Stands up.
I’m 32 and I have heard of Edward G. Robinson.
I just asked my co-worker, about 26, and he had no idea who Robinson was. I even did an impression! Well at least he’s heard of Bogie.
just want to go on record as having heard of him…
Oooooh yes, Edeard G. Robinson in Double Indemnity! What a classic. When I saw that movie on TV, when I was a teenager, I also learned that Barbara Stanwyck could be a bitch, not just Victoria Barkley, and that Fred McMurray could be an ass, not just a father figure.
And, there’s his uncommon role as a hero of sorts in “Dr Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet.”
As long as there are Chief Wiggum and The 10 Commandments is shown every Easter, people will always remember EGR.
Nyah, where’s your God now, Flanders?
Incredibly, two of his best roles have yet to be mentioned: the films noir Scarlet Street and The Woman in the Window, both directed by Fritz Lang and co-starring Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. Fantastic films.
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Well they’re nowhere near as important as FDR, Adolf Hitler, Stalin, and Churchill. Can you tell me all the famous actors and pop icons of the 1800’s? The 1700’s?
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Minor people in history are often forgotten by the majority. That’s just the way it goes.
I find nothing shallow or narcissistic about not knowing who some actors were who starred in movies 30 years before they were born.
Marc
I didn’t say they were as important, I said they were important in that they also helped define their era. Joe DiMaggio or Hank Greenberg didn’t really do anything important (besides enlisting in the Army during WWII). But their contributions to American culture during their careers are as integral to the 1930s and 40s as FDR’s contributions to American politics. And the famous actors and pop icons of the 1800s and 1700s don’t equate with 20th century film actors. Robinson’s films are out there for all to see, preserved on celluloid forever. Thus, he shouldn’t be forgotten. So I stand by my original contention:
Agreed, but who makes the determination of who is “minor” and who is not? Given his body of work, E.G. Robinson’s contribution to the art of film acting is not minor, IMHO. And, to extend my previous example, there are African-American men playing major league ball who are unfamiliar with the scope of Jackie Robinson’s contribution to the fact that they have a ridiculously high paying job. For shame! They should get down on their knees and thank God every day for Jackie.
Fair enough. I’ll agree to disagree with you on that one. Although I’ll say this: Given the ridiculous hype and overblown importance of such shallow and banal performers as Britney Spears, Keanu Reeves, Calista Flockhart, etc., it wouldn’t hurt to strap some GenXers down, Clockwork Orange-style and force feed them some classic works of cinema.
But Courageous Cat & Minute Mouse cartoons would not have been the outstanding animation triumph they were without Frog, the perfect arch-nemisis, patterned on Edward G. Robinson.
Let’s face it, the episodes with Rodney Rodent stealing art masterpieces could not begin to compare to the menace generated by Frog.
It occurs to me that Edward G. would not make it in the movies today.
Fine actor though he undoubtedly was, and a cultured man to boot, he was no oil painting. There is now a tendency for Bad Guys in films to be played by good-looking men.
I am left wondering how many other talented people are denied opportunities because they do not ‘look the part’.
If Double Indemnity was to be remade this year, it is easy to imagine Keanu Reeves taking the role of Barton Keyes.
The part of Phyllis Dietrichson would probably go to Callista Flockhart or Britney Spears. :eek:
My 6 year-old niece can do an Edward G. Robinson impersonation. She has no idea who he was, of course. Picked it up in some cartoon. And a don’t mean one of those great early Warner’s cartoons, but some crap with cheap animation that was produced last year. That irritates me, just like hearing shades of Peter Lorre every time some damn cartoon calls for a spooky henchman.
(Ah, but now I see Fibonacci’s post. Who the hell are Courageous Cat & Minute Mouse?!?! Are you British?!?!)
