I Just Wasn't Made For These Times: Scheider Redux

I just read an interesting and somewhat depressing passage about Roy Scheider in Ryan Gilbey's It Don't Worry Me: The Revolutionary American Films of the 1970s published by Faber and Faber in 2003.  In the wake of Scheider's recent passing, I thought it was worth highlighting and noting that, in fact, Gilbey's words read something like an early eulogy for Scheider, and other actors of his generation, for that matter.

Gilbey's book is divided into ten chapters each focusing on a different prominent director of the era.  The chapter on Jonathan Demme discusses Scheider's role as Harry Hannan in Last Embrace and while the author begins by commenting on Scheider's character, he ends talking about Scheider's already fading career as a leading man: 

"Demme had expressed the view that Scheider 'could be the Humphrey Bogart of the 1970s,' and you can just hear Bogart reciting those lines, sounding as ever like a man with lockjaw talking in his sleep. Scheider looks fabulously lost and, unfortunately, so untrustworthy that surely no one would want to help him find his way again.  With that flat face (he has no profile) and oily skin, it's clear now that he was an endangered species.  In the same year, Richard Gere would manage to look swell while also falling apart in Paul Schrader's American Gigolo, and the preppy locker-room blandness of Tom Cruise and his brat-pack siblings was only a few years away.  How could Scheider have hoped to survive?  The fact that he didn't, and was more stubborn and gnarled than heroic by the time he played the lead in Blue Thunder in 1983, lends Last Embrace an uninvited poignancy. 

When Harry visits the graveyard, the New York skyline is set high in the distance behind him, and beyond it stands a rusty sunset: he seems to be saying goodbye to more than just his wife (Scheider might be bidding farewell to his own popularity, and also to the era of Jaws, his greatest success).  When he steps out on to the viewing deck next to Niagara Falls in the film's climax, he lets out an involuntary groan that corresponds to the visual shock of his white suit infiltrating a throng of banana-yellow sou'westers, and you imagine that Scheider's reaction to the encroaching generation of pretty-boys, flawless, and homogenous, was similarly fraught."

After reading this passage, you would not think that Scheider would live nearly thirty more years and complete many other film projects. Yet, Gilbey's sentiments about the next generation, with its preponderance of pretty faces and callow personalities, largely rings true. Still, the continued success of contemporaries like his French Connection compadre Gene Hackman indicate that some of Scheider's late-career troubles were due, in part, to poor film choices and a fiery persona that did not always endear him to the industry. Diane C. Kachmar's in-depth, Scheider: A Film Biography details Scheider's infamous troubles on Jaws 2 (which you can read about in this free preview), a film which he was contractually committed to, and which contributed to his having to bow out of Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (his role went to Robert De Niro).  Scheider finished the gig, but not before scuffling with director Jeannot Szwarc (Somewhere in Time; Supergirl).

No, that's not Jaws 2 director Szwarc about to get whacked by Scheider, but a very young and unknown Mandy Patinkin.  

R.I.P.: Roy Scheider

I was very sad to hear that Roy Scheider had passed away due to complications from multiple myeloma.  In fact, when I saw him at a 2006 gala for Steven Spielberg in Chicago it was apparent to my eyes that Roy was not in the best of health.  Still, he gave a warm and humorous tribute to Spielberg to kick off of the evening's festivities. One of the finest stage and screen actors of the last forty years, Scheider will be most remembered for his starring role in Jaws, however he lent his rugged, blue collar presence to many other quality films including: The French Connection, Sorcerer, Marathon Man, All That Jazz, Klute, Last Embrace, Blue Thunder, 52 Pick-Up, Naked Lunch, Still of the Night, and Cohen & Tate.  

Of Scheider's films, I must confess a special affinity for Blue Thunder in which Scheider plays a slightly unhinged Vietnam vet police helicopter pilot who goes against a collection of crooked feds led by a deliciously over-the-top Malcolm McDowell.  This was one of the first R-rated films I saw and I vividly recall sneaking into an afternoon showing with my father after seeing Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone in 3-D.  Aside from the juicy McDowell role, Blue Thunder also features the inimitable and irascible Warren Oates (coincidentally pictured in the below post) in his final feature film role.  [Richard Fleischer's Tough Enough, released just after Blue Thunder and in which Oates also appears, was actually completed earlier in 1981.]

Last Embrace, a Hitchcock-like thriller, is often overlooked in director Jonathan Demme's oeuvre, but it is worth pursuing.  Needless to say, this sleeper is not yet available on DVD. Scheider stars with the late Janet Margolin (David and Lisa), John Glover, Sam Levene, Charles Napier (a Demme and Russ Meyer favorite), and Christopher Walken.  Cult director Jim McBride, cult actor Joe Spinell, and Mandy Patinkin make brief appearances.  The screenplay is by the late David Shaber, who wrote or co-wrote several memorable scripts, including The Warriors, in a relatively brief career.  The legendary Miklos Rozsa contributed one of his last scores to the film.

In the late 1980s and into the 90s, Scheider transitioned to more character and supporting roles and was seen in less high-profile productions.  Scheider had been ill for the last several years, but continued to appear in a mixture of film and television productions, mostly of the independent variety.  At the same time, he became increasingly active in the political arena and was a visible presence at anti-war rallies in recent years.  For further information, take a look at Dave Kehr's obituary at the New York Times.

At the risk of sounding slightly crass, I'll sign off by quoting McDowell's favorite catch phrase from Blue Thunder, one which Roy memorably throws back in his face, "Catch you later."