The Look

[Reza]

What about Charles Farrell?

Charles Farrell was ver y pretty, but whenever I see him I can only think of him in the guise of Vern Albright, dithering in front of Mr. Honeywell and concluding, "Well, that's My Little Margie."

Damien, I think you need to go further back in time as far as Mr Farrell is concerned. Preferably to his nude scene in The River (1928)!

[Damien]

What about Charles Farrell?

Charles Farrell was very pretty, but whenever I see him I can only think of him in the guise of Vern Albright, dithering in front of Mr. Honeywell and concluding, "Well, that's My Little Margie."

[Reza]

What about Charles Farrell?

[OscarGuy]

I just saw All Quiet on the Western Front (what an amazing movie...especially for 1930). So, this is my first experience with Bakewell. However, given him or Lew Ayres, I'd take Lew Ayres.

[Damien]

I wouldn't put Richard Dix in the same category as Valentino and Errol Flynn. There were actually three general strands of "attractive" leading men back then, although there was some overlap. One was the pretty/dashing type, such as Valentino, Flynn, Robert Taylor, Ronald Colman, Ramon Navarro and Tyrone Power.

A second is the more rugged macho type, of which the somewhat hulking Richard Dix was emblematic. Others were Chester Morris, Gable, Edmund Lowe, Cagney, Warner Baxter and Preston Foster.

The third would be All-American Boys, generally rural, "aw, shucks" guys such as Gary Cooper (in the 30s), Dick Powell (again, his 30s incarnation), Lew Ayres, Robert Young, David Manners, Henry Fonda, Norman Foster, Joel McCrea and Eric Linden.

As for me, when I was a young adolescent I had the hugest crush on Errol Flynn. The book, The Films Of Errol Flynn, was to me what Playboy and Penthouse were to most of my friends.

Other guys from the '30s I have a Jones for include Richard Cromwell, Ramon Navarro, Ross Alexander, Randolph Scott, Ray Milland, Wayne Morris, Roy Rogers and, most especially, William Bakewell.

From the '40s: Alan Ladd, Guy Madison, Sterling Hayden, Sonny Tufts, Lex Barker, and, of course, Dennis Morgan.

[OscarGuy]

There's a picture on imdb of him standing next to Edward G. Robinson that captures the look I like. I have no doubt that his other film roles have made him look much less interesting but...

[Damien]

George E. Stone? Really?? Wow, always seemed weaselly to me, but to each his own. Here's a bio of him from All Movie Guide:

Biography by Hal Erickson
Probably no one came by the label "Runyon-esque" more honestly than Polish-born actor George E. Stone; a close friend of writer Damon Runyon, Stone was seemingly put on this earth to play characters named Society Max and Toothpick Charlie, and to mouth such colloquialisms as "It is known far and wide" and "More than somewhat."

Starting his career as a Broadway "hoofer," the diminutive Stone made his film bow as "the Sewer Rat" in the 1927 silent Seventh Heaven. His most prolific film years were 1929 to 1936, during which period he showed up in dozens of Warner Bros. "urban" films and backstage musicals, and also appeared as the doomed Earle Williams in the 1931 version of The Front Page.

He was so closely associated with gangster parts by 1936 that Warners felt obligated to commission a magazine article showing Stone being transformed, via makeup, into an un-gangsterish Spaniard for Anthony Adverse (1936). For producer Hal Roach, Stone played three of his oddest film roles: a self-pitying serial killer in The Housekeeper's Daughter (1938), an amorous Indian brave in Road Show (1940), and Japanese envoy Suki Yaki in The Devil With Hitler (1942).

Stone's most popular role of the 1940s was as "the Runt" in Columbia's Boston Blackie series. In the late '40s, Stone was forced to severely curtail his acting assignments due to failing eyesight. Though he was totally blind by the mid-'50s, Stone's show business friends, aware of the actor's precarious financial state, saw to it that he got TV and film work, even if it meant that his co-stars had to literally lead him by the hand around the set.

No one was kinder to George E. Stone than the cast and crew of the Perry Mason TV series, in which Stone was given prominent billing as the Court Clerk, a part that required nothing more of him than sitting silently at a desk and occasionally holding a Bible before a witness.

[OscarGuy]

Back in the early days of motion pictures, the standard for heartthrob was an entirely different prospect than it is today. People like Errol Flynn, Rudolph Valentino and Richard Dix were examples of such standards.

I'm kind of curious as to who everyone had a crush on from those early days. As I make my way through the Best Pictures winners, I keep coming across people that I think are undeniably attractive to me but would not necessarily be considered the most attractive men in film.

Let me know what you guys think.

The first person I'll post is an actor named George E. Stone. In Cimarron he played Sol Levy, a friend of the family. He's had other roles but this is my first view of him and I just think he's adorable.