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Friday, September 13, 2013

Survey Question, now illustrated! (NSFW): Do you know who Burt Lancaster is?

Recognize this guy? *

OK, so, if you've been reading this blog, you know who Burt Lancaster is, 
or did you before? Anyway, for the previews I'll be writing,
I'm wondering whether people in general could answer this question:

WHO IS BURT LANCASTER?

Follow up question:

If you know who Burt Lancaster is, 
what do you know about him? 
Like, for instance, what image comes to mind? 
***
Please, ask your friends and family and strangers on the street 
and let me know!

(My sense is that he is less well-known than I'd thought.) 

* Up top: Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer (1968).

Below: Burt protecting his modesty (from Lee Remick) in The Hallelujah Trail (1965).
 

As for full-frontal pix, you can see them at the Village Voice. Yeah, NSFW, but pretty mild by today's standards.
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12 comments:

  1. Laura BSeptember 12, 2013 at 9:04 PM

    Okay, here's my maybe not typical idea of Burt: he was a 50's Hollywood star, was in "From Here to Eternity" in famous beach scene, & was kind of a rough-hewn, poor man's Richard burton, in fact I even think he was English, though I have no reason to think so. And do't know if any of that is true.
    Will ask others if I get a chance!

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  2. FrescaSeptember 13, 2013 at 1:22 PM

    Thanks, Laura: "a poor man's Burton" is great! Nope, he's American, but the way he's known for his voice seems English-y to me, like Burton or Dirk Bogarde.
    The beach scene! The beach scene! If he did nothing else, that was enough.

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  3. momoSeptember 13, 2013 at 4:57 PM

    the Crimson Pirate! Trapeze! Il Gattopardo! that thing on the beach! Atlantic City! I always think of Burt Lancaster with an exclamation point.

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  4. deannaSeptember 13, 2013 at 6:03 PM

    Back to blogging after a yard sale at our home and trip to the beach, I happened in here and tried to recall which movie I first saw Mr. Lancaster in. He is definitely familiar, and I've seen the scene on the beach many times. Was he, by chance, in "The Robe"? Do you know? I should look it up; think I'll go do that now (and check more of your posts about him).

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  5. deannaSeptember 13, 2013 at 6:12 PM

    It wasn't "The Robe"; it was "Jim Thorpe - All American". The first movie I recall watching with him as the star. It left a dramatic impression on a very young me, because of the injustices the main character received.

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  6. ZhoenSeptember 13, 2013 at 9:15 PM

    I really had to look him up to figure it out. I remember the Halleluia Trail. But then, I hardly ever know an actor by name.

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  7. MarzSeptember 14, 2013 at 2:14 PM

    I had no idea who Burt Lancaster was. From the name, I might've guessed a British transit hero of some kind, like a historically important bus driver.

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  8. binkSeptember 14, 2013 at 11:27 PM

    I know him from the beach scene-- though I didn't realized that was him for a long time. My memories of him are mostly from westerns I watched on TV as a kid, though none of them were memorable enough to remember anything about them, like their titles or his characters.

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  9. EevaSeptember 16, 2013 at 2:25 PM

    My first memory of Burt Lancaster is from one of his last movies, The Phantom of the Opera. I was about twelve when I saw it and don't actually remember much about it - he was just "that old guy" - but his name became familiar to me then. Pretty soon after that I must've learned about the beach scene - the still image seemed to be in every history of cinema I skimmed through in the 90s. That made me think he's up there with the most famous American actors, though I've never personally cared much about him – he seems a bit boring. I've seen From Here to Eternity just a few years ago – though the memory was fuzzy until I watched it halfway through today - and I must have seen him in O.K. Corral and Novecento, too, but so far The Birdman of Alcatraz is the only one I both like and remember specifically as a ”Burt Lancaster movie”.

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  10. FrescaSeptember 16, 2013 at 2:35 PM

    THANK YOU, everybody!!!
    This is all interesting and helpful to me:
    of course all these old movies have already been written about many times, so I'm looking for some personal angles...

    Including that a lot of people I've been asking don't know who B.L. is.



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  11. BookwormSeptember 19, 2013 at 6:35 AM

    Trapeze is the film I remember him in. It was one of those films that showed a lot in the UK on Bank Holidays (like Ben Hur or El Sid). I remember watching it several times. I remember finding Burt serious and a little scary as a character - pushing his will on the people around him. I didn't like his character, but the tone of his performance stayed with me.

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  12. FrescaSeptember 19, 2013 at 10:01 AM

    "Trapeze" is one of the movies that'll be shown--I've never seen it. You know Burt was in the circus as a young man, so he could really do all that stuff.

    Of the other movies mentioned, only "Birdman of Alcatraz" and "From Here to Eternity"are part of the retrospective.

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