by Steve on October 13th, 2010, 8:45 pm
It seems like Robert Redford was The Stud of Studs when I was a kid. All the women in the family oohed and cooed over his good looks and always flocked to see his movies. I largely dismissed him because I figured it was all about chick flicks and Redford's pretty boy image lacked any kind of substance.
I was a dopey kid.
I first thought there was more to Redford when I saw The Natural (1984). I loved baseball, and this was a film that the men of the family got together to watch. My best friend and I became fascinated with the movie, quoting it incessantly and burning Wonder Boy into our own baseball bats. But what stuck with me was the mysterious nature of Redford's Roy Hobbs character. Reporter Robert Duvall trying to peg this guy and all he got were oblique, non-committal responses. I liked Redford’s “everyman” persona. In that regard he was kind of like Gregory Peck. He wasn’t an arrogant hunk like I thought he was, and every performance I saw him in revealed a genuine, down-to-earth performer. He was always soft spoken in interviews and at least to me, seemed like a decent guy. He didn’t often appear in the tabloids, either.
When looking at his filmography, especially in the 1970s, there’s a wealth of classic films with fine, understated Redford performances: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Way We Were, The Hot Rock, The Candidate, Jeremiah Johnson, The Sting, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men and a number of other interesting projects.
I'm particularly fascinated with Three Days of the Condor (1975), which I caught the last twenty minutes of this morning. Seeing New York City circa 1975 was great and a world just unfamiliar enough for me to be fascinated with.
When people think of noted 1970s actors, I wonder if Redford comes to mind. Sure, he was popular and a box office draw, but do his performances get the same attention and adulation as Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, or Dustin Hoffman? Probably not. Still, I’d rank Redford up with the best of that 1970s era.
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