Meet James Mason (Welcome, Welcome)

Hello out there!

Hi-ya, handsome!

My name is Lisa and I blog over at She Was a Bird about various vintage goings on...a couple of weeks ago, I was in the middle of preparing a post about my favorite actor, James Mason, when I realized there isn't a collected wealth of information about Huddersfield's most famous son on the world wide internet. I've spent the ensuing time, right up to the present, combing various online and print resources to learn more about his life and work, when inspiration struck. I thought I might put together some individual posts so that future Mason fans would be able to easily clap hands on details and digital archive findings about his not-unexciting life and movie career. So if you're just tuning in, welcome! And let me begin by saying a little about what got me into this in the first place.

"Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan?" says one who should know.

My sister and I first took notice of James Mason in one of my favorite Hitchcock movies, North by Northwest. While an abiding love of Cary Grant and Hitch drove us toward repeat viewing of the midcentury suspense caper, the quote we kept returning to as an injoke was simply James Mason's line reading of the Grant character's mistaken identity. "Kaaaaplan...Geooooorge....Kaplan....." was short hand for a quick, warm laugh over Mason's indelible performance as an urbane spymaster Phillip Vandamm, and I would always think, "Hey, it's got James Mason in it!" as a boon towards buying this, that, or the other movie.

In another memorable (infamous?) moment from the third movie incarnation of A Star is Born, this one 1954 with Judy Garland.

Years later, and at to the present day, I was trawling Youtube for classic Hollywood movie actor interviews to listen to while working. The BBC Two series, Talking Pictures, features compiled archival interviews with actors and actresses, unified by biographical information and stills narrated by Sylvia Sims. I watched one of handsome, unpredictable Robert Mitchum, and chatty, darling Laurence Olivier before coming across one of James Mason that I ended up watching several times. More than voice, which is always perfectly singular, Mason's choice of words was hypnotizing. He didn't like something, but that he was "bewitched" by it. He didn't find a film trashy, he was impressed by its "gross breaches in taste". For someone who loves the spoken word almost as much as the written, I sat up and took interest in his off screen personality more so than I hitherto had his onscreen roles. There's a real shortage of people, including classically trained actors from that time period, with enough erudition and sheer chutzpah to pull of speaking in the way James Mason does. And with such flair. I wanted to know more about this character.

On the lam in Odd Man Out (1947)

Being the film autodidact I've always been, I pulled his filmography from Wikipedia and started working down the list, expecting the run of the mill post war British movies Trevor Howard became famous in and for which I can claim little enthusiasm. Was I wrong....which! Brings us to this blog.

My marked up filmography-- still trying to fill in some of those blanks!

My main goal, in this blog, is to re-assess the trademarks ascribed to JM on his IMDB page."Sophisticated upper-class demeanor... deep mellifluous voice," is accurate but seems to leave out so much of what makes his performances special. As MGM director George Cukor said of his A Star is Born leading man, "If James Mason is in front of the cameras, just leave them rolling! He never makes a mistake." While perhaps some of the pictures he appears in aren't top drawer (I'm looking at you, Cold Sweat and Kill!), what he brings to the screen himself is always at least a little, and habitually very, worth watching. What more could you ask from an actor?

Dame shaking his real life wife Pamela Kellino...will this man never learn?

As time permits, I'll be posting my own movie reviews of the thirty-two (and counting!) James Mason movies I've seen over the past few weeks, along with what I could find of old time radio and print appearances from almost fifty-year screen career. Think of it as a modern version of a newsletter from the (oddly numerous) star-specific fan clubs of Hollywood's yesteryear (more about that later). If you're already a Mason fan, I hope you'll find something you didn't know before about him-- if you're unfamiliar with his works, come dive in with me!

I welcome (and look forward to!) your thoughts, questions, or just shoot-the-breeze comments in the comments section at the bottom of each post...if there's anyone who wants to talk turkey about James Mason with you, believe me, it's me. :)

Have  a great rest of the day and keep checking back for more content...it's coming!