The Iceman Cometh (1973)

Posted by keelsetter on November 8, 2009

Robert Ryan as Larry Slade in The Iceman Cometh.

It was Robert Ryan’s last role, and also one of his best performances. Ryan had long idolized Eugene O’Neill, and The Iceman Cometh, which was written in 1939, is a work by a famous American playwright working at the peak of his powers. The 1973 performance was part of a short-lived experiment by the American Film Theatre wherein select plays were filmed by notable directors and given a short run in a few cinemas. Directing The Iceman Cometh was John Frankenheimer, whom I shall always revere for Seconds but who mainstream audiences will remember for thrillers like The Manchurian Candidate and Ronin.

Ryan with Tom Pedi (playing the part of Rocky Pioggi, the bartender).

I’ve not seen the other AFT productions, but from reading the message boards it’s pretty clear The Iceman Cometh stood head-and-shoulders above the lot. Long unavailable, it can now be seen thanks to Kino Video. It is the first film to have three intermissions, and I’m here to tell you that this is four hours that will completely engross you and, indeed, for maximum impact should be watched in one sitting. Take heart from this story: It was late at night and my original intention was to go straight to bed. I thought I’d put the first DVD in for just a minute or two to get a feel for the stage and art direction. Next thing I know it’s three in the morning and I’m finished with it.

The film drops you right into Harry Hope’s Saloon in New York of 1912. From there we pan across a dark, brown bar interior where a few sad-sack and besotted alcoholics sit in various stages of lonely stupor. They don’t just drink here, they live here – full time residents who are always behind on their rent, and always trying to squeeze out free drinks from anyone they can. For four hours, you will not leave this dark and depressing bar – and if that sounds like a strange form of torture you would not want to inflict on yourself, think again. This is in great part due to Ryan, who anchors things from beginning to end as Larry Slade, a one-time anarchist turned dour philosopher who, early on, gets to the core of it:

“To hell with the truth. The history of the world proves that truth has no bearing on anything. It’s the lie of the pipe-dream that gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us. Drunk or sober.”

Frederick March as saloon owner Harry Hope.

I hesitate to call what Ryan delivers a “performance” because it feels like something far more grand than that. Ryan, and co-star Frederick March – who also died after this production, were both on their last legs, and they knew it. The Iceman Cometh is all about waiting for death and pondering what the hell it’s all about. When Margie, a prostitute, walks in she greets Larry by saying “Hey you, old wise-guy. Ain’t you died yet?” Larry responds by saying “Not yet, Margie, but I’m waiting impatiently for the end.” Well… I can’t speak for anyone else, but there’s something about the way in which Ryan delivered his lines that gave me goosebumps. It was real. He knew he was in “the last harbor” and he was swinging for the fences.

Lee Marvin as Hickey, addressing 12 lost souls at Hope's bar.

With two veteran actors pulling out all the stops to deliver nothing less than electrifying results, the bar gets raised so high that the rest of the cast is clearly motivated to also give it their best shot. A young Jeff Bridges plays the part of Don Parrit, a young anarchist who is the son of Larry’s one-time girlfriend and who comes to Hope’s Saloon in an effort to get Larry to renew his faith in the political movement. Top billing goes to Lee Marvin, who has the pivotal role of Theodore “Hickey” Hickman – a traveling salesman whose yearly pilgrimages to Hope’s Saloon bring its downtrodden residents their biggest highlight, with Hickman treating everyone to free drinks and revelry to help them forget their woes. Moses Gunn is Joe Mott, a black gambler battling racist demons at every turn. Tom Pedi, as Rocky Pioggi, also appeared in the original 1946 stage production in the same role, thus lending the entire production a sense of historical continuity.

According to Frankenheimer, “Iceman is about the necessity of having illusions in life. Period. It is the best play ever written in American language.” It delves into political and personal delusions, divisions, and co-dependencies. Religious references abound; the first act shows us souls in torment, stuck in a limbo they seem incapable of escaping, the second act revolves around a last supper of sorts, and the third act promises salvation. But just when you think you’ve got your Christ and Judas figures worked out the game gets changed, with devastating results.

Harry Hope’s saloon in The Iceman Cometh was partly modeled after a waterhouse flophouse and dive run by James “Jimmy the Priest” Candon, where O’Neill lived and attempted suicide while drunk and despondent (this was in 1912 when he was in his mid-twenties). Three years later would find O’Neill hitting the bottle again and frequenting a place he nicknamed The Hell Hole saloon, which is the other place that served as a model for the setting, and people, of his play.

