On 28 June 1946, actor Bruce Davison was born. He has had a long and varied career with upwards of 300 acting credits. But he is best known for one of his first films — playing the title character in Willard.
Not to take away from Davison’s career, but this film had a major effect on my opinion of film critics because of Roger Ebert. You know Roger, right? He’s the film critic people liked to point to as “one of the good ones.” Yet he really was useless in the job. He ended his 2 out of 4 star review of the film with some clever but useless snark:
I want to consider, instead, the sociological and psychological implications of Willard. What is it in this film that touches some deep-buried nerve in the public psyche? Why does wholesome family entertainment fade away, while rats make millions? I’ve thought long and deeply on this subject, believe me, and I’ve reached a conclusion at last. People have waited a long time to see Ernest Borgnine eaten alive by rats, and now that they have their chance they aren’t going to blow it.
I think it is amusing. The whole review is. It’s snark from start to finish. There is no mention of any aspect of the film except that it is about rats (Ebert claims it is about rats in the first paragraph and then says it isn’t about rats in the second paragraph). It makes no mention of Bruce Davison at all. Nor does he mention Elsa Lanchester or anyone else in the cast except for the line about Borgnine getting eaten by rats. This is a shame, given that the film is well-made with excellent acting. At least Gene Siskel managed to review the film.
In the 2003 remake, Davison plays Willard’s father.
Davison starred in another psychotronic delight, the made-for-TV adaptation of Ursula K Le Guin’s novel, The Lathe of Heaven. (Fun fact: it was co-written by Diane English, creator of Murphy Brown.) He also has a big role in Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem. And very recently, he was the best thing in Suitable Flesh.
Otherwise, Bruce Davison has worked so much that you will see him in small roles all over the place. And on his 79th birthday, he is working as much as ever.
Image Davison at the 79th Annual Academy Awards Children Uniting Nations/Billboard after party, February 25, 2007 by John Mueller, released under CC BY 2.5.
Good ol’ Rog. He was VERY snarky when he was young. I think he got better in the last few years of his life. Especially once he was sick, couldn’t be on TV anymore, and was writing about movies he loved.
The best thing about Siskel & Ebert was when they praised little-known things or documentaries or foreign films — I give them big credit for doing so. But I don’t remember them ever puncturing the pretentions of big Oscar favorites and such. They had pretty tame middlebrow tastes. It was only good criticism when compared to, say, Gene Shalit.
Now I’ll have to watch Six Degrees of Separation again. I’m pretty sure I remember the Davison character in that, but I’m not 100% sure. It won’t hurt me to watch that again, it never does!