Simon alongside other actors

I’ve been pondering on what my next topic should be. I at last decided that perhaps I would highlight some of my favorite performances Simon made alongside other actors I especially like and/or actors who were quite in the big time—as well as bemoaning the lack of interaction between them in some cases where they appear in the same production but had no scenes together.

As mentioned repeatedly by both of us but especially by Crystal Rose, there is Simon and Darren McGavin. It would be sacrilege not to bring up their amazing chemistry! Crystal speaks of it so well I doubt I could ever hope to do better, but I want to add my voice to how wonderful their time together is. The strength, or at least one of the strengths, of Kolchak: The Night Stalker is their characters’ interaction. There must have been a reason why Simon was called back to play Tony again and again after the initial Night Stalker movie, first in The Night Strangler sequel and then in the TV series proper. No one else could bring that character to life as incredibly as did Simon.

I also greatly enjoy seeing Simon appear alongside Steve Ihnat, in their guest-spot from The F.B.I. Steve was an amazing actor we lost even sooner then we lost Simon. I first became acquainted with him through his performance in The Outer Limits and from there began to deliberately seek out other things he appeared in. I was excited to discover that he and Simon had worked together! Their characters are close friends and their scene, described in detail in my post for The Maze episode, is a joy to watch. Steve and Simon have appeared together other times too, including in the rare series The Name of the Game. I wish I could locate that series, for that reason among others!

In The Outer Limits Simon has several scenes of interaction with Don Gordon. Aside from this episode, I have only seen Don in another venture of The Outer Limits and in the movie Bullitt, which also featured Simon. He is a good actor and I enjoy stumbling across him while watching things.

Bullitt brought Simon in contact with two very well-known actors: Steve McQueen and Robert Vaughn. As the boss of Steve McQueen’s character, Simon portrays a gruff and serious police captain of the highest level of integrity. He trusts Frank Bullitt and tries to allow him the leeway he needs to bring the bad guys to justice. And he refuses to give Robert Vaughn’s character the time of the day when he’s tempted to play politics. Simon only has a handful of scenes in the film, but they’re very memorable. Simon was deliberately chosen for the role by the director, and it’s very easy to see why.

In West Side Story Simon has a scene where he interacts with both Natalie Wood and Rita Moreno. It’s one of my favorites, where we see his character Lieutenant Schrank doing a better job of keeping himself composed than he does when dealing with the teen gangs.

I wish there had been more of him interacting with his apparent police partner, Sergeant Krupke (played by William Bramley). Actually, he only addresses one or two lines to Krupke throughout the film and they have two silent scenes together. Interestingly enough, I think their first silent scene says more about both of them than it might have if they had spoken. It’s only a few seconds long, set during the Tonight Quintet sequence. Krupke is driving, looking for the gangs to try to stop the impending rumble. Schrank is going for a cigarette, agitated. Krupke gives him a worried glance. Their obvious concern shows how deeply they care about the kids and don’t want them to get hurt, a very different image than what they usually seem to project when they’re interacting with said kids. It takes really good actors to make a silent scene come off so well.

One of my earliest encounters with Simon is in Susan Hayward’s intense vehicle I Want to Live! Playing real-life reporter Ed Montgomery, he documents the arrest and trial of Barbara Graham. Although initially he believes her to be guilty of the murder she’s accused of committing, he comes to feel that she is instead innocent and works feverishly to undo the damage his previous stories caused.

He has many scenes with Susan Hayward. Their relationship is shown starting with the antagonistic and gradually developing. His sincere regret comes out very well later, although Barbara does not want to discuss it. By the end of the film she seems to have warmed up to him. She leaves him a last letter, which he reads in the final scene, after her execution. He then trudges back to his car, pulling out his hearing aid so as not to hear any of the busy sounds around him. It’s a very powerful and poignant scene.

Another favorite actor of mine appears in this film, but regrettably, he and Simon do not interact. At least, not that I recall. He is Wesley Lau, probably best remembered as Lieutenant Andy Anderson on Perry Mason. His role in I Want to Live! is small but important, as the deadbeat husband of Barbara Graham. I would have loved to have seen Wesley and Simon play off of each other.

They do both appear in the Gunsmoke episode Miguel’s Daughter, but I can’t remember the extent of their interaction. Wesley plays, I believe, one of the guys harassing Miguel’s daughter. I don’t know if he’s the one Miguel kills or if he’s the other one. I watched that episode before Wesley really meant anything to me. I need to watch it again.

And, according to IMDB.com, they also appear together in the TV movie Crosscurrent. I’ve been trying to get hold of that for some time. I have no idea if they actually have any scenes together in it or not. According to TCM.com, Crosscurrent was a failed TV series pilot that became a TV movie instead. Were it to have been a series, Simon would have been a regular as the police captain. What a shame it didn’t work out. Then again, if it had, perhaps we wouldn’t have Kolchak: The Night Stalker, as Crosscurrent was made around the same time.

When it comes to main Perry Mason actors, the only other one I can affirm as having interaction with Simon is Raymond Burr. Sadly, they did not interact in either of Simon’s Perry episodes, but on Ironside they did. In the Puzzlelock episode, which I believe Crystal has spoken of, Simon plays a former policeman who is a friend of Ironside’s. He is also the villain of the episode. We have since seen one of his other two Ironside appearances, Love Me in December, in which he plays a reporter. This character initially comes across as a slimeball, but in his last scene his strong reaction to the truth behind the crime suggests that he really is a good person. I don’t recall that he interacted with Ironside in that episode. His other appearance, Lesson in Terror, we have not found yet.

