The Iceman Cometh

The Iceman Cometh is one great film to go out on for not one, but two of the best players ever. This turned out to be the last performances for both Fredric March and Robert Ryan. In the case of Ryan he knew he was terminal and his performance has real poignancy.

Of course you can't beat the material that was given to them and the rest of the cast. It's been argued that The Iceman Cometh is the greatest work from the pen of America's greatest playwright Eugene O'Neill and I'm not going to argue the point.

Some would give the honor of O'Neill's greatest play to Long Day's Journey Into Night. That particular play was Eugene O'Neill's remembrance of his childhood and family. The Iceman Cometh is also about a family of sorts, the community that's been established around Harry Hope's waterfront bar and SRO flophouse. It's owner Harry Hope played by Fredric March, is a former Tammany politician who's not set foot outside his establishment because he's in mourning over his late wife Bessie.

The whole usual crowd of boarder/drinkers is awaiting the arrival of one of the regulars who apparently likes to go slumming there. It's Hickey, a gladhanding traveling salesman Lee Marvin who spends like a Diamond Jim Brady and is generally the life of the party. But it's a new and somber Hickey that comes to bar that day.

A stranger arrives that day also, Jeff Bridges a young anarchist is on the run he says from the Pacific Coast where his mother among others has been picked up. He's looking for an older leader of the movement Larry Slade who is played by Robert Ryan. Ryan is a beaten and tired man and of all the people in the bar he's the one with the most realistic assessment. It's the last stop for this crowd before the Grim Reaper.

But the somber Marvin, still full of salesman's guile gets them all to reassess themselves and their 'pipe dreams' even for a little while. He also reveals a terrible secret about himself and Jeff Bridges has even bigger cross to bear and Bridges can't bear it.

I was blown away by the performances of everyone in the cast. Marvin came in for some criticism at the time, attempting to serious a part and one that Jason Robards, Jr. was given acclaim for as his career role. But there was nothing wrong in Lee Marvin's performance that I could find. Young Jeff Bridges more than held his own with the veteran cast. My favorite among the supporting parts is Bradford Dillman who plays a lawyer who graduated from Harvard Law and for whatever reason, broke down and is now here.

One member of the cast in this production was in the original Broadway cast when The Iceman Cometh premiered on Broadway in 1946. That was Tom Pedi who played the bartender Rocky Pioggi who also doubled as a pimp for some prostitutes who hang out there. Next to Ryan, the women who we don't learn anything about really, seem to have the most realistic ideas about the patrons there. Pedi's performance in a part he grew to own is pretty special also.

Bridges is the outsider, he had a cause, a revolutionary cause and O'Neill in his youth hung around with that crowd as we learned in Warren Beatty's Reds. We also learned that while O'Neill liked the people he was less than optimistic about the beliefs they had. If Bridges is a failed John Reed, O'Neill in Ryan's character of Larry Slade is looking back over the years when he drank in such places as Harry Hope's. The rest of the cast is no doubt modeled after people he knew back in the day.

In his own way, O'Neill loved these people a whole lot more than he did his own family. And it's to them and for them he wrote The Iceman Cometh. And it's for us to see a small part of New York in 1912, some folks who might have passed unnoticed by time, but for the fact that a literary genius passed among them.

I am adding my comment because the TV version did not show up on the IMDB cross-reference list. This play was previously produced in the early 1960s for the TV "Play of the Week" series. It starred Jason Robards Jr. as Hickey. Many consider this his finest performance and this TV version, the finest production. I saw both the movie version listed here and the TV version. As good as Lee Marvin's performance was, I also agree that the TV version is superior. See this if you can. The Iceman Cometh also happens to be my favorite play.

An aside; I believe that Jason Robards Jr. was not offered the part for the movie version because at that time, his alcoholism got the better of him. There is irony here since the play demonstrates the impact of alcoholism and the pipe dreams that come from it. Up till then, the role of Hickey belonged to Mr. Robards Jr. as it should have. Mr. Robards Jr. interpretation of Eugene O'Neill's plays have always been masterful. I am convinced he was deeply hurt and has always regretted not being able to perform in the movie production.

An experiment that I am sorry ended.

This movie was an early part of a new production experiment in which the audience prepaid for the series (I am not sure of the series name but I seem to remember the American Film Theater or Institute). I had subscribed to it and I am sorry that the experiment failed after producing perhaps no more than 10 fine productions of classic plays.