Actually, CC&MM was about a 5 minute cartoon that was syndicated to local kids shows as sort of a filler, not unlike Clutch Cargo, with his pals Spinner & Paddlefoot. I think Weinerville used to show it. Really low quality animation, but after seeing the animated shows of today on Cartoon Network, this low quality was obviously decades ahead of its time.
http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/saturday/sa1453.php
“In an effort to satirize his own creation, Batman creator Bob Kane developed this cartoon featuring a crime fighting cat and mouse. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse protected the citizens of Empire City from a multitude of villains, including arch-nemesis Chauncey “Flat-Face” Frog, an amphibian gangster who sounded like Edward G. Robinson. In order to defeat the miscreants, Courageous Cat would employ his Catgun, an engineering marvel that could convert from gun to umbrella, shield, ladder, or whatever was necessary.
It may not have been groundbreaking in terms of story or animation, but Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse was still a favorite of many kids, who delighted in seeing a merging of their two favorite types of cartoons: talking animals and superheroes.
The series stayed on the air for only one season, but reruns were dusted off and shown in syndication after the prime-time Batman achieved its huge success later in the decade.
Release History
1960 - ? syndicated”
Not British, but I do speak the language.
That’s what I was going to say. An awful lot of younger people might not recognise the name “Edward G. Robinson”, but if somebody does an impression of his voice, almost everybody will recognise it. And it is the same with Peter Lorre. I saw a Johny Bravo cartoon where Johny was in the hospital hitting on some nurse and the male orderly kept throwing him out of windows, and other generic cartoon mayhem. The orderly not only sounded like Peter Lorre, but looked like him too! I suspect John Wayne’s voice will long outlast his movies and image too, just because everyone loves a good(or bad, John Wayne being one of the few people who you can do a bad impression of and it’s still funny)John Wayne impression.
I know who he is too. Edward G. helped win me some baseball tickets and a pizza in a radio contest last summer.
Had to guess the movie this line came from: "One more Rocco, more or less, doesn’t matter in this world . . . " Or something like that, now I forgot.
Anyway, I’m culturally ignorant in the other direction. I couldn’t pick Britney Spears out of a lineup, and I don’t know Michelle Pfeiffer from Cameron Diaz from Renee Zellweger from Meg Ryan from that woman in Twister.
But I know Maureen O’Sullivan from Maureen O’Hara. 
AuntiePam, you are my kind of woman.
'Course, I’m a heterosexual female. So whatever kind of woman I can have, you are that kind of woman.
- First really learned of Edward G. Robinson courtesy of Friz Freleng (or was it Chuck Jones) and one of those “Really low quality animation” shows on Cartoon Network (
- I disagree; most of what they produce themselves is quite interesting): Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Eustace Bagg is attacked by a fungus that takes over his whole body, leaving only a giant, green, gangrenous left foot, whose big toe reveals his criminal intentions in an Edward G. Robinson voice (the remaining toes are his yes-men). They (it?) take Muriel hostage and force Courage to commit a series of robberies, culminating in a plan to “knock over Florida.” The cure for the fungus is suitably disgusting.
A more detailed of Courage is here.
I’M impressed. Even I can’t tell my Maureens apart.
Which is the one who appeared mostly nekkid with Johnny Weissmuller in the pre-Code TARZAN AND HIS MATE?
And which one got a spanking from John Wayne in McCLINTOCK?
– Uke, lusting after Maureens
Oooh, I loved him in Goodbye Mr. Chips!
Just like to say that I’m 20 and have heard of both Neville Chamberlain and Edward G. Robinson, of course the two guys sitting next to me haven’t but at least I have
I watched that naked swim scene a few weeks ago… it goes on for an amazingly long time for that era. Then a crocodile swims into the scene and a window is closed on naturalism in American cinema for another thirty years.
As for Maureen O’Hara, both her role in “The Quiet Man,” and her real-life defamation suit against that Holywood gossip tabloid cast her in a traditonal Irish anti-sex image, but before all that there was her performance a Esmerelda in “the Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Exotic dancing, whips, and erotic asphyxiation on the scaffold!