One of the Greats. And Sylvester Stallone.
Golden Globe and Tony Award winner, and multiple time Emmy nominee, Brian Dennehy has passed at 81, and the actor that Pauline Kael in her February 24th, 1986 review of F/X called “the kind of actor John Wayne would be if he was an actor” is getting deserved respect far and wide, as his theater and television work playing Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, his film work in First Blood, Cocoon, Tommy Boy and many others. His beefiness could be used for menace but it could also be all sensitivity, and he showed considerable wit in F/X and Silverado. I want to speak off the cuff of a few deeper cuts in Dennehy’s repertoire.
Early Dennehy turns I was exposed to by the fabled WHT!
While many are rightly naming First Blood as his breakout role, we knew Dennehy early in our household, as my dad loved him as the sympathetic Club Med bartender listening to Dudley Moore whine about his marriage and strategize how to seduce Bo Derek in Blake Edwards’ 10, and I still remember his memorable turn as a heavy in Walter Matthau’s Little Miss Marker, co-starring Tony Curtis, Julie Andrews and Bob Newhart, one a major film and one quite minor, but both of which were in regular rotation on Wometco Home Theater back in those days.
Everyone remembers Bo Derek from 10, But I remember Dennehy.
Dennehy overpowering Newhart and Curtis in Little Miss Marker.
Neither those nor a memorable turn around that time in Michael Ritchie’s Semi-Tough that I caught up with later are necessarily where you should go tonight to pay respect to one of our great character actors, although they are all solid character parts. I wish to bring up a few later works you may/may not be aware of.
“Best Seller” Good disreputable fun.
BEST SELLER — Directed by John (Rolling Thunder) Flynn and written by high-concept legend Larry Cohen, BEST SELLER is one of those crazy baroque and occasionally silly Cohen thrillers involving a best-selling author played by Dennehy who gets caught up with a sociopathic hit man played by James Woods who wants him to write his life story. It doesn’t wholly hang together, but its shopworn parts are kept humming by two ace mechanics in Dennehy and Woods. Woods gives one of his terrifically feral performances, and Dennehy gives it some dimension, some credible emotion and realism. It’s a lot of fun.
LAST OF THE FINEST — A conventional L.A. cop film, looking better in the rear-view mirror because they don’t make conventional cop films so much anymore, and because a solid director, John Mackenzie (who made a true classic, the British crime flick The Long Good Friday with Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren) worked with an excellent who’s-who-of-late-80s-character-actors cast, with Dennehy getting a rare lead: Joe Pantoliano, Jeff Fahey, and Bill Paxton all give able support. A serviceable flick, and that’s not meant in the pejorative. Action, drama, some cliches, and a chance for Dennehy to be front and center.
The Belly of the Architect.
THE BELLY OF THE ARCHITECT — The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (remember that? it was a solid mid-level art-house hit around 1988) was made by notorious, committed-to-his-vision filmmaker Peter Greenaway. A couple years before it he gave Dennehy another lead as an architect whose health and marriage deteriorate while he’s in Rome. Definitely an art film about alienation and mortality, and not for all tastes, it nevertheless is a showcase for a major Dennehy performance, again in a lead, showcasing his versatility. Put him in Europe with a self-serious auteur or in a fistfight with Sylvester Stallone, Dennehy could do it all.
 INDIO — this one is kind of junky, an Italian action flick that I’m just pointing out because it is the flip-side of Architect. Those who like seeing Americans taking paychecks to work in low-budget euro-genre flicks will enjoy Dennehy take his turn at bat, somehow getting lower billing than boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler on the poster! I hope the check paid for an in-ground pool at Dennehy’s nice Malibu spread or something.
 This still bleeds intensity.
SPLIT IMAGE — First Blood director Ted Kotcheff made this underrated movie about trying to deprogram a young man brainwashed by a cult, which was overshadowed at the time by art house success Ticket to Heaven with Nick Mancuso. But this holds up, with a superior cast including Miles O’Keefe (Great Santini and Caddyshack) as the troubled young man, Dennehy and Elizabeth Ashley as his distraught parents, Peter Fonda as the charismatic cult leader, and James Woods again showing up on a Dennehy set to play the deprogrammer. Kotcheff could make some turkeys, but he’s an underrated director who has directed several excellent films in many genres, including Wake in Fright, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, North Dallas 40, Uncommon Valor, Weekend at Bernie’s, and, yes, the original First Blood.
I’ll just add that Dennehy’s scenes in Righteous Kill with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are a guilty pleasure; the film is crap, but as they gave the two leads enough money to show up in this craptastic cop thriller, playing active street detectives despite both being around 70 at the time, they had to find someone older, bigger, and talented enough that he cold convincingly play a captain who could chew their asses out. Sure enough, Brian Dennehy was the man they called, and De Niro and Pacino wake up and actually get a spark going with him in their few scenes together.
(Left to right.) Robert De Niro, Brian Dennehy and Al Pacino star in Overture Films’ RIGHTEOUS KILL.
As Stallone, the star of First Blood, of course, tweeted today, “the world has lost a great artist.”
R.I.P. Brian Dennehy. Even in the middle of a prolonged crisis, this news stands out. We miss you already.
Brian Dennehy, 1938-2020: Some Non-Rambo Choices to Watch this Week Golden Globe and Tony Award winner, and multiple time Emmy nominee, Brian Dennehy has passed at 81, and the actor that Pauline Kael in her February 24th, 1986 review of…
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