Can I tell you that I have waited 30 years to see this movie? When I was in my late teens, I received a brochure in the mail advertising the American Film Theater series. One of the films in the series that made my eyes pop was the promise to show Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh". I was a big fan of O'Neill's work, but felt cheated by AFT's disastrous marketing concept of showing it's films to season subscribers only, and then only giving them two days to see the film. I was forced to take a pass, but mourned my loss ever since.

This play is rarely performed. At four hours, it would task most theater companies, and Hickey's 25 minute soliloquy in the last act requires only the best actors to pull off. I was fortunate to have seen this play, once in my life, performed on the stage. This was Chicago's Goodman Theater production starring Brian Dennehy as Hickey in 1990. I felt fortunate, but came away from that production dissatisfied. Dennehy was a "good" Hickey, but not a great one, and the rest of the cast left me a little shallow.

How glad I was then to discover that this film had been re-released. By pure chance, I saw a notice in the paper that this film would be showing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. I couldn't let this opportunity pass by a second time. I attended the screening and was absolutely stunned. It exceeded my expectations.

First of all, the cast was stellar. Robert Ryan played his last film role here, and it was perfect. I don't say something like that very often. I cannot imagine a better Larry.

Fredric March played his last role here too, as Harry Hope. Also an excellent performance.

The question everyone would be asking about is Hickey, played by Lee Marvin. Was he up to the role? To my surprise, Marvin couldn't have been a better choice.

Hickey was a salesman, and a rare one at that. He was the type of salesman that could knock on your door and convince you that what he had to sell was what you needed. A salesman like that had to exude a sense of complete self confidence. They would have to be totally sure of themselves and show it. Lee Marvin did that perfectly.

The tragedy of Hickey was that he was his own best customer. He was a tortured soul until he came across a solution that made him feel that he could live with himself again, thus creating his own pipedream. His mistake was to think he found a solution that would save humanity.

Unfortunately, in Harry Hope's dive, pipe-dreams and illusions were the only thing the patrons had to live for. Tampering with that created disaster.

Lee Marvin convinced me that he was Hickey, and in a play like this, that is quite an accomplishment.

By the way, I discovered that this film is now available on VHF and DVD. I am getting a copy.

One of the brownest movies ever made -- brown walls, brown furniture, red-brown faces of the drunken patrons of Harry's Bar -- and somehow that feels appropriate, as a lot of it is about autumnal regrets and faded dreams. One in the series of the AFI's American Film Theatre series, it's a very faithful rendering of O'Neill's great play, with one original Broadway cast member (Tom Pedi's bartender) and loads of good casting throughout. John Frankenheimer's camera is thrust right up at the actors' faces, and you keep looking for artifice or melodrama, but, with the exception of Sorrell Booke's sodden Hugo, there's very little. Fredric March's deluded Harry Hope, Robert Ryan's despairing ex- revolutionary Larry, Jeff Bridges' guilt-ridden student (a very difficult role for a young actor, especially in company as august as this) -- all have the ring of truth, and once you get used to the deliberate pacing, repetitive arguments and apologies, and startlingly frank language for a 1946 play, you're hooked. As to Lee Marvin's Theodore Hickey: I was convinced up to his famous Act Three monologue, but he stumbles here, launching into badly calibrated fits of temper and back again. Compare it against Jason Robards Jr.'s interpretation in the 1960 Sidney Lumet-directed TV version, and you'll see the difference between a good actor overreaching and a master in a role he was born to play. (I also saw Kevin Spacey's attempt on the stage a few years ago: He played Hickey like Professor Harold Hill, all bluster and forced charisma, and it didn't work.) A depressing four hours, but worthy, and a rich sample of the actor's art.

I have to confess right off the bat that I love O'Neill and this play is certainly one of the grandest of them all, but I am also one of those that would have preferred to see Jason Robards in the Hickey role. I did see Robards play it on kine scope and thought he was about as right as it gets.

Having said that, Lee Marvin does admirably in this huge role. My expectation were low but I was not disappointed. I even thought he brought a level of menace to the part that might have been missing with another actor.

It is a grim play. Nothing cute about this bunch of burn outs and hardcore drunks. Not easy to view and experience and very long! (I watched it in 3, count them, 3 sittings! Special praise goes to Robert Ryan, in one of his best roles ever and a very young and vibrant Jeff Bridges who comes through against a long array of seasoned performers.

I do not think I have ever heard the word "pipedream" more. It occurs again and again and with purpose and sadness.

Although this work has a half a ton of drunks and losers, it is not for the partying JERSEY SHORE crowd. This is highbrow epic stuff.

Bravo!!