Robert Morse Movies
Puckish comic actor Robert Morse had studied with Lee Strasberg before his film debut in 1956's Proud and the Profane. This bit role led to a Paramount contract, though this early attempt to make Morse a movie star went no further than his re-creation of his stage role in The Matchmaker (1958). He went on to show up on TV in a variety of roles (he was a juvenile delinquent on Hitchcock), but was more successful on Broadway, co-starring in the musicals Say Darling and Take Me Along. In Frank Loesser's 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Morse, as the ambitious J. Pierpont Finch, entered Broadway Valhalla when he sang the show's big romantic song "I Believe in You" -- while looking at himself in a mirror. Morse won a Tony award for this performance, and in 1967 reprised the role for the film version. One year later, he co-starred with E.J. Peaker in the experimental weekly TV musical-comedy series That's Life. His best post-How to Succeed film role was the philandering best friend of Walter Matthau in A Guide for the Married Man (1967). In the early '70s, Morse starred in another long-running Broadway effort, Sugar, a musical version of Some Like It Hot. Morse had some difficulty maintaining a starring career into the 1980s, but in 1990 made a triumphant return to Broadway (and won another Tony in the bargain) for his one-man Truman Capote-show Tru. In later years, Robert Morse starred on Broadway and the road as Captain Andy in Harold Prince's glittering revival of Show Boat, and was seen as Grandpa Munster on the 1995 "retro" TV movie Here Come the Munsters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Tom Tryon plays the title role in this Otto Preminger version of the Henry Morton Robinson novel. In his matriculation from Monsignor to the College of Cardinals, Stephen Fermoyle (Tom Tryon) must undergo several grueling life experiences: standing up to bigots in Georgia, defying Nazis in Austria, and so on. The film boasts cameo appearances by Dorothy Gish, Cecil Kellaway, John Saxon, John Huston, Robert Morse, Burgess Meredith, Raf Vallone, Ossie Davis. Incidentally, Tryon eventually quit acting and became a popular novelist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Tryon, Carol Lynley, (more)
- 1960
Charles Underhill (John McIntire) and his niece Anne (Suzanne Pleshette) offer a ride to Len (Robert Morse), the nice young man who helped Charles repair his stalled car. Shortly thereafter, Underhill learns that Len has spent several years in a reform school. Now in fear of his life, Underhill wonders how he can rid himself of the youthful hitchhiker -- but as it turns out, Len is the least of his worries. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1959
Lumber tycoon Bill Fleming (Paul Douglas) knows that his wife, Laura (Dody Heath), is unfaithful, but he draws the line at killing Laura's love, Philip Baxter (Hugh Marlowe). However, Fleming changes his mind when a young acquaintance named Sandy (Robert Morse) cites an archaic but still viable law, which declares that Fleming cannot be prosecuted if he kills his rival in a duel. What Sandy doesn't tell Fleming is that this law has its own peculiar conditions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Thornton Wilder's 1938 stage play The Merchant of Yonkers was based on an old British stage farce by John Oxenford (which in turn served as the basis of an Austrian farce by Johann Nestroy). Merchant of Yonkers was a bomb, but Wilder was quite fond of the piece, so he revised it as the considerably more successful The Matchmaker in 1955. The 1958 film version stars Shirley Booth as 19th-century matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi (a character not found in the Oxenford or Nestroy versions; Wilder "borrowed" Dolly from Moliere's The Miser). Dolly is currently trying to arrange a marriage between Yonkers dry-goods merchant Horace Vandergelder (Paul Ford) and hatmaker Irene Molloy (Shirley MacLaine)-though she secretly harbors a desire to march Horace to the altar herself. Meanwhile, Vandergelder's chief clerk Cornelius (Anthony Perkins), celebrating a recent promotion, decides to head to New York for a "good time". Though he's supposed to be minding the store, Cornelius abandons the shop, with fellow-clerk Barnaby (Robert Morse, repeating his stage role) in tow. Inevitably, Cornelius and Barnaby wind up escorting Irene Molloy and her co-worker Minnie Fay (Perry Wilson) to a fancy restaurant, where Horace and Dolly are also dining. As the many plot twists wend their way through the proceedings, the camera occasionally pauses to allow the character to speak directly to the audience, expressing their innermost desires and philosophies; this purely theatrical device works quite well on screen, especially the monologue about honesty delivered by handyman Malachi Stack (played with alcoholic whimsy by Wallace Ford). While the name "Malachi Stack"may not be familiar to you, the other characters-and the basic plot-will be instantly recognizable to fans of Hello Dolly, the 1964 musical comedy version of The Matchmaker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Booth, Anthony Perkins, (more)
- 1958
In this drama, a naive woman lets a magazine salesman into to her house to have him demonstrate his wares. She does not know that he is really a fugitive from a mental hospital. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1956
In this war romance, set during WW II, a widow falls for a Marine colonel. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Holden, Deborah Kerr, (more)
