Newsletter: Classic Hollywood: Gregory Peck in his own words and Hollywood on horseback

This is Kevin Crust, your new tour guide as we continue to write about notable birthdays and deaths, movie and TV milestones, fun events around town and the latest in DVDs, soundtracks and books every Friday in our Classic Hollywood newsletter. You can also follow us on the Classic Hollywood Los Angeles Times Facebook page, and our film staff will continue to write about historic Tinseltown.

Remember, it was a sin ...

As we mentioned last week, April 5 marks Gregory Peck’s 100th birthday, and in this Sunday’s Calendar we’re taking the opportunity to look back at the actor’s long career with excerpts from Times interviews with him. Look for more quotes from Peck on Saturday at the Classic Hollywood web page and learn who his favorite actors were and what genre he wished he had worked in more. In the meantime, you can read Susan King’s interview with Peck on the occasion of ABC’s Christmas Day 1997 airing of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Just days before Peck died in 2003, the American Film Institute chose its “100 Greatest Heroes & Villains.” Topping the list on the side of the good was none other than Atticus Finch from “TKAM.” Finch outpolled such cinema icons as Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), James Bond (Sean Connery edition), “Casablanca’s” Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Will Kane of “High Noon” (Gary Cooper in a role turned down by Peck).

However, the publication last year of Harper Lee’s novel “Go Set a Watchman,” now viewed as an early draft of “TKAM,” complicated people’s idea of Finch and, by extension, Peck. Many fans were upset to learn the book portrayed Finch as a strict segregationist and, possibly, a racist.

The Times’ Rebecca Keegan addressed that complexity in an essay, “The Atticus Finch Effect at the Movies,” questioning the role of the white savior in contemporary pop culture. Another interesting read is our former book critic David Ulin’s argument that “Go Set a Watchman” was an opportunity to see an iconic character evolving.

Peck himself preferred the complexity in the roles he played. “I’m not nearly as confident as those hero characters are,” the actor told The Times in 1994. “Although I think in films like ‘Twelve O’Clock High’ and ‘The Guns of Navarone,’ it seemed to me that I brought in a little ambivalence of character and vulnerability and self-doubt whenever there was an opening for it. But am I like these heroes in real life? No. Sometimes I’ve been courageous and sometimes less so.”

“To Kill a Mockingbird” screens Friday at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica with another Robert Mulligan-directed film, “The Stalking Moon” (1968), as part of the American Cinematheque’s “Standing Tall: A Century of Gregory Peck” series; and Tuesday at the Crest Theatre in Westwood. If you can’t make it to the theater, Turner Classic Movies presents the film Tuesday at 7 p.m. PDT.

Happy Trails

Recently, I heard Petrine Day Mitchum discussing her book “Hollywood Hoofbeats” on NPR’s “Fresh Air.” The daughter of Robert Mitchum co-authored the book with Audrey Pavia in 2005, with a revised paperback edition in 2014.

What caught my ear can be summed up in the book’s subtitle: “The Fascinating Story of Horses in Movies and Television.” Despite having a grandfather who was a thoroughbred trainer at Santa Anita and racetracks in Canada and Florida, I am not what you would describe as horse person. However, Mitchum’s tales, as told to “Fresh Air’s” Dave Davies, were indeed fascinating as she chronicled the equine contribution to Hollywood.

From the silent days, when some horses were the names on the marquee to the classic era and the close bonds formed between stars such as John Wayne and Roy Rogers and their famous mounts, Duke and Trigger, Mitchum portrays the animals as the unsung heroes of not just westerns but movies in general.

It’s worth listening to the entire interview just to hear a clip of James Stewart explaining how he coaxed his favorite horse, Pie, through an intricate scene while shooting “The Far Country” (1954).

Danger Zone

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s films and television shows have garnered 43 Academy Award nominations and six Oscars, 127 Emmy nominations and 23 Emmys, 23 Golden Globe nominations and four Golden Globes. He has been presented the American Cinematheque Award, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and had his hands and feet enshrined in concrete at what is now the TCL Chinese Theatre.

Now, the producer of such hit films as “Beverly Hills Cop” (1984), “Armageddon” (1998) and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series has his own film festival presented by the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television through April 27. A digitally remastered 30th anniversary screening of “Top Gun,” starring Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and Kelly McGillis, kicks things off. Bruckheimer will be present for a Q&A with Peter Bart.

A huge force in television with such current successes as the “CSI” franchise, “Without a Trace” and “The Amazing Race,” Bruckheimer and his late partner Don Simpson were also big at the multiplexes of the 1980s. Their films typified the excesses of the decade in style and tone, with soundtracks that spun off hit music videos for months on end, fueling long theatrical runs. Rarely critics’ favorites, the movies were undeniably popular with fans and helped make megastars out of Eddie Murphy, Cruise and Johnny Depp.

“The Heat Is On: A Jerry Bruckheimer Film Festival” opens with “Top Gun” (1986) at the Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. (323) 938-4038, 7:30 p.m. Friday.

DVD Vault

If you are a Gregory Peck completist, you may be interested in “The Purple Plain” (1954), out on Blu-ray Tuesday, April 5, from Kino Lorber. Peck stars as a disillusioned Canadian pilot who crash-lands and must cross the Japanese-occupied Burmese desert near the end of World War II.

Although the tale was filmed in Technicolor by director Robert Parrish, Times critic Philip K. Scheuer called the film a “monochrome of human suffering” when it opened in Beverly Hills on March 29, 1955, at the Fox Wilshire (now the Saban Theatre). Nevertheless, the film was a box-office hit and nominated for four BAFTA Awards. Maurice Denham and Lyndon Brook costar. Eric Ambler wrote the screenplay based on the novel by H.E. Bates.

From the Hollywood Star Walk

Notable births this week include Wallace Beery (April 1), Lon Chaney (April 1), Debbie Reynolds (April 1), Buddy Ebsen (April 2), Alec Guinness (April 2), Jack Webb (April 2), Alec Baldwin (April 3), Marlon Brando (April 3), Doris Day (April 3), Bea Benaderet (April 4), Anthony Perkins (April 4), Bette Davis (April 5), Melvyn Douglas (April 5), Gregory Peck (April 5), Spencer Tracy (April 5) and Billy Dee Williams (April 6).

Pictures, Big and Small

Most of us know Gloria Swanson primarily from Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Blvd.” (1950), but much like her character Norma Desmond she was a sultry and seducutive star of the silent era. Beginning in her teens, the actress worked at Essanay Studios in Chicago, crossing paths with Charlie Chaplin, before moving to California and appearing in films for directors Charlie Chase, Cecil B. DeMille and Sam Wood.

Swanson was a huge star at Paramount in the 1920s, but craving the independence to choose her own projects she joined United Artists in 1927. She produced her own films, including “The Love of Sunya” (1927), “Sadie Thompson” (1928) and “Queen Kelly” (1929). She successfully transitioned to talkies with “The Trespasser” (1929) but would have to wait 20 years for another big-screen hit. In the interim, she was an early adopter of television with the “The Gloria Swanson Show” and acted on stage for decades, including several Broadway runs and national tours.

Swanson was nominated three times for Academy Awards and made appearances on television into her 70s. She died in 1983 at age 84.

Read the Los Angeles Times obituary from April 5, 1983.

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kevin.crust@latimes.com

@storyspheare