Tony Curtis: Five Films for Newcomers
Tony Curtis would have been 95 today; 2020 also marks the ten year anniversary of his passing. Known as a major actor during the ‘50s and onward, Curtis is a mainstay in many ways. Excluding his complex private life, his on-screen persona covered much ground, without any form of typecasting to be found. As a result of Curtis striving to not be pigeonholed, his career ended up having an array of different tyles of roles, including numerous iconic turns (featured below). His career had many tangents, especially later on, but his golden years are unforgettable. Once again, we have tried our best to narrow down his filmography to just five recommendations. To celebrate his birthday, here are five films for newcomers to the works of Tony Curtis.
5. Winchester 73
An early role for Curtis, Winchester 73 is one of his Western films that, oddly enough, he isn’t exclusively known for anymore (he certainly starred in a few early on). An exciting western that was part of the Hollywood shift into more daring works of the genre (more edge, which the genre desperately needed), Winchester 73 was new territory for then-veterans (like Jimmy Stewart) and a podium for fresh faces like Curtis and Rock Hudson.
4. Insignificance
A much more different role for Curtis is that of “The Senator” (really Joseph McCarthy) in Nicolas Roeg’s incredibly peculiar Insignificance: a revisionist dramedy that pits four familiar faces together (Einstein, DiMaggio and Monroe included) together and sees what clicks. Later into Curtis’ career, this had him drawing from the era he dominated, bringing life to a marked political figure of American history.
3. Spartacus
This was clearly Kirk Douglas’ podium, but if any other actor came close in Stanley Kubrick’s sand-and-sandals epic, it was Curtis as Antoninus (despite the stellar cast), mainly because of the shared, significant screen time between Curtis and Douglas. Representing a grim fate of a familiar face, Curtis’ scenes in Spartacus may hit the hardest.
2. Some Like it Hot
Curtis’ comedic foil between partner Jack Lemmon and romantic lead Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot simply can’t get any better, and this seems like the absolute must-see first film (outside of a great exception, to be revealed next). Flashing his comedic chops as he leaps from a variety of personas, Curtis has to balance many responsibilities (laughs, drama, romance, fears) in Billy Wilder’s bonkers comedy.
1. Sweet Smell of Success
For me, Curtis in a gritty noir film smack dab in the ‘50s (when noir was subsiding, and neo-noir was soon to be a game changer) is him at his very best. As a press agent playing with pressure and danger, Curtis is compelling, and competes with a career-best Burt Lancaster performance (so Curtis has to be amazing). You’ll get a nice variety of what Curtis could do watching the other films on this list, but I wish there were more roles like this for him, because he clearly could play demanding roles like these. It’s the role he wanted to play to get rid of his near-typecasting as the good looking lead, and his hard work proves it. It’s definitely the best place to start if you want to get familiar with Tony Curtis in the way he would have wanted.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.