Richard Attenborough dead..

the only good film of those three you mention was not directed by Attenborough, but by Bryan Forbes who's career was quite similar to Attenborough's except Forbes was among other things, a screenwriter whilst Attenborough wasn't.

Thanks for returning to the thread a year on, to point out that error.

Saw him on stage at Crucible, can't remember what the play was.

Just had doubts that it wasn't him after all. Sorry

Surprised no one mentioned Look back in anger, he was excellent in that one. RIP Sir.

Surprised no one mentioned Look back in anger, he was excellent in that one. RIP Sir.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Back_in_Anger_(1959_film)#Cast

maybe you're confusing him with someone else. Dickie Attenborough wasn't in Look Back in Anger.

as an actor he was always at his best playing unsympathetic characters and producers almost never tried to cast him in sympathetic parts. When he got older with Jurassic Park and everything that changed and suddenly he was this benign grandfather. His portrayal of the vicious psychopathic criminal Pinky was one of post war British film's most pivotal performances but that was it for him really. Although with Brighton Rock being a really successful movie, producers tried him out briefly in other leading parts, the British film industry eventually decided that Attenborough, although nobody ever said he wasn't a very good actor, was best deployed in supporting and not leading roles. What passed for focus groups in those days told producers that he wasn't good looking and/or athletic looking enough, to be a star or leading man.

as an actor, he went twenty years between 1950-70 before he got top billing again with 10 Rillington Place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Back_in_Anger_(1959_film)#Cast

 

maybe you're confusing him with someone else. Dickie Attenborough wasn't in Look Back in Anger.

 

as an actor he was always at his best playing unsympathetic characters and producers almost never tried to cast him in sympathetic parts. When he got older with Jurassic Park and everything that changed and suddenly he was this benign grandfather. His portrayal of the vicious psychopathic criminal Pinky was one of post war British film's most pivotal performances but that was it for him really. Although with Brighton Rock being a really successful movie, producers tried him out briefly in other leading parts, the British film industry eventually decided that Attenborough, although nobody ever said he wasn't a very good actor, was best deployed in supporting and not leading roles. What passed for focus groups in those days told producers that he wasn't good looking and/or athletic looking enough, to be a star or leading man.

 

as an actor, he went twenty years between 1950-70 before he got top billing again with 10 Rillington Place.

My bad, I meant The Angry Silence, thanks for revisiting the post as I never realised I had written Look Back in Anger which of course was another Richard ie. Burton Both working class films made during that late 50's early 60's period which was full of those types of Movie eg Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, ,Live Now Pay Later, Room At The Top etc etc.

for me although I liked them as a kid, almost all of those late 50s early 60s films like Angry Silence, Look Back in Anger, Room at the Top and also the slightly different 'kitchen sinks' like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner etc have dated really badly. I can hardly watch them at all today.

but Brighton Rock, with Attenborough in the starring and his best role, still shines. I'm not sure what to make of it really. Perhaps Graham Greene was just a better author than John Osborne or Allan Sillitoe were.