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Toronto Star (21/Mar/1987) - Wonderful Life traces career of actor just right for his time

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Wonderful Life traces career of actor just right for his time

"Yup." Pause. "Yup." Pause. "Yup." Pause.

Yup, Jimmy Stewart really talks that s-l-o-w-l-y. In Jimmy Stewart: A Wonderful Life, the 79-year-old actor contentedly looks back with narrator Johnny Carson over a 60-year acting career. The two-hour scissors-and-paste TV biography, on Buffalo's Channel 17 Tuesday night at 8, offers no strong surprises but like the man himself, glides effortlessly through the decades.

It's startling to see that the young Stewart already had the gentle mannerisms of the old man. Look at him way, way back in his first feature, 1935's Murder Man. He talks just as slowly — a device he claims helps him better remember his lines.

PBS' latest salute is along the lines of last year's Spencer Tracy biography, narrated by Katharine Hepburn (who puts in a cameo appearance here). Hepburn herself got the same flattering treatment a few seasons back.

We follow young Stewart from his small-town Pennsylvania roots to Princeton University (where he studied architecture) to his first acting jobs with the Princeton Players. Other young faces seen in Stewart's home movies include Margaret Sullavan, Henry Fonda and director Josh Logan. There's one home movie from 1948 showing Stewart clowning in a recreation of a 1928 Princeton skit directed by Logan.

Mule team

For a guy who never studied acting, young Stewart rose rapidly through Broadway ranks and on to Hollywood. There are clips of him in his first film, 1934's Art Trouble, in 1936's Rose Marie, as Jeanette MacDonald's kid brother and Born To Dance, his first and only singing role. I wish the clip from Ice Follies Of 1939 had been longer; Jimmy was one half of a skating mule team.

Since Jimmy does not like to gossip, he offers little insight into working with other stars. Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again told him to look at one of her eyes because he kept losing his concentration. His favorite pictures are his 1950s westerns made "after I did three flop comedies." Favorite co-star was his horse Pie whose ears would wiggle when the cameras rolled.

A frail Hepburn talks about making The Philadelphia Story. For Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and You Can't Take It With You, Richard Dreyfuss and Sally Field talk about favorite scenes which are then shown. The truth is, Stewart's contemporaries, from Spencer Tracy to best friend Fonda, have passed on. It was director Frank Capra who gave Jimmy his wholesome screen persona which was best defined in 1946's It's A Wonderful Life.

Stewart ambles down a favorite back lot street, revisits the false front studio house where he met his pal Harvey and tells where his Oscar wound up. "Dad said to send it home and promised to place it in the hardware store window. It stayed there for 20 years."

A Wonderful Life is a tribute, not a critical study. "He has become the American character," says one of the admiring actors. But wait a minute! He's just an actor after all. Outside of heroic service in World War II, Stewart spent his career pretending he was other people. Stewart would never claim he's anything more than an actor who was just right for his time.

Clint Eastwood, of all people, makes the best critical remark when he says the cowboy Stewart played could suddenly turn vicious if cornered. Also, the shots of Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock thrillers demonstrate an intriguing neurotic side that is missing in the lighter comedies.

Stewart's right wing politics are barely hinted at. The most poignant moments come as wife Gloria talks about losing a son in the Viet Nam war.

His epitaph, he says, should read, "I believed in hard work and decent values." Just like Mr. Smith after all.

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