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Donald Sutherland: Four Great Comedies -- And a Bunch of Other Great Movies, Too

posted 6 months ago by roger1 (3703)
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June 2024: Donald Sutherland has passed away at age 88.

Kinda sorta like Alan Arkin passing last year(2023), its the loss of an actor who was around for SO many decades, in SO many movies, that we sort of took him for granted, as if he'd always be there. Also like Arkin, evidently Sutherland had a great early period, a slump in middle age, and then a "roaring back" period that put him in a multi-movie blockbuster (The Hunger Games) that introduced him to a new generation.

I'd like to open with this:

Donald Sutherland played many dramatic roles, but four comedies link together in terms of movies I liked and -- in two cases -- LOVED.

The two I loved: MASH the movie(my favorite movie of 1970) and "National Lampoon's Animal House"(my favorite movie of 1978.) The two are linked, of course -- episodic comedies about "a bunch of guys with women as sex objects." Sutherland was shoehorned into Animal House to give the movie a "name star"(in a short part as a college professor) but in choosing Sutherland for that part, I think that Animal House was making a clear bid for CONNECTION to MASH.

What interests me is what a difference 8 years in the 70s made. MASH of 1970 was a MEAN movie, and a very gory one(the Korean War operating room tents had a lot of spurting blood and death in them). 1970 was a "mean" year in America, too -- MASH(about the Korean War) spoke to the Vietnam War and the brutality in the air that year.

But Animal House came out in 1978 -- Vietnam was over, Nixon had gone, disco was here and everybody wanted to party. There is no war in the movie, no blood and gore. Animal House was SET in 1962, that year of pre-JFK assassination, pre-Vietnam innocence that had made American Graffiti a big hit too(with its poster catch-phrase "Where were you in '62?"

There's a damn painful story -- related in Sutherland's obits this week -- about how Sutherland was offered a choice on Animal House pay: $35,000 or...2% of the gross profits PLUS $20,000. Sutherland took the straight $35,000. Animal House went on to be the biggest grossing comedy of all time to that date. Sutherland lost millions and had to grudgingly talk about this in later interviews. Oh well, I'm sure he was well paid over the years.

(By way of comparison, this: in 1977, Robert Shaw was offered that "percentage or lump sum" pitch on TWO movies: Black Sunday(the terrorist blimp attack on the Super Bowl movie) and The Deep(Peter Benchley's follow up to Jaws.) Shaw took the lump sum on Black Sunday and a percentage of The Deep. The RIGHT decisions. Black Sunday flopped; The Deep was a big hit.)

Back to Sutherland: Alongside MASH in 1970 was Kelly's Heroes, a WWII "caper comedy": soldiers steal gold bullion under cover of war (this had been the "straight" premise of the thriller Charade in 1963, too.)

Kelly's Heroes had roles for four stars: Clint Eastwood(dull and colorless) and three "comedy scene stealers": Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland and Telly Savalas. Rickles did his Rickles thing(and was quite funny, its his best movie comedy role); Savalas got laughs as the tough guy Sergeant exasperated by the dumber and more crazy of the men under his command, and Sutherland...stole the movie as an out-of-his-time, long haired , laid back hippie(and expert tank commander) called Oddball. Sutherland had great lines like "Stop hitting me with those negative waves!" (towards his pessimistic sidekick played by Gavin McLeod) and "I'm just catching some rays, eatin' a little cheese, drinkin' a little wine..."

Guys in high school AND college were quoting Sutherland's Oddball for YEARS after it came out(in my circles, at least.) Oddball might just be Sutherland's true legacy.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 6 months ago

Fully 30 years after Kelly's Heroes, in 2000, Clint Eastwood led another four man team, in the "old astronauts re-unite movie," Space Cowboys. Hopes to cast Jack Nicholson alongside Eastwood fell through -- I think Tommy Lee Jones took that role. The third old astronaut was an alarmingly near-bald James Garner(as an astronaut turned country minister.)

And the fourth old astronaut(hunted down Magnificent Seven style by Eastwood) was...Donald Sutherland. Many of us "in the know" saw this as "Eastwood and Oddball re-united" and Sutherland stole THIS movie too. HIS gimmick: when Eastwood finds Sutherland -- testing a roller coaster as part of his engineering job -- he has a young woman with him. Eastwood asks if she is Sutherland's daughter. No...she's his GIRL FRIEND. (Shades of current oldsters with young chicks Dennis Quaid and Bill Belichick.) But evidently not a long term girlfriend, because Sutherland sets his sights on the more age appropriate beauty Blair Brown at NASA ..and gets her.

Space Cowboys was better than a lot of Eastwood movies given the three other charismatic male leads in it(and William Devane's in it, too.) But among those leads, Donald Sutherland both brought back warm memories of Oddball AND gave older men a sexually romantic role model. One of his most fun roles.

Those four comedies -- MASH, Kelly's Heroes, Animal House, and Space Cowboys -- are enough for me to give Donald Sutherland space in MY book of favorite actors.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 6 months ago

But he did so much more. The first remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers(with his hair long and permed and moustacheod.) Playing a heartbreakingly "nice and normal" suburban father in Ordinary People(no facial hair, short straight hair -- his "regular guy look.") Everybody ELSE in the movie got Oscar noms (and one win, for Timothy Hutton.) Nothing for Sutherland. "Don't Look Now" -- back to hair curls and moustache in one of the "100 great movies of 1973," with a classic sex scene(opposite Julie Christie) and a Psycho-style twist ending ( a true shocker.)

With short hair and no moustache (which made him seem slow and vulnerable) he played the cop lead in "Klute," but that was really about call girl Bree Daniels(Jane Fonda.) Fonda won the Best Actress Oscar. Sutherland got Fonda as a lover for two years. Nice trade.

In 1991, Sutherland did short hair and no moustache to play a mysterious military man who sits on a park bench with Kevin Costner and lays out what REALLY happened to bring about the assassination of JFK (in Oliver Stone's JFK, of course.) Sutherland spews out a massive exposition/data dump(accompanied by ever-more-terrifying John Williams music) to tell us EXACTLY what happened and -- its a great scene, with a great performance by Sutherland and -- I've spent years off and on trying to read up on what Sutherland says that is actually TRUE in that speech.

And so many more roles...The Hunger Games triumphantly at the end in its depiction of an evil tyrant.

Side-bar: he has that actor son Kiefer, too. Kiefer gave a statement that his father was "one of the great actors in movie history." Hey, maybe. Kiefer may be a pretty wealthy star himself, but I can't say he ever stacked up the variety of roles that his father did. Not his fault really. He made his name on "24" and he was good -- and not at all like his father -- playing Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny recently.

As with many in Hollywood's "family businesses," the son is successful enough, but the father simply got the benefit of more great roles in more great movies over more decades. There's still time for Kiefer.

So let's salute Donald now. Let's catch a few rays, eat a little cheese, drink a little wine...