...as a 5'4" tough guy. I'm not saying there aren't any, but, he was all skinny to boot. I'm just not buying him in "Shane", at least not in the Bar room brawl scene, it was ludicrous.
I've....seen things you people wouldn't believe; Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
He never comes across as being too short in the film the way it's handled, even in the fight scene with the tall Ben Johnson
Tough guys who are short and could still believably take on taller guys:
Jimmy Cagney
Leo Gorcey
Michael Landon
Robert Redford
Henry Winkler, in his youth
Joe Pesci
Robert De Niro
Harvey Keitel
Al Pacino
Humphrey Bogart
Wesley Snipes
Moe Howard
Both Chaplin & Keaton were short and always beat up on tall, mean guys.
There's a lot to be said for speed in a fight which most shorter fellows have, and less area to punch.
Sammy Davis Jr, very short, was a real fast draw with a six-gun in reality.
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The Eyes of the City are Mine! Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)
This was Alan Ladd's picture...he was very effective in his role. He had the voice for it and in a way, the look of staring down his adversaries. As for that bar scene, at first I winced when Ben Johnson confronted him, judging the differences in sizes. But if one looked at that fight scene, one would noticed and I did not find anyone here mentioning it, Ladd's character was a 'boxer',or at the least knew how to box and that is how he overcame the stature of Johnson, who was no boxer and just acted on brute force. Look at that scene again...so to me, it was plausible, but I also have to say, when they all mobbed him, that was a little too much. I an glad that Montgomery Clift did not get the role and was wondering that this was a Paramount picture...where was Gary Cooper, John Wayne or even Robert Mitchum? I guess they were too high priced.
shareI love Gary Cooper, but I think he might have been a bit too old to play Shane. And I don't think the part was right for John Wayne or Robert Mitchum.
shareLadd was right for the part. No one's going to underestimate John Wayne or Robert Mitchum leaning at the bar and decide; "I'm going to put the run on that sodbusters."
Ladd was short, but at this point in his career, lean and muscular. He had a shirtless fistfight in another western, "Branded", where he displays the physique of a lightweight prizefighter. I'm surprised he never did any boxing movies; he moved well in his fight scenes and would have been more physically convincing than the doughy looking John Garfield.
Soy 'un hijo de la playa'
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Ladd was a bit over 5' 6", but there's no correlation between height and character or skill with a gun. That being said, I just read the novel and it occurred to me that Randolph Scott would have been a perfect Shane.
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