Carl Brisson, Master of Nuance

The many faces of Danish songster Carl Brisson, as seen in Alfred Hitchcock’s THE MANXMAN ~

Joy.

Elation.

Doubt.

Querulousness.

Despair.

Fury.

He is a happy chappie. I mock, and quite unfairly, for in fact Mr. Brisson has plenty of range. He just tends to play joyousness with a certain bouncing-on-the-couch dementedness. It’s easy to see why he didn’t work with Hitch again after this film — his yumping yiminy accent (as heard in MURDER AT THE VANITIES) would make him hard to cast, and he was probably sick of having his love interest abscond with other, sallower and pudgier men  — yet it’s equally easy to see his appeal. A bit like Frank Borzage’s main man Charles Farrell, Brisson is strapping, hearty and handsome, in marked contrast to the anaemic circus geeks, choleric bachelors and dyspeptic couch potatoes who made up most of British cinema’s leading players.

The tendency, which continued well into the ’40s and ’50s, was to cast successful stage actors in lead roles, regardless of whether they had pleasing physiognomies, athletic builds, or the ability to play cinematically. On the plus side, this meant that marvellous screen presences like Roger Livesey and Alec Guinness would get major roles which a more glamour-centric industry might have denied them. On the minus side, we got a veritable gallery of goats, feebs and bloaters uglifying our screens with their oiled hair and overbites. It’s incredible to think, at this distance, that all of the actors below were once considered leading man material ~

Again with the exaggerations! But it’s kind of true.

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