Rebeldia de um Bravo

PAUL MUNI could always be counted on to give an interesting performance, even if sometimes over-the-top (as he was in A SONG TO REMEMBER as Chopin's mentor). But here, in his last gasp as a screen actor, he does himself proud in an Oscar-nominated performance.

He's a Brooklyn doctor, a dedicated one with his own brand of honest values and not above making house calls when the need arises (a character trait that instantly dates the film). The story of how a clever TV man (DAVID WAYNE) tries to manipulate him in order to tell his life story on TV, is told in a very straightforward way with no unusual sub-plots or other distractions so that it ends up as a no frills entertainment and a time capsule of the late '50s-era Brooklyn, as well.

Interesting to note some top featured players had bit roles here. Television's BETSY PALMER has a more substantial part, but BILLY DEE WILLIAMS, CICELY TYSON, LUTHER ADLER, GODFREY McCAMBRIDGE and CLAUDIA McNEIL all make brief appearances.

Muni's performance was up against Charlton Heston's BEN-HUR--otherwise there's a strong possibility he might have won another Best Actor Oscar.

Directed with a sense of style by Daniel Mann and adopted by Gerald Green from his novel--and yet, oddly enough, it has the feel of a teleplay adapted for the screen.

This is the story of an elderly Jewish doctor who lives and works in the Brooklyn slums. He is dedicated to his work and his patients. The movie revolves around his nephew's attempts to produce a documentary based on the doctor's life. The movie is ok, but Paul Muni shines. He received an Oscar nomination for this, his last role. Billy Dee Williams makes his movie debut as one of the doctor's patients. He plays a young thug with a brain tumor. He's a difficult patient and the doctor has to chase after him in order to treat him. If you look closely at the girl left on the porch in the opening scene, you'll see that it's Cicely Tyson, also an unknown at that time.

The Last Angry Man explores the themes of living with integrity and not being corrupted or co-opted by the world's materialism. Paul Muni plays a Jewish doctor living in a Brooklyn neighborhood that has, to use a euphemism, changed. He continues to treat the neighborhood's residents for minimal fees, including a very young Billy Dee Williams, who plays a gang-banger, angry at the world, who Muni believes has a brain tumor.

Muni's nephew is an aspiring journalist who is caught up in glitz and glamor. When Muni saves the life of a young black woman who has been dumped on his doorstep after an assault, his nephew senses an opportunity and writes the story in the newspaper. A television producer picks up on it and sees profiling Muni on his new television program as his ticket to fame.

Muni's character is really too complex to portray completely in this film, but the interplay between the doctor and his patients portrays him as both compassionate and moral. He relates on a spiritual level to the character Billy Dee Williams plays, sensing that both of them are rebelling in their own ways against injustice and abuses of power. Dr. Abelman's last act is to visit Williams in jail rather than proceed with his greatly anticipated television appearance, reinforcing his determination to live a life of integrity and in the words of Thoreau (an author quoted frequently throughout the film), "march to the beat of a different drummer."

Paul Muni had long been out of pictures when in the fifties his success on the Broadway stage in 'Inherit the Wind' reawakened Hollywood's interest in him.

Two decades after his thirties heyday when he usually played older than his years, now in the era of television he was actually playing a genuinely old man with the result that his 68 year-old Brooklyn slum doctor Sam Abelman looks hardly distinguishable from his Louis Pasteur.

Some of the attacks the trenchant old codger makes on the drugs company that sponsors his show are still relevant today. Muni wears the makeup which leaves the field clear for David Wayne to play a surprisingly 'straight' role.

Paul Muni is "The Last Angry Man" in this 1959 film directed by Daniel Mann and also starring Luther Adler, David Wayne, Betsy Palmer and Billy Dee Williams. This has the look and feel of a TV show, and evidently it may have been on Playhouse 90 before being done as a feature film.

The movie is interesting for a few reasons. First of all, it concerns reality television, which is very timely. A producer (David Wayne) takes an interest in an old doctor (Muni) working in a depressed neighborhood and wants to feature him on television. He's a little hard to pin down because he's always running off to take care of one of his patients. Of special concern is a black man (Williams) who has a brain tumor.

The other reason it was interesting to me is that the producer says that 30 million people would see the TV show. He's right - back then, 30 million people could tune in to a television show. A top TV show today can garner 8-10 million viewers.

Paul Muni was an interesting actor - in the 1930s, he basically hid himself in disguises, heavy makeup and costumes in order to create a role; as he proved in films like Scarface and I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, he didn't need to resort to all of that. He was, however, like Luther Adler, a stage actor from another time, and also like Adler, a graduate of the Yiddish theatre, and some of the acting here by the two of them is bigger than what we're used to seeing today, so it comes off as hammy. In one of her classes, Stella Adler said, "You don't know any great actors." That was probably a quote from the 1970s. If we didn't know any great actors in the 1970s, we sure wouldn't know any today if they whacked us over the head. What is great changes; television was one of the big reasons that acting styles changed. Also, many of the characters are overtly Jewish in a way that today may seem stereotypical. It's also fascinating to see a very young Billy Dee Williams in an early role, along with Godfrey Cambridge and Cecily Tyson in smaller parts. Again, some of the depictions here of urban problems come off as overwrought. This is the kind of movie one needs to see in light of the time it was made and not by today's standards to be better appreciated.