In a rare meeting late in the lives of the stars of Leo McCarey’s Love Affair (1939), (which can be seen on TCM this Thursday, March 20th at 4: 30PM ET), Irene Dunne reportedly mentioned to Boyer that she had recently seen the film once again. Unexpectedly moved after so much time since the production, Ms. Dunne was said to have commented to to her co-star, “You know, Charles, you were really good.” With what may have been one of his characteristic Gallic shrugs and a small smile, his reply was said to have been “Ah, so you finally looked at me.” Maybe it’s time we all looked a bit more carefully at him again.

Sure, we all think we know Charles Boyer. If you grew up in America in the last forty years, you might be tempted to launch into a fractured French version of “come wit me, to ze casbah”, (a line he never said in 1938′s Algiers), or conclude that Pepé Le Pew might be a spot-on imitation of M. Boyer. But I think you might be shortchanging yourself. And Boyer.

Pigeon-holing Charles Boyer fails to take into account his undeniable intelligence and generosity as a performer who serves the film in which he may appear–even when he’s undeniably the star of the piece. Mulling over his movies this week, I begin to suspect that Boyer must have had some actor’s ego to be a leading actor for almost fifty years, but he was often at his best when he was supporting another performer or part of an ensemble. The French, who may love films more passionately than any other people, rarely succeed in translating their charm and depth to American idioms, (though Americans certainly love to remake their films nowadays). Charles Boyer was the exception; adding something inimitable and indefinable to films during his career as a gifted dramatic actor who was also a star during the studio era. Yet he does seem somewhat forgotten.

His name is almost synonymous with romance on film, yet his lovers and roués almost always have some very dark corners in their souls: there is the inherent selfishness of his character in Back Street (1941), the single-mindedness of his conductor in Break of Hearts (1935) and the weakness of his runaway monk in a beautiful looking, wonderfully empty-headed movie, The Garden of Allah (1936) and of course, that Archduke’s despair in Mayerling (1937), a French film directed by Boyer‘s friend Anatole Litvak, and one that helped to boost both their careers internationally. The darker elements were always there, and were most apparent in films such as Hold Back the Dawn (1941) and Arch of Triumph (1948). The latter movie, an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s story directed by Lewis Milestone and photographed very dramatically by Russell Metty, focused on the futility of the struggles of a group of refugees in Europe during the Nazi era. While ostensibly a somber romance, Ingrid Bergman, Boyer and Louis Calhern cut the despondent atmosphere that permeated the film with flashes of tenderness revealing a bond forged from their personal desperation. Indeed, though the production would not be a success, there is a kind of grandeur in the despair of the characters and the actors commitment to this project. Not surprisingly, a war weary public rejected this unrelentingly grim but often moving tale. Boyer, seemingly working against his naturally introverted nature, used his capacity for a wistful gaiety in several roles. Some of the more somber roles he played may have reflected a part of himself as well.

I should note that the actor, who had a long, apparently very happy marriage to British musical performer Pat Paterson, was the father of one child, a son, Michael Boyer, born in 1944. Friends relished the presence of the couple, with the intellectual, somewhat shy Boyer continually balanced by his ebullient, sociable wife, remembered by most as a smiling, laughing woman who lit up a room when she entered. Mrs. Boyer, who had made a few films in Britain and the United States, retired after their marriage, providing her husband with a solid basis from which to conduct his international career.

Interestingly, for a man best known as a romantic figure, Charles Boyer would play several roles very successfully in which fatherhood was central to his interpretation of the characters in Liliom, The Happy Time and Fanny. Each role brought out different appealing qualities in his paternal characters, though the part in The Happy Time (1952) reveals a mature, more philosophical side of his personality. Playing a small time musician who is a father, brother, husband and friend, Boyer‘s imperturbable figure is one of the actor’s more gracefully aging characters, bringing warmth and understanding as well as a very bemused attitude to his loving family’s problems, with the talented Marsha Hunt as his bemused wife. One especially memorable scene came as he strove to explain the true nature of sexuality and love to his son (Bobby Driscoll), despite the puritanical world they lived in Ottawa society.  Based on a series of delightful stories by Robert Fontaine, the screenwriters wisely give Boyer this scene in which he explains to the boy that those who are determined to make the act of love something degrading, do so largely because they have known love, and “this love we speak of now, when it is real, when it is true, it is the greatest love of all. I know; we have it here, in this house, Maman and I; it is the best, it is the most natural. In this way, the world comes down to a house, and a room, and a bed, and if there are two people in love there, then that is the whole world. Of course, you won’t know this for many years. You know it is possible never to know it? I hope you will. If you are as lucky as I am, you will.” Perhaps this seems sentimental when simply read on a page. Yet, in the deft hands of this actor, those words become something much more special, and seem to have been delivered from the heart of a man and an actor who had known real love. Among Boyer’s most relaxed appearances on film, The Happy Time (1952) is an endearing film that TCM unearthed last November–I truly hope that they will be able to broadcast it again, especially since this good film does not appear to be readily available on vhs or dvd.

