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Ray Milland: Films
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Ray Milland movies DVDs filmography available to buy at CDUniverse are listed below. Information on films includes: other actor and actress, star cast and crew information, reviews, director, photo of cover art, product pics and more.
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Ray Milland stars as alcoholic writer Don Birnam in Billy Wilder's first unabashedly dramatic film, and one of the first to deal in such painstaking detail with the disease of alcoholism. Don shares an apartment in New York City in the 1940s with his brother Wick (Phillip Terry) who has his hands full trying to deal with his brother's drinking problem. One night, Don encourages his brother to take his girlfriend Helen St. James (Jane Wyman) to hear some music only so that he can be out from under their watchful eyes. Taking the money left for the maid, he goes out to buy some liquor, stashing one bottle in the chandelier. When he goes to the bar the next day, Nat (Howard Da Silva), the owner berates him for treating his girlfriend badly and warns him that he's on a path toward death. Don returns to the apartment to try to work on his novel "The Bottle," but consumed by self-doubt, goes to another bar, and steals a woman's purse to buy a drink.
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R[A]y Milland was born Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones on January 3, 1907 on a mountain called Cymla, above the town of Neath in Wales. He took his stage name from the flat area of land called the mill lands in Neath, which he remembered fondly in his youth. After three years of service as a guardsman with the Royal Household Cavalry in London, he entered British films in 1929.
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Milland first appeared in films in 1929 and his easy charm and smooth good looks proved appropriate to many sorts of roles. He regularly turned in competent, sometimes excellent performances in comedies (Easy Living), musicals (Three Smart Girls), adventures (Beau Geste), and exotic romances (The Jungle Princess and its Technicolor remake Her Jungle Love, both with Dorothy Lamour). Milland signed a contract with Paramount in 1934 and the studio kept him continually busy; the actor averaged five features per year throughout the 1930s. He worked with most of Paramount's top directors—Taurog, Ruggles, Tuttle, Wellman, Florey, Sandrich, Borzage—but the two who would make the films most representative of Milland's styles were Mitchell Leisen and John Farrow.
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Milland landed the part of alcoholic writer Don Birnam after first choice Jose Ferrer was unavailable. A handsome, likable leading man since the mid-1930s, he chose to play the starring role with a noticeable lack of sympathy, which was unusual at the time. Milland researched the character by studying the denizens of New York City's Bowery bars and the detox ward of Bellevue Hospital. He emulated their facial expressions and gestures in his performance, which, combined with the location shooting, contributed to the film's authenticity. Milland continued to deliver impressive performances, although in his later years he often appeared in low-budget horror films and made-for-television productions. Beginning in the mid-1950s he ... occasionally tinkered with directing and producing.
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Ray Milland had been playing mostly good guys, but he played the Devil himself with Alias Nick Beal (Paramount, 1949). Suave, sinister Beal (Milland) entices a crusading district attorney (Thomas Mitchell) with success, but at the possible price of the lawyer’s soul. While this avenue has been explored before with The Devil And Daniel Webster (1941), the latter film ... effectively blends horror and film noir.
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