The Hell Hole

When I first had my pick of a Robert Ryan film I decided to go on a blind date with The Busy Body (1967). It seemed interesting enough; a mob comedy produced and directed by William Castle, shot in Technicolor (and in Techniscope), Ryan gets second billing after Sid Ceaser, it includes the likes of Richard Pryor and Dom DeLuise… why not? Some blind dates end with pleasant surprises, but not this one. After 30 minutes of excruciatingly bad dialogue, poor pacing, overbearing music cues, and an endless procession of awkwardly unfunny bits, I had to toss in the towel. That half-hour killed more brain cells than a night spent sucking down Bourbon Stouts on an empty stomach. I desperately needed some nourishment, so that’s why I left my house at ten at night to find The Iceman Cometh. It was just what the doctor ordered. Frankenheimer and cinematographer Ralph Woolsey whittle camera movements down to an artful minimalism that only glides in slow for the kill when needed, and hits its mark every time. Ryan nails it. So does March. Marvin – despite working under the shadow of Jason Robards (who played Hickey 565 times during the Off Broadway play) – is also outstanding. My poor Busy Body-puckered brain was coming back to life, and by the end of it all I felt something magical, privy to something sacred. Small wonder that Ryan would, according to the CineBill that was distributed for the film, consider The Iceman Cometh “one of the two or three things he was proudest of in a long career.”

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12 Responses The Iceman Cometh (1973)

Posted By Richard Harland Smith : November 9, 2009 2:33 am

Tom Pedi, as Rocky Pioggi, also appeared in the original 1946 stage production in the same role, thus lending the entire production a sense of historical continuity.

Pedi also played Rocky in Sidney Lumet’s adaptation for television in 1960, in which Jason Robards was Hickey and Sorrell Booke played Hugo, a role he’d reprise for the 1973 film. Robert Redford played the Jeff Bridges role.

It’s sobering (ha!) to look around the room in that fourth screen cap and realize how many of those actors are gone now in addition to March and Ryan: Moses Gunn, Stephen Pearlman, Booke, George Voskovec and John McLiam.

Posted By Jerry Kovar : November 9, 2009 8:28 am

Glad that you singled out a favorite of mine “Seconds”. But “Manchurian Candidate” mainstream?? Linked to the abysmal “Ronin”???? I’m guessing that you didn’t see it in ’62.

Posted By medusamorlock : November 9, 2009 10:13 am

That trailer certainly whets the appetite for this, and your article clinches the deal! I must watch this! It’s wonderful to see the under-appreciated Bradford Dillman in a key role, too!

Wonderful article!

Posted By keelsetter : November 9, 2009 12:01 pm

Jerry – When talking about Frankenheimer I could have picked BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ (1962) and THE TRAIN (1964), but MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE did get two Oscar nominations and remains an enduring film that is still oft quoted in popular culture. As to RONIN, I picked that because it cracks me up that the same guy that could film an adrenaline-fueled car-chase sequence with Robert DeNiro and rocket launchers is also the same man who could so perfectly and subtly capture the nuance and grace of Eugene O’Neill. Frankenheimer had his share of duds, but he is a fascinating and talented director and I have a soft spot for him. Heck, I might also be one of the few people out there that thought PROPHECY (his mutant bear film) was a ton of fun.

Posted By Richard Harland Smith : November 9, 2009 1:34 pm

Now here’s a sentence you will never hear in a movie trailer again, ever, ever:

“The greatest American work of the theatre is now an extraordinary film.”

Posted By kingrat : November 9, 2009 6:53 pm

Ryan also received excellent reviews for playing the father in an off-Broadway production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

Jerry Kovar is right about The Manchurian Candidate. This film was never considered mainstream, unlike Birdman of Alcatraz, a project JF took over when it was in trouble. The Manchurian Candidate wasn’t praised by either the establishment or by auteurist critics. It was a cult film until seen again in the 1980s, and only then was it recognized as a stylish masterpiece.

Posted By keelsetter : November 10, 2009 12:57 pm

I understand the points being made about THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, but if we are to quibble over the meaning of “mainstream audiences” let me only concede half-way. The film was indeed scuttled upon its original release – removed from circulation due, in part, to its prescient and uncomfortable proximity to the Kennedy assassination. It was then revived in 1988 to great acclaim (Jerry’s astute observation that I didn’t see the film during the original 1962 release was spot on – I saw it in 1988). So I’ll concede it was not mainstream during its original release, but it has, since then, entered into mainstream consciousness as one the best films of Frankenheimer’s oeuvre.

