Tag Archives: James Caan

Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Memories & History, Pleasures, Television

James Caan: His 10 Toughest, Funniest and Most Unforgettable Roles – Rolling Stone

From ‘El Dorado’ to ‘Elf’ — the very best of the late, great ‘Godfather’ star

By David Fear & Alan Sepinwall, July 7, 2022

James Caan in a scene from ‘The Godfather.’
Paramount Pictures/CBS/ Getty Images

He was tough, he was sexy, and he was one of the most charismatic movies stars of the 1970s — he was James Caan, your go-to guy when you wanted someone who could be flinty yet charming, smooth yet volatile.

A Bronx-born, Queens-raised actor who claimed he was the “only New York Jewish cowboy,” the former Michigan State football player got bit by the acting bug when he transferred to Hofstra University, and was already making the bit-player rounds on TV shows (Dr. Kildare, Combat!, Route 66, The Alfred Hitchcock Show) in the early ’60s.

After director Howard Hawks cast him in two movies — Red Line 7000 (1965) and El Dorado (1966) — Caan started to attract attention as the next big up-and-comer. It wasn’t until the one-two punch of a TV movie about a gridiron hero and Paramount picture based on a bestseller about gangsters, respectively, that he became a bona fide star.

Even when he showed up in his later years, usually as a crusty old guy for added color or the human embodiment of AARP-age machismo, Caan was still the kind of performer who stopped you dead in your tracks.

Source: James Caan: His 10 Toughest, Funniest and Most Unforgettable Roles – Rolling Stone

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Memories & History, Television

Michael Mann, Kathy Bates React to James Caan’s Death – Variety

By Carson Burton, July 7, 2022

Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Michael Mann and Kathy Bates have both shared tributes to “The Godfather” and “Misery” star James Caan, who died on Wednesday at 82 years old.

“What a terrible and tragic loss,” Mann wrote in a statement to Variety. “Jimmy was not just a great actor with total commitment and a venturesome spirit, but he had a vitality in the core of his being that drove everything from his art and friendship to athletics and very good times. There was a core of values within him about how people should be, more or less. It might be variable, the corners could be rounded with urban irony, but there was a line and it was non-fungible. And it produced many outrageous and hilarious anecdotes.

“Mann and Caan worked together on the 1991 crime film “Thief.” Caan starred as Frank, a highly skilled jewel thief and safe cracker. The movie was Mann’s first feature film, kicking off a long and successful career in Hollywood.

See also: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083190/

Source: Michael Mann, Kathy Bates React to James Caan’s Death – Variety

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Pleasures

The Godfather at 50: James Caan, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire Reminisce – The Hollywood Reporter

James Caan, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire and John Martino talk Marlon Brando, including his acting trick that screwed the rest of them up; bitterness over a cut scene; nailing a dangerous moment in one take; and a loathing for cannolis; among much more.

By Ryan Parker, March 21, 2022

‘The Godfather’ has been ranked several times as among the greatest motion pictures ever made. Everettl Collection

James Caan was so mad that Francis Ford Coppola cut one of his beefier scenes from The Godfather, he walked out of a screening.

Fifty years later, he’s still irked.Based on the best-selling book by the late Mario Puzo, The Godfather debuted in theaters on March 24, 1972.

Immediately receiving universal acclaim, the Paramount Pictures film was, for a period, the highest-grossing movie of all time, hauling in $243.8 million worldwide, which adjusted for inflation equals $1.6 billion.

Novice Italian American director Coppola, then 32, helmed the Mafia picture for producer Albert S. Ruddy; tales of its uphill production, fraught with one issue after another — such as casting the brilliant, but notoriously difficult Marlon Brando — are so epic, they’re getting a limited series treatment on Paramount+ titled The Offer.

Source: The Godfather at 50: James Caan, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire Reminisce – The Hollywood Reporter

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Film & Movies, Memories & History

Robert Duvall, James Caan on 50th Anniversary of ‘The Godfather’ – Variety

By Brent Lang, Mar 22, 2022 9:49am PT

Everett Collection

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been 50 years since Francis Ford Coppola’s”The Godfather” made moviegoers an offer they couldn’t refuse.

The film was a sensation when it debuted in March 24, 1972, setting box office records, revitalizing the career of Marlon Brando, launching the likes of Al Pacino, Robert Duvall and James Caan onto the A-list, and scoring an Oscar for Best Picture.

But things could have gone very differently. Coppola, an up-and-coming director tasked with bringing Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel to the screen, was hardly the studio’s first choice for the task (Paramount production chief Robert Evans preferred Costa-Gavras).

And things didn’t improve when cameras started rolling, with Paramount openly flirting with firing the filmmaker at several key points.

Source: Robert Duvall, James Caan on 50th Anniversary of ‘The Godfather’ – Variety