ROD TAYLOR: PULLING NO PUNCHES
Australia, 2016, 80 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Robert de Young.
Rod Taylor was a strong screen presence by the end of the 1950s. He had a prolific career during the 1960s in Hollywood, two high profile films a year as well as a television series, Hong Kong, and other television appearances. He was still significant in the 1970s but in the late 70s and into the 1980s he appeared in fairly routine action adventures. In 1997, returned home to Australia, he appeared in Stephan Elliot’s Welcome to Woop Woop as an eccentric character, Daddy-Oh?, and was asked by Quentin Tarantino who admired him to appear as Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds.
The film opens in a rather peculiar manner, giving a great deal of attention to a light romantic comedy of the early 1960s, Sunday in New York, with Taylor appearing with Jane Fonda. His biographer and other commentators praise him for his ability for light, comedy, indicating two of his films with Doris day.
Eventually, the narrative goes back to Taylor’s Australian life, his work, his studies as an artist, his interest in radio work and extensive appearances. It moves into his film career, some documentary material, appearing with Chips Rafferty in King of the Coral Sea, with Robert Newton in Long John Silver and then the invitation for him to go to the United States. Quite quickly he appeared in A Catered Affair with Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine and Debbie Reynolds and then with Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County.
The film gives brief but quite substantial comment on so many of Taylor’s films, especially in the 1960s, and quite a number of clips. A lot is made of his appearance in The Time Machine and its impact.
There are interviews, talking heads, with Australian critic Bill Collins who admires him, with writer Peter Yeldham and who wrote The Liquidator (quite some discussion and clips), a generous commentary by Maggie Smith who appeared within in the VIPs as well as Young Cassidy (and the contact with director and photographer Jack Cardiff and John Ford). Angela Lansbury also does a generous tribute to Taylor, especially commenting on his voice-over for the hero dog in 101 Dalmatians – a film which Taylor himself deprecates.
At the core of the film is an extensive interview with Taylor in his old age, a genial interview, putting himself down a lot while mentioning that all actors have a lot of ego. It traces his life, his career, his commentary on the various films and television programs, putting them in the perspective of his life, his admiration for such films as Dark of the Sun.
Seeing him as an Australian actor in Hollywood but keeping a very strong Australian tone there are interviews with Jack Thompson, director Baz Luhrman and Bryan Brown. Tippi Hedren and Veronica Cartwright make comment about the making of The Birds – with Taylor himself telling amusing stories about interactions with Alfred Hitchcock. Moving to more recent times there are interviews with directors Stephan Elliot and Susie Porter in connection with Welcome to Woop Woop.
Not every film is treated, especially after the mid-1970s but it is disappointing not have some comment on the very Australian film The Picture Show Man about the early pioneers of screenings around Australia and only a glimpse of his interpretation of John Cleary’s Detective, scoping Malone, in Nobody Runs Forever.
The film is useful as an overview of Hollywood from the 50s to the 80s. Rod Taylor makes enjoyable company. And, as a culmination, there is Tarantino’s acclaim of him on the set of Inglourious Basterds.
