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Friday, January 15, 2010

Favorites Friday - Vaughn roles

I apologize for the late post today.  I try to set up the posts before I go to bed at night, but it slipped my mind last night.

Since this has been a fairly McCallum-centric week, I thought today's topic should be about Robert Vaughn.  Besides Napoleon Solo, does anyone have another favorite television or movie Robert Vaughn role?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

HI i enjoyed Robert Vaughn both in Hustle tv series and the early 80s mini-series Backstairs at the White House

Unknown said...

I loved Vaughn's turns in THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS, THE PROTECTORS and in a quite out-of-date chestnut called UNWED MOTHER.

His scene in THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS just after he has had his arm amputated in a field hospital in Korea and Newman's character comes to visit him not yet knowing this is understatedly tragic. Vaughn is brilliant in showing this young man as attempting to shrug this all off with brave nonchalance, yet under it all is the terror as to what kind of life he honestly has to go back to as a handicapped vet. He last line to Newman in that scene of "I'll be so alone" is just heartbreaking. And the famous jail scene later when he had been accused of murder, yet can't remember anything that happened, is a classic.

Harry Rule in THE PROTECTORS was a characterization of Vaughn's I definitely enjoyed as well. Though RV himself complained that there was too little meat in the scripts for him to capably grasp the character, I found he did a wonderful job of doing just that. Despite the fact the short scripts so handicapped character development, Harry nevertheless came off as a very intriguing human being.

UNWED MOTHER is one of those 50s cautionary morality tales, yet Vaughn's portrayal of the unwed mom's baby daddy in this limited-view piece is not quite the expected. His character, a smooth operator who refers to his 50ish landlady as various Greek goddesses to keep her goodwill, yet comes across as a desperate young man. He is unsure how to make his life work other than preying on woman for money and position. Usually older women. The young girl he seduces is something a bit different in his usual operations book. And though she of course in the end rebuffs him, his last scene where he has agreed to marry the girl to stay out of jail, nevertheless reveals his confusion as to why he involved himself in such a relationship (with little benefit to himself) to begin with. Sure, he coaxes money out of her, but the older women he generally sought offered him much more in the way of material benefit. And in point of fact his relationship with the young girl cost him his job and and "side benefits" he had enjoyed from an older female boss. Still, for all his callous bravado, he was a scared young guy who accounted himself entirely alone and thus had to "make do" for himself however he could.

Unfortunately I have never seen Vaughn's Emmy winning TV role in WASHINGTON BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. It's impossible to get on DVD and of course it hasn't run anywhere on TV in years. If anyone knows of a DVD release for this somewhere, I would appreciate you letting me know.

Benzadmiral said...

"The Young Philadelphians," of course; his performance as the bitter, sarcastic Chet, even before he loses the arm and is accused of murder, is a winner. And "The Mind of Mr. Soames"! I saw it all of once, ca. 1974, on late night TV. It's a good science fiction film in which, most unusually, RV wears a beard. (I admit it inspired me to grow the facial pelt I've worn off and on since '75!)

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