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Raymond Massey: Role
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Synopsis: In Seven Angry Men, Raymond Massey stars as controversial 19th-century abolitionist John Brown, a role he'd previously essayed in 1940's Santa Fe Trail. Without glossing over Brown's murderous fanaticism and cold-bloodedness, the film manages to invoke a degree of sympathy for the man, whoseRead More
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With Vincent Massey's appointment as Governor General, a new tradition began – he was the first Canadian appointed to the post, and from that day the Governor General has always been a Canadian citizen. If the innovation had any detractors, they were soon won over by Mr. Massey's exceptional qualities in the vice-regal role.
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Despite being Canadian, Massey became famous for his quintessential American roles such as abolitionist John Brown in 1940's Santa Fe Trail and again as John Brown in the 1955 low-budget film Seven Angry Men. Interestingly, his second portrayal of Brown was much more sympathetic, presenting him as a well-intentioned, but misguided figure, while in Santa Fe Trail he was presented as a wild-eyed lunatic.
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Massey rose to the demands of even the fruitiest melodrama. His newspaper magnate in The Fountainhead, as pathologically pigheaded as the Gary Cooper with whom he competes for Patricia Neal; the patriarch of the acting Booth clan in Prince of Players, and the father of James Dean in East of Eden; even his roles as routine heavy in a dozen 1950s Westerns and period films never lost the sense that, as he spoke, thunder rumbled somewhere beyond the horizon. That thunder was relatively muted... in his final screen appearances in the sitcomlike made-for-television movies All My Darling Daughters and My Darling Daughters' Anniversary, where he played second fiddle to star Robert Young's harried judge whose four vivacious daughters get married, and subsequently celebrate their first wedding anniversaries, on the same day.
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