RARA-AVIS: Hard Boiled Paul

TERRILL LANKFORD (TOLANKFORD@webtv.net)
Thu, 6 May 1999 20:18:30 -0700 (PDT) Paul Newman doesn't rank on your egg scale? He's the Patron Saint of
Hard Boiled Eggs! He downed fifty of them in COOL HAND LUKE!

Other notable hard boiled performances include HUD, HOMBRE, THE HUSTLER,
THE COLOR OF MONEY, ABSENCE OF MALICE, THE MACKINTOSH MAN, TORN
CURTAIN, WINNING, EXODUS, and the incredibly hard boiled logging film
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION, which he also directed. (There aren't many
films harder boiled than NOTION.)

SLAP SHOT, THE STING, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN, and BUTCH
CASSIDY are hard boiled comedies and he gave us an exercise in geezer
noir with last year's TWILIGHT, which has one of cinema's funniest hard
boiled exchanges between two characters (Newman and James Garner) right
before all hell breaks lose in the climatic gunfight.

By god he even gave us Hard Boiled Science Fiction in the notorious
QUINTET.

A trenchcoat and dark lighting aren't always required for a film (or the
characters within said film) to be hard boiled. Don't let his pretty boy
looks fool you. Newman has never shied away from the darker side of his
macho characters. He's no Bogie or McQueen, but then again, who is?

Terrill Lankford

P.S. - Isn't the notion of the hard boiled egg awards a little cute for
this esteemed list? It's fun in theory but repeated use makes us look a
little bit like Dorothy L.

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

Perhaps the awards should be silent and invisible. A given. Mention of
them could be worth an automatic fine of fifty eggs.

I now step back into lurkdom, awaiting the fines....

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