July 1, 1925– One day last week I watched back to back Hitchcock on TCM. I thought I had seen all of Alfred Hitchcock’s Hollywood period films & most of his British silent films & early talkies, but I had somehow missed Marnie from 1964. I finally watched this movie in amazement & afterwards I felt I needed to put together a post on my impressions of this nearly nutty psychological thriller about a frigid & fragile person, who is raped by Sean Connery, but then I thought: “Why, when I live it every day?”
Immediately after viewing Marnie, I watched Rope (1948). I am always up for a little Farley Granger. Granger had a career on stage & screen from the early 1940s into the new century. He is especially noted for starring in a pair of films Hitchcock with legendary homosexual subtext: Rope & Strangers On A Train (1951).
His first starring role in They Live By Night (1948), directed by bi-sexual Nicholas Ray, is one of my favorites of his film performances. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of a bank robber on the lam grabbed the attention of Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope, a film inspired by the notorious Leopold & Loeb murder case. Hitchcock had the great idea to cast Granger & co-star John Dahl, whose homosexuality was also well known in Hollywood, as a pair of affluent young men who set out to commit a “prefect murder” just for the thrill.
Their sexuality is never made explicit in the film, but the relationship between the characters has a strong homoerotic subtext, skillfully sewn together by Hitchcock & his actors. The film became notorious for its continuous, uninterrupted 10-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted. It was a difficult feat & Hitchcock ran into numerous technical problems which frequently brought the action to a halt throughout the short 21 day shoot.
3 years after starring in Rope, Granger again worked with Hitchcock in the classic thriller about a perfect murder, Strangers On A Train, based on the first novel by acclaimed lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, author of The Talented Mr. Ripley & a series of Ripley books. Hitchcock was dissatisfied with the end result, but Strangers On A Train was an unlikely box-office hit & the first major success of Granger’s career & is one of my favorite of Hitchcock’s films.
Except in the last decade of his life, Granger was secretive about his private life, but his gayness was hardly a secret in the Hollywood & Broadway acting communities. Among his many lovers was Arthur Laurents, one of my personal favorite people, who wrote the screenplay for Rope. Laurents speaks kindly of Granger in his terrific memoir Original Story By (2000).
Granger had flings with Leonard Bernstein & Robert Walker & he remained friends with both of them until each of their deaths. I like that, I remain friends with most if my liaisons, so civilized. In 1995 he was one of the actors interviewed for Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman’s ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995), discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, in particular, Rope & Strangers On A Train.
Granger was a profoundly good-looking guy & an actor of considerable range & style: Broadway, films, musicals, light comedies, dramas & film noir. He made more than 50 films & worked in a dozen Broadway shows, plus daytime soap operas on TV.
I found him to be the epitome of how to age with class & distinction. He was in a 49 year romantic partnership with stage manager Robert Calhoun who left this world in 2008. The couple lived in the same Greenwich Village apartment for all those decades. I said hello to them once on a spring day in 1977 when I was on my way to an acting class at HB Studios & we chatted on the sidewalk for a moment about acting schools. He mentioned that he had studied at the Actors Studio along with his BFF Shelly Winters. In his early 50s, Granger was just about the handsomest man I had ever laid eyes on. You really should read Granger’s dishy memoir, deliciously titled Include Me Out (2007).
“I looked forward to the time when I could be myself. & that’s how I have lived & still continue to live my life. Fortunately, it has been many years since I felt the need to be secretive.”
Granger took his final bow in the same week as Elizabeth Taylor in spring of 2011.
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