Playing it Straight

Sir Ian McKellen in Richard III (1995)

McKellen’s take on one of Shakespeare’s classic historical tragedies works brilliantly, even with the action updated to the 1930s against a backdrop of the rise of Fascism in Europe. Many of Richard’s most devious speeches become asides that McKellen delivers to the camera, implicating us in his nefarious schemes against the British royal family.

The broken and twisted Richard is often played to exaggeration on the stage, with all manner of humps and limps, but McKellen makes him emotionally twisted and broken, making him all the more likely to want to gain personal power by wearing the brown shirt. It’s a devastatingly chilling performance.

2.5 Steves: Through no fault of McKellen’s, it’s nearly impossible to play a jack-booted Fascist without coming off just a little bit like a leather queen. Or maybe you can’t be a leather queen without looking a little like a jack-booted Fascist.

Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Yes, Grant was married several times, but many movie historians feel that the great love of his life was fellow matinee idol Randolph Scott, with whom he shared a “Hollywood bachelor pad” home for many years.

Grant’s career was one of the great ones, a favorite of directors as far afield as Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks. But it’s his role as C.K. Dexter Haven, the recovering alcoholic ex-husband of heiress Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn), that comes to mind first when remembering Grant’s best work. Working with gay director George Cukor, Grant creates a man who is armed for verbal battle but still carries a deep fondness for his headstrong former wife. He and Hepburn, both here and in Cukor’s Holiday (1938), were among the screen’s hottest — and coolest — couples.

4 Steves: There’s a bit of preppy effeteness going on here — Haven designs yachts for a living — but the character’s yearning for Tracy is never in doubt.