raunchy lobby card for Moon Over Burma and (12) lobby card for Union Pacific.

   Your Preston video is well worth a 98% rating in my book. IMDB credits Robert with 6 acting awards and 6 nominations. His nickname was “Pres”. You and WH have almost a Top 6 full house for critical review as you agree on 5 out of the 6. The Work Horse has Ladd’s Wild Harvest in his 6 whereas you have Dark at the Top of the Stairs and although you both have This Gun for Hire I’ll give you no prizes for guessing which of you two is my hero on this occasion though Dark at Top of Stairs was a respectable choice and Preston was great in it. [“As a travelling salesman I was determined to be not just liked everywhere I went – but WELL liked!”-Ruben Flood]

   Reply

   1. Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info and comparison, much appreciated.

      Glad you liked the posters, stills, lobby cards and Alan Ladd collection. 😉

      Preston’s signature role seems to be The Music Man, I haven’t seen it. But I did enjoy his “old queen with a head cold” in Victor Victoria, to quote his character.

      It’s been a few years since I last watched a short season of 40s Ladd noir and think it’s time to give them another spin starting with This Gun for Hire. This time I want to pay more attention at how the director and cinematographer worked round his lack of height. I’m 6ft and my brothers are tall too, if ‘noir Ladd’ walked into a room with us he would probably look like a school boy. It’s not just Ladd, Audie Murphy and Charles Chaplin were even shorter.

      Only one Robert Preston film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources and that was Beau Geste (1939). But there are 6 scoring 9 out of 10 including How the West Was Won, The Music Man, Dark at the Top of the Stairs and Victor Victoria.

      Beau Geste tops the charts at IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.

      “I’d get the best role in every B picture and the second best in the A pictures.”

      “Loretta Young worked with a full-length mirror behind the camera. I didn’t know which Loretta to play to — the one in the mirror or the one that was with me.”

      “I loved working with Gary Cooper. People refer to Cooperisms and Cooper tricks, but I always found him to be a tremendous actor.”

      Reply

      1. Thanks for the feedback on my Preston post including the additional information and quotes. I need make only a few additional points of my own-

         1/Some observers say that Laddie sets were so packed with props and machines to enhance or camouflage his true height that they were a health and safety hazard, and also time-consuming, to navigate. However especially nowadays many movies depend on special effects and/or optical illusions to a large degree so that what matters is the audience’s perception of the finished product, and given that few of Ladd’s film apparently ever lost money audiences must have been highly satisfied with HIS finished product. In 1948 a poll of moviegoers found him to be the most popular movie star in the world among young people and women. Accordingly it didn’t matter in the end that “magician” Laddie was hiding his “tricks”.

         2/Ironically immediately after watching a television rerun of the Joel McCrea/Barbara Stanwyck/Robert Preston 1939 Union Pacific I switched over to The News and learned that Joel had died just an hour earlier aged 84 on 20 Oct 1990.

         3/Anyway if you do revisit a few Ladd movies let me know your thoughts.

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         1. Good post Bob, thanks. I wonder if audiences back then knew he was shorter than average? Maybe it wasn’t so obvious. He was probably wearing lifts in his shoes to add a couple of inches, I’ve heard that Tom Cruise does.

            I’ll let you know when I start watching them, I’ll post a running commentary.

            Kidding. I did that once on my forum as a joke when I was watching Lawrence of Arabia for the umpteenth time, it went something like this with mostly one or two word posts –

            “okay guys… there’s Lawrence… I think… there’s someone on that camel… sand…. camel…. sand… ‘orance… sand… camel… Omar… camel… sand… more sand… Omar… ‘orance…. sand… camel…”

            post after post until they begged me to stop. 🙂

            Reply

            1. HI STEVE

               I liked your 2 pm post.

               In fact I had meant to say that Charles Bronson in real life was relatively short for a Hollywood hero at around 5 ft 8″, and in the 1958 western Showdown at Boot Hill the lead character that Charlie played although a tough guy had an inferiority complex about his height according to production notes that were released in 1958 and picked up by one reviewer at the time.

               I note that you are around 6ft but to paraphrase Spencer Tracy when Katie Hepburn who didn’t like him at their first meeting chided him with being shorter than she was when she wore high heels, Spence being just 2 inches taller than Katie “Don’t worry – Laddie would have soon cut you down to his size, Steve!”

2. Just added Steve’s Robert Preston video to our Preston UMR page. Our thoughts on his video and Mr. Preston.

   “Robert Preston…..ah….beat you to the punch on him….did my Preston page years and years ago…thinking 1983 or 1984 not really sure since it has been so long ago. #27 Semi-Tough…decent football movie…but no North Dallas Forty. #19 S.O.B…..liked it years ago…but trailer looks very dated today #18 The Last Frontier…one of the few bad guy roles for him. #17 The Lady Gambles….he has a thankless role in that one #14 The Last Starfighter…fun movie…just re-visted a couple months ago. #11 Reap The Wild Wind…one of Wayne’s biggest box office hits #10 Junior Bonner…saw it…but do not really remember it #5 This Gun For Hire…made Alan Ladd a star. #4 HTWWW….looks awesome on Blu-Ray #3 Victor/Victoria…one of his best roles #2 The Music Man…one of the highest rated movies in our database. Tally is 11….one more than one tally count at UMR. Voted up and shared.”

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   1. Hi Bruce, yep I’m catching up on your past UMR subjects and you’ve still got plenty of my video subjects for future UMR consideration, what are you waiting for? 😉

      I agree How the West Was Won looked gorgeous on blu-ray, I wish I had a bigger screen! The Last Starfighter is an old 80s favorite of mine, the first film to use computer effects for space ships, planets and space battles though they’ve obviously quickly dated since release. I enjoyed the performances and music too.

      Thanks for the comment, vote and share, always appreciated.

      Reply

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