Joseph Newton finally got Herbie Hawkins! Hume Cronyn has passed away...

Harry here… Father Geek beat me to writing about Gregory Peck and William Marshall, but it has fallen upon me to write about the passing of Hume Cronyn. Too many people seem to think of Hume as merely “the husband of Jessica Tandy,” but frankly… I was a fan of Hume Cronyn before I ever knew about DRIVING MISS DAISY and his wife.

I first saw Hume Cronyn in COCOON, where he played Joe Finley, eaten up with cancer, bitter about the prospects of living life, and suddenly with the help of a little alien energy, he’s so filled with life that he returns to his careless ways hurting the one he loved. It was a great character and a wonderful role. Actually, COCOON was one of those movies I saw, which caused me to see what these actors had done in their younger days. It’s what I call a “Gateway Film,” a film that leads you to a whole string of movies. Kinda like the “Kick The Can” segment of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.

I have to say, discovering Hume Cronyn has been one of my great delights cinematically speaking. By no means was he the matinee idol that Gregory Peck was, not the kitschy cool of William Marshall… no, Hume Cronyn was a character actor and an amazing personality.

There was that day, back in 1991, where Father Geek and I stumbled into our Hotel Room in Dallas, Texas after setting up our booth at the big Dallas Comic Convention that summer – and we turned the television on and found a Joseph Cotton film that was in progress. We didn’t know the title, it was one of those vintage movie channels, but we were gripped. Cotton seemed to be on the run from the law, and we flash to this girl that Dad recognized as Teresa Wright, who was bored out of her skull till she finds out her dear Uncle Charlie is coming to town. Her parents were played by Clarence the Angel from IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and a wonderful actress I hadn’t seen before or since. There was a great dynamic to the film, and this was when Dad and I began arguing. The film felt like a Hitchcock movie. Dad was adamant that it wasn’t a Hitchcock movie. Then Hume Cronyn showed up. BOY DID HE SHOW UP! Hume played a character named Herbie Hawkins… in the history of little “pointless” side characters, Herbie Hawkins is one of my all time favorites. You see, he and Clarence the Angel from IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE are playing an intellectual game. They were plotting to kill each other, but in such a way as to get away with it. Both were crime and mystery and murder buffs, but Herbie Hawkins was obsessed. A total murder geek… Hume played the role with such a geeky energy that it lept off that screen and into my heart. After the film was over, Father Geek and I, traveled all over Dallas looking for a damn newspaper stand – we had to know what the name of the movie we saw was… We discovered that indeed, it was a Hitchcock film called SHADOW OF A DOUBT, it also happened to be Hitchcock’s favorite film of his career, and it is very nearly my favorite as well… I sort of go back and forth between SHADOW OF A DOUBT, REAR WINDOW and NORTH BY NORTHWEST and ROPE.

Speaking of ROPE, Hume Cronyn is who adapted Patrick Hamilton’s play ROPE’S END into screenplay form for his friend Alfred Hitchcock. You see, Hume Cronyn and Alfred Hitchcock really played the game that his character Herbie Hawkins had partook in SHADOW OF A DOUBT. They were both morbidly fascinated with murder, crime and the tingles that dance upon one’s spine.

Long before the “modern era” of Hume’s career, he had a constant and thrilling career as a character actor. You could find him as Gerard in the Claude Rains PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, as a passenger in Hitchcock’s LIFEBOAT. Want to see the best role of Hume’s life? Check out Spencer Tracy’s THE SEVENTH CROSS – God, Hume is great in the film. He and his future wife, Jessica Tandy, played a German Husband and Wife team in early era Nazi Germany. He works at a factory that used to make Sewing machines, but that now makes Machine Guns and it is through his character that we see him come to realize what has happened in this country of his and that transformation earned him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and frankly he flat out steals the movie from Spencer Tracy… NOT AN EASY THING!

Hume had the honor of being in two of the greatest Film Noirs of all time… THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE with Lana Turner and John Garfield and BRUTE FORCE with Burt Lancaster. Both movies that you shouldn’t go a day longer without having in your lives.

One of my favorite films with Hume is when he played Dr. Oppenheimer in THE BEGINNING OR THE END… I’ve been a fan of propaganda films, comics and whatnot regarding The Atomic Bomb. It began with my father’s interest in getting every comic book cover that depicted an Atomic Bomb blast – but there are so many Atomic or Radiation flicks that are really wonderful. From all those science fiction films that postulated that we’d cause Giant Grasshoppers to eat Chicago or Ants to devour Los Angeles or long dormant dinosaurs to grow, breathe fire and consume Japan… to film noirs like SPLIT SECOND and KISS ME DEADLY. Then there is the classic INVASION U.S.A. (no not the Chuck Norris one) However, in 1947 THE BEGINNING OR THE END was the film that sort of laid out how the Atomic Bomb came to be. And Hume played its daddy. He does a pretty straight forward job, and really Robert Walker stole that film. But I love the ambiguous nature of the film, that in 1947 – when the United States was still the sole-possessor of the Atomic Bomb, that they were contemplating the future ramifications of this genie they’d let out of the bottle and how far it could go. Impossible to find, but I saw it on satellite once back in the late eighties. Fascinating hard to find flick.

Hume performed in one of the biggest films we’ve ever seen hit the screen… that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton monstrosity that nearly destroyed 20th Century Fox. Yup, Hume played Sosigenes – aide to Cleopatra. My favorite moment of his is when Cleopatra is talking about building up the navy and extolling the virtues of “pre-emption.” Taylor’s Cleopatra says, “The way to prevent war is to be ready for it!” To which Hume’s Sosigenes responds, “Have 300 warships ever been built for war without war?” Ah, the self-fulfilling prophecy of war mongering.

If you ever want to be seriously creeped out by Hume Cronyn, check him out in Alan Pakula’s fantastic paranoia and conspiracy flick… THE PARALLAX VIEW with Warren Beatty. Hume plays Bill Rintels, not a very nice or helpful man. This is another film that you simply must see! Great work here!

I’m not gonna go into his modern career… The eighties on, because that’s the Hume Cronyn you guys know and will most likely discuss and honor in the following Talk Back. I just wanted to give you guys and gals a bit of perspective and hopefully the urge to discover the rest of a career that was quite remarkable. What I love about Hume Cronyn is that he has always worked and done great work. He’ll definitely be missed.