While comedies such as the sparkling Tovarich (1937), Cluny Brown (1946) and Barefoot in the Park (1967) allowed him to demonstrate his delicate touch of humor, it seems that few remember some of the films that he made blending elements of the comic and the dramatic. One example of this might be his Napoleon in the allegedly dramatic Conquest (1937) in which he steals a movie away from a lethargic Garbo.

Another would be an almost unseen, beautifully made Frank Borzage film, History Is Made at Night (1937), which I intend to write about in detail in the future. Yet, I would bet that few casual film audiences give his work a second thought—perhaps in large part because many of the better films that he made are often unavailable on dvd nor are they broadcast with much frequency on cable.

I was reminded of this unfortunate fact last week when viewing Gaslight (1944) and The Cobweb (1955) on TCM. In The Cobweb, a soapy drama about a posh mad house, directed by Vincente Minnelli, Boyer as the head shrink seems to be coasting, much of his subtlety lost in a morass of fifties color, a convoluted plot and an unwieldy cast full of stars, and clashing acting styles. It’s sad to see him playing a weak lecher whose mask of competence is gradually slipping. This is especially true when contrasted with the memory of Boyer‘s nuanced portrayal of a chauvinistic, all too human head honcho of a mental hospital in a seemingly forgotten Walter Wanger film, Gregory LaCava’s Private Worlds (1935). The latter movie, while also a soap opera, is quite interesting due to the performances and the attempt to present psychiatry as a medical tool not a wholesale curative for all problems, (as the more facile Spellbound would naively seem to imply a decade later). As Larry Swindell, Boyer’s biographer explained, Gregory La Cava seems to have been the first American director to ask Charles Boyer to think in English rather than French. The difference between Boyer‘s alertness in this film and his earlier appearances in Hollywood films, such as Red Headed Woman, is pretty dramatic. The actor’s ability and apparent willingness to blend in with the story being told is indicative of his generosity as a performer. Indeed, supporting leading ladies in a style that enhanced their appeal helped to make Boyer a favorite screen partner of Ingrid Bergman, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, and Irene Dunne, among others. Indeed, one particular co-star, Joan Fontaine, would cite him as her favorite leading man, for his supportive role in the rarely seen The Constant Nymph, (which I wrote about here last Fall). Despite his subdued manner, Boyer‘s quiet authority and sneaky humor allowed him to assert himself, even when the script did not serve him particularly well.

It’s satisfying to catch sight of him in George Cukor‘s Victorian take on Gaslight, as the sadistic husband of Ingrid Bergman. Ms. Bergman, at the height of her Renoiresque beauty and acting power, almost seems waif-like as she struggles to separate truth from the illusion of madness that the manipulative Boyer creates in their household. His supremely confident manner and contemptuousness for his wife are perversely appealing, even more so when he allows his easily wounded pride to appear briefly. At the satisfying denouement, as Bergman finally has a chance to relish her own latent power, a viewer may feel a twinge of pity for Boyer’s callous schemer as he looks at her towering above him, especially since Boyer’s eyes express such wariness tinged with terror as he realizes that he’s lost control of her mind and soul.

I hope eventually to discuss some other Boyer films, especially Frank Borzage‘s splendid History Is Made At Night (1937), Mitchell Leisen‘s touching Hold Back the Dawn(1941), and Max Ophüls’ The Earrings of Madame de…(1953), but there are two Boyer roles that I’ve seen recently that compel me to write a bit about this actor. The first, at the beginning of his sound career, was Fritz Lang’s Liliom (1934), and the other, toward the end of his career, was meant to be a popular crowd pleaser, was Joshua Logan’s adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny (1961).

The Lang film, which is on dvd, gave him a part that was unlike any other that Charles Boyer would ever appear in on screen, deepened my respect for Boyer’s ability as an actor. Made after Fritz Lang had left Nazi Germany and emigrated to France, it tells the familiar story that formed the basis of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel. It is a fable that is an anomaly in Fritz Lang‘s career as well, marking a moment in both men’s careers when Lang explored a poetic story on screen that reminds a viewer of Cocteau and Michael Powell’s films, (though those angels accompanying Liliom to heaven wouldn’t be out of place in a decadent Weimar nightclub) As a loutish carnival barker (Boyer) becomes involved with a waifish girl (Madeleine Ozeray) whom he abuses my affection for his presence. Boyer’s character is brutal, insolent and conceited, and as likely to strike his masochistic girlfriend as to kiss her. Boyer, who was not an athletic or large man, makes you believe that this muscular brute who swings around on the Carousel he operates like a monkey, is physically imposing, devastatingly attractive to women and a threatening presence. Even when he learns that he is to be a father, his decision to commit a robbery in order to secure his future for his child (whom he assumes will be a boy), is based on more than a little vanity as much as concern. Committing suicide when the robbery goes awry, Liliom tries to bluff his way through in a very bureaucratic looking heaven, complete with bored, officious angels. When he finally has a chance to revisit earth, he nearly botches his meeting with his grown daughter, frightening her with his frankness about the kind of man her father truly was when on earth. Director Lang pulls out all the stops about fantasy that he learned in making Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) and Metropolis (1927)–only he doesn’t have the facilities or budgets that he had at UFA. Despite the fact that we have to settle for a bear-like angel stacking the scales of justice for the protagonist’s ultimate fate, and a star that Liliom tries to give his daughter seems to be made of foil catching the light, the sheer, zesty cheesiness of it all–along with the verve of Boyer’s impersonation of a decidedly limited anti-hero makes this film remarkably memorable.

