Before Joaquin Phoenix was ‘Napoleon’: Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Charles Boyer …
“We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces,” proclaimed former silent film queen Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in Billy Wilder’s 1950 masterwork “Sunset Boulevard.” One of the greatest faces of the era belonged to French actor Albert Dieudonne who starred in Abel Gance’s breathtaking 1927 epic “Napoleon.” With this dark eyes, distinct nose and rock star style hair, Dieudonne channels the infamous French military leader and emperor who conquered most of Europe in the early 19th century until his disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia. Exiled to Elba in 1814, he emerged once again and suffered a massive defeat at Waterloo in 1815. He died in exile six years later at the age of 51.
Dieudonne commands the 5 ½ hour film restored by Kevin Brownlow which features the jaw-dropping triptych finale that is as exciting now as it was 96 years ago. BFI states that the film is “monumental and visionary, the story’s chapters play out in exhilarating fashion tied together by an incredible feat of editing and technical ingenuity.” The role had a lasting impact on Dieudonne, who was also a novelist and director. When he died in Paris at the age of 86 in 1976, he was buried according to his final wishes in his Napoleon costume.
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It’s doubtful the latest actor who plays Nappy, Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” will be buried in his ensemble. Phoenix isn’t the only Oscar-winner to play Napoleon.
Marlon Brando essayed the part in the lavish 1954 historical drama “Desiree” with Jean Simmons in the title role. “Desiree” was a distinctly different film for Brando-the movie was released the same year as the classic “On the Waterfront” for which he won the Oscar. It was pure Hollywood. It was even his first film in color. Reviews were middling, which was also something new for a Brando film, with the Washington Post noting the production was “a feast to the eyes and a torture to the ears, intelligence and sensibilities,” adding that Brando’s portrayal “better than ‘Desiree’ deserves.”
Brando’s “On the Waterfront” co-star Rod Steiger, who won the best actor Oscar for 1967’s “In the Heat of the Night,” took on the role in the expensive 1970 epic “Waterloo.” A co-production between Italy and the Soviet Union and directed by Sergei Bondarchuk (“War and Peace”), “Waterloo” was singled out for its battle sequences and cinematography. The New York Times thought it was a very bad film and perhaps Steiger had met his own Waterloo: “Much of the film’s cast seemed to me pretty good-except for Rod Steiger. Steiger plays a peace-loving Napoleon, crafty, tired, much weighted with the destiny he seems never to get off his mind. Like a Willy Loman not wholly aware that he has lost his territory, he alternately schemes and complains-as if, in additional to all of his other achievements, he has discovered at Waterloo the sources of theatrical naturalism. It’s an awful performance.”
Charles Boyer is the only actor to receive an Oscar nomination for playing Napoleon. Boyer started acting in French silents, but he really came into his own in talkies both in France and Hollywood. A major romantic heartthrob, Boyer had big soulful eyes and -ooh la la-the hottest French accent. Following acclaimed starring roles in such Hollywood films as 1935’s “Private Worlds” with Claudette Colbert and in Anatole Litvak’s 1936 romantic French tragedy “Mayerling,” he was cast as Napoleon in MGM’s 1937 historical drama “Conquest.”
No expense was spared — the budget was a then-staggering $3.8 million — in this production which stars Greta Garbo as a married Polish countess who becomes Napoleon’s mistress in order to prevent him from attacking her homeland. It was hard to overshadow Garbo, but Boyer did just that earning his first of four Oscar nominations. Still, reviewers weren’t that impressed. The New York Times found it a very surface account with Garbo particularly “stilted’ though they thought Boyer fared better. Novelist Graham Greene believed it was the dullest film of the year going so far that there were some scenes that were unintentionally funny.
The film was very popular with audiences but ended up losing money because of the massive budget. Garbo would make only two more movies-the 1939 comedy “Ninotchka” for which she received her fourth Oscar nomination, and 1941’s “Two-Faced Woman”-before she retired. “Conquest’ was a huge boon to Boyer’s career. He was nominated for a best actor Oscar for 1938’s “Algiers,” 1944’s “Gaslight” and 1961’s “Fanny” and received an honorary Oscar in 1943. His career continued for another four decades.
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