Posted By kingrat : November 12, 2009 9:19 pm

It’s worth noting that when The Iceman Cometh was released, Robert Ryan had minimal marquee value. Older filmgoers would have known him, but the name and face would have been only vaguely familiar to most under-35 moviegoers. He would have been perceived as an actor from B-Movies of the past. He’d been in one recent hit movie, The Wild Bunch (1969), but that film attaracted attention only for Sam Peckinpah. Lee Marvin, on the other hand, was a star. Marvin got noticed in a prestigious picture, Ship of Fools; won an Oscar for Cat Ballou; and headlined the enormously successful The Dirty Dozen.

For the most part, colleges had just started offering film studies, and film noir wouldn’t necessarily have been included. Few of the people who saw The Iceman Cometh in 1973 would ever have seen Crossfire or The Set-Up or On Dangerous Ground. The vogue for film noir led to the rediscovery of Robert Ryan. His reputation as an actor has probably never been higher than it is today.

Posted By Keelsetter : November 13, 2009 3:13 am

Excellent points all around. Marvin is certainly deserving of more attention, but since we happened to be covering Ryan he got short shrift here.

Interesting that you should mention film studies courses as my first introduction to THE ICEMAN COMETH was thanks to a Eugene O’Neill course tought by Stan Brakhage in the late nineties. He was adamant about including the ’73 production in his class, even though it was not available at the time. He eventually used his personal clout to secure a shoddy VHS tape directly from Frankenheimer.

Posted By Robert Kawasaki : November 18, 2009 7:10 am

Robert Ryan’s invisible Oscar

Robert Ryan left us so many excellent performances. They are all authentic, un-fussy, soulful, and moving. Though, he never received an Oscar. Maybe, because most of his masterpieces are somewhat restrained artistic experiments rather than pure entertainment.

He should have been nominated for his performances in the films like, THE SET-UP, ON DANGEROUS GROUND, CLASH BY NIGHT, THE NAKED SPUR, INFERNO, ABOUT MRS.LESLIE, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, GOD’S LITTLE ACRE, ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW, BILLY BUDD, and THE WILD BUNCH. His last triumph in THE ICEMAN COMETH certainly should have him earned an Oscar for the best actor. His portrayal of Larry the anarchist is magnificent indeed. There weren’t any exaggerations in his part that it seems Ryan truely became Larry Slade himself. There are so many memorable performers in the film but Robert Ryan is definitely steals the film, and his role is crucial one for the entire project.

At least, I was relieved to hear that National Board of Review awarded him with the best actor prize in 1973. Sadly, he never make it to receive the prize.

Posted By Al Lowe : December 14, 2009 3:22 am

I just spent four hours watching THE ICEMAN COMETH VHS that I own.

The big attractions were Ryan and March – although many of the others are quite good too – Marvin, Moses Gunn, Bridges, the lesser known performers – and Bradford Dillman, who was probably never better.
(I worked 30 years ago with a man who was then Dillman’s former father-in-law. This man told me he once found himself uneasy at a Hollywood party. He tried to make conversation with some well-known actor – maybe Robert Wagner? – and another famous actor came over to join the conversation. Wagner – or whoever – told the other actor that the father-in-law was just telling how much he disliked the actor’s shoes. The father-in-law was left speechless.)

I mean no disrespect to Marvin. I know that Hickey is usually considered the starring part in the play. But this is Ryan’s picture. He dominates it and is brilliant in it. March is pretty amazing too. I feel sad that they didn’t get Oscar nods for their work.
Maybe audiences didn’t quite know who Ryan was (although I did) but this movie was not destined to attract crowds anyway. It is a filmed stage play and I suspect the normal audience, not devotees of great acting, might have been bored by it.
I am also sad that Ryan received third billing, after Marvin and March.
I don’t think I ever saw a bad Ryan performance. He was generally much better than his material.
I’ve seen all of his famous films but I am probably most familiar with BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK because I’m a big Spencer Tracy fan. I’ve seen it many times. Not too many actors could hold their own with Tracy, other than Hepburn of course. For example, I thought March gave one of his rare bad performances in INHERIT THE WIND. But Ryan creates a character out of what is written to be a stock villain. His Smith is a person.
Unlike Ryan, Tracy never tried O’Neill. And he should have, just as Ryan should have frequently starred in his plays.
I saved my viewing of ICEMAN for when I had time to watch it all again. And it was wonderful.

Posted By keelsetter : December 14, 2009 5:21 pm

Hi, Al -

Thanks for all your observations. I hate to admit this, but I’ve never seen BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK. But having now seen the trailer I know to add it to my list for future screenings. The wide open vistas intersected by a train alone would sell me, the great cast is gravy.

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