Liliom was made just as Boyer, who had found considerable success in the commercial French theater, was testing the waters in Hollywood films. Boyer had been in silent films since 1920, with some success, notably in Le Captain Fracasse (1929). Yet the success of Liliom in Europe helped to make Lang and Boyer more attractive actor to America as well. At the beginning of the talkies when Hollywood had yet to find a workable form of dubbing and subtitles, some studios, particularly MGM and Paramount, who relied on European markets in Germany, France and Spain for their products, made several non-English films of their current productions, often simultaneously. Some examples of this trend were the Spanish language Dracula, Anna Christie with Garbo speaking German, and an adaptation of The Big House(1930) with Charles Boyer in the Chester Morris part in a production entitled Révolte Dans La Prison (1931). His struggle to establish himself in American films in the preceding years may have seemed to be over, though he may have felt that his earlier Hollywood work was so embarrassing that he had MGM promise to cut his small role in Red-Headed Woman(1932) if the film were ever shown in France. Little did he know that years later his presence is a remarkable surprise for those re-discovering this saucy Jean Harlow film. Liliom was, btw, also the first film in which Boyer had to wear a toupee. Approaching 35 when he made the Lang movie, producers felt that their leading man might look a bit younger with some added tresses. As Boyer said much later, “I do not know when I became so nice-looking as they all say. I suppose it was when I lost my hair and began experimenting with the toupees. In silent films, I looked like a bandit who eats little children.”

Fanny (1961), which I’m pleased to see is scheduled to be shown on The Essentials on TCM on 6/7/2008 and 11/22/2008, is not available on dvd, though it occasionally shows up on premium cable channels. Originally intended as a musical adaptation by Harold Rome from his Broadway show based on the Pagnol film trilogy from the ’30s, (“Marius”, “Fanny” and “Cesar”), it tells a relatively simple story of Leslie Caron, a daughter of a fish monger (Georgette Anys) in Marseilles, who loves Marius (Horst Buchholz) the son of Cesar (Charles Boyer), a voluble but loving owner of a dockside bar. When Marius is drawn to exploring the sea, Fanny, who is left pregnant, agrees to marry the much older kindly Panisse (Maurice Chevalier), who longs to have a child.

I realize that this sounds like the elements of a sentimental story, and I suppose it is to some viewers. As photographed superbly on location in Marseilles by Jack Cardiff, with a soaringly beautiful musical theme (though all the songs were jettisoned during pre-production), and with Caron & Buchholz deeply affecting as the lovers, this story is probably one of the better love stories that I’ve ever seen. The love depicted is not simply that of the young couple, but of friends for one another (especially true in the affectionately barbed exchanges between Boyer and his old friend Maurice Chevalier), and also for a father (Boyer) for his son (Buchholz).

Boyer, who gives one of his most relaxed and warmest portrayals has one particular scene, when Marius is trying to say goodbye to his father without telling him he is leaving Marseilles, that is wonderfully understated in its terse, deeply felt emotion. In another scene after Marius returns to find Caron married to the ancient Chevalier, it is Boyer who points out the choices before the two. He controls every scene he is in, whether comic or dramatic, bringing great warmth and nuance to the story, partly because it is his due after forty years on the screen, but also, I suspect because the material may have appealed so strongly to him. Fanny (1961) was the last film for which Charles Boyer received an Academy Award nomination.

While Charles Boyer continued to be active, even lending his considerable sparkle to Four Star Playhouse and The Rogues series in the fifties and sixties. In movies, he was too often cast in character roles that were unworthy of his talent, but occasionally added his dash to a film, as he did most notably to Stavisky (1974) opposite Jean Paul Belmondo. Mr. Boyer‘s last appearance on screen was in a small role opposite his frequent co-star, Ingrid Bergman, in Vincente Minnelli’s A Matter of Time (1976). The last years of Boyer’s life was, unfortunately overshadowed by a family tragedy that occurred in 1965 when his 21 year old son, Michael, killed himself, (reportedly after a breakup with his girlfriend). Understandably, the Boyers never completely recovered from this event. When Pat Boyer in 1978, his wife of forty four years, died of cancer, an ailing Charles joined her two days later by his own hand. Fortunately for us, he left a portrait gallery of richly, bravely human characters.

For a listing of upcoming Charles Boyer films on TCM please click here.

Sources:

Chierichetti, David, Mitchell Leisen: Hollywood Director, Photoventures Press, 1995.
McGilligan, Patrick, Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast, St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Swindell, Larry, Charles Boyer: The Reluctant Lover, Doubleday & Company, 1983.
Thomson, David, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.