Richard Anderson, Lieutenant Drumm from Perry, played the bad guy in The Night Strangler. He did not interact with Simon. They both appear in an episode of Burt Reynolds’ series Dan August. I have no idea whether Simon interacts with either Richard or Burt in that episode.

I most lament over the fact that Simon never interacted with William Talman, my other most favorite actor right now. They had no scenes together in the one Perry episode in which they both appeared. But I like to think that they met off-screen, on the set. I wonder what they thought of each other.

~Lucky Ladybug

Sympathetic Villains: More than Meets the Eye

Lucky Ladybug already did a musing on Simon’s villain characters who deserve no sympathy; I decided to a musing on those villain/antagonist characters who, despite the things they’ve done, either make you feel sorry for them or end up redeeming themselves in some way.

There’s Nick, the shady casino owner from Follow that Dream, for starters.  He’s definitely not a nice person, trying multiple plots to get rid of Toby Kwimper, whom he considers to be a thorn in his side.  True, Nick doesn’t really have any sympathetic traits; nor does he redeem himself in any way.  But the sheer level of backfiring that his plans undergo make him an incredibly ineffective villain—and one you can’t help but laugh at.

But once we deal with sympathetic villains, it’s a whole new game; Simon never fails to tug on the heartstrings, even when playing a villain.  William Poole, from “The Thunder Man” episode of Bonanza confides that his girlfriend was killed in an accident involving one of his demolition charges.  Whether or not he was being truthful is debatable (granted, he isn’t the most trustworthy of people), but if he is, then it certainly explains his descent into madness—a madness that is revealed in its entirety at the episode’s end, when he declares himself to be above the powers of Heaven and Earth.  At any rate, Poole is a madman, and one has to wonder if, underneath the madness, he was once a nice, decent person.

Joe Palakopolous (known by his nickname of Mr. Pal), from “The Canada Run” episode of The Untouchables, is another interesting case.  While he is a nasty sort, manipulating the head of a local church, Father Gregory, into being an unwitting pawn in his scheme to smuggle whiskey from Canada, there is no denying that Mr. Pal does donate a great portion of his wealth to Father Gregory to help him set up a soup kitchen that the hungry in town desperately need, plus other additions to the church.  Father Gregory is touched by his generosity, and becomes horrified and sad when he discovers Mr. Pal’s true motives.  And yet, there is still a part of Father Gregory that pities Mr. Pal—one that the audience might also end up sharing.

Also take the case of Mel Grayson, from the “Puzzlelock” episode of Ironside.  Grayson is a nasty fellow, having killed his wife and covered his tracks expertly.  However, as cold and calculated as his plan was, Grayson does have one shred of decency—he does not want anyone else to be arrested in his place, either.  This eventually proves to be his undoing, as his desperation to clear names ends up with him falling right into Ironside’s hands.

However, my favorite kind of villain/antagonist characters that Simon plays are the ones that eventually redeem themselves—or, at least, are well on the road to doing so.  An interesting example here is Stawski, from The Sand Pebbles.  When sober, Stawski is, in fact, a reasonably amiable and decent man—welcoming Steve McQueen’s character, Holman, aboard and later coming to the aid of a Chinese worker who ends up badly injured in an engine room accident.  Unfortunately, those good traits seem to vanish once alcohol hits his bloodstream, leaving behind an obnoxious and almost primal man.  He shamelessly chases after the local girls, and while some of them return his affections, he still insists on chasing after the one girl who wants nothing to do with him.  When Stawski ends up antagonizing another one of the workers, Po-Han, who happens to be a friend of Holman’s, it ends with a boxing match between Stawski and Po-Han.  Stawski acts horribly towards Po-Han as the fight begins, taunting and intimidating him—and then unleashing the no-holds-barred beatdown once Po-Han tries fighting back.  Po-Han does, eventually, emerge victorious, and Stawski retreats to the background.  It’s here that Stawski appears to be on the road to redemption.  He’s noticeably less boisterous; when a fight breaks out feet away from where he’s standing, rather than joining it, he merely looks away, as though he’s disgusted with the whole thing.  And though he initially is among the group of sailors who insist that Holman should turn himself in to a mob that’s after him, he eventually relents with the rest of them.  And when Holman attempts to single-handedly run the engine room to try to get them out of the river, Stawski is the first one to go and help him, taking orders from Holman without complaint and apparently letting go of their feud.

Simon plays both sides of Stawski amazing well.  Decent-Stawski made me almost cheer.  Obnoxious-Stawski made me visibly cringe.  They almost seem like two different characters; it’s absolutely amazing.

Another antagonistic character with redeemable qualities that Simon played is Adam Howard, from “The Secret” episode of The Big Valley.  Adam is very vengeful and spiteful, determined to drive a group of ranchers to ruin because he believes one of them to have had an affair with his wife—and that the son he has been raising isn’t really his.  The actions Adam takes detestable—having the man in question beaten up, and then cutting off the ranchers’ water supply.  The latter action absolutely infuriated me, as it resulted in the death of a calf.  And yet, Adam’s interaction with the son-that-may-not-be-his is too poignant for words—that, in spite of his suspicions, he unconditionally cares for this child.  And Adam’s heartbreaking confession that he had wanted a son so badly—and that he’s devastated that this dream he thought had come true may in fact be all a lie—moved me to tears.  As the episode’s events draw to a close, Adam heads down the road of redemption, as well—traversing it at a fairly quick pace, I’m pleased to say.

It’s simply amazing how one man can bring to life so many antagonistic characters that draw a variety of emotions.  Nick made me laugh.  Adam made me cry.  Stawski made me cringe and fume.  And William Poole made me stare in shock.  All of these varied antagonists are once again proof of Simon’s incredible acting talent.

~Crystal Rose