In honor of his birthday, let’s enjoy his show-stopping number in Pennies From Heaven.
I love how the cinematography here is old-school dance cinematography from the days of Astaire and Rogers and Cyd Charisse: Full body captured, including the feet – so we know that there are no tricks here.
This is all Walken. You can’t fake this.
Walken got his start on Broadway, as a child, in musicals. His background was musical comedy (which is fascinating to me, considering his reputation as a heavy-hitter actor in 1970s and 80s tough dramas). Walken came and spoke at my school and he talked a lot about his affinity for musical comedies, and how he tries to incorporate an “homage” to that legacy in any role he plays, regardless of whether it is appropriate or not. For example, in his searing performance in At Close Range, he has a moment where he walks away from the camera and he does a small skipping dance step, which makes zero sense in terms of the character, and has nothing to do with anything in the scene, but Walken had to get it in there as a nod to his roots. Walken was laughing as he told the story. Why would that guy do a mini jig as he walked away? No reason, except that Walken was playing him.
I love people who do what they want to do. The audience will not think, “Oh, there’s Walken paying INAPPROPRIATE tribute to his roots as a song and a dance man,” because is it even common knowledge that Walken WAS a song and dance man?? No, they will think, “Okay, I am terrified of that man doing a jig … because he seems unpredictable and not of this world.”
Walken spoke eloquently of how “outside” of things he felt (a feeling common to many child actors who grow up surrounded by adults, rather than peers). Normal life was not for him, was never for him, because he grew up as a child of the theatre and it set him apart. He didn’t play on the playground. He spent his days in tap class. It makes you a weirdo. And that sense of “otherness” is what contributed to his giant talent in films like The Dead Zone, Deer Hunter, True Romance – the list goes on and on. If you didn’t know his background, you might think that his eerieness was because of his looks (the strange heavy-lidded eyes, and blankness behind them), but no, it was mainly because he grew up far far outside of the mainstream.
So much fun to see him here in 1981, 3 years after Deer Hunter, for God’s sake, let it all hang out, let us see who he REALLY is.
A fantastic clip – I didn’t know Mr Walken had it in him! These days he is known mainly for his sinister roles (and no one does sinister better). There seems to be a decline in the number of top flight movie actors who have this sort of background, who have the chops to do song and dance like they mean it. I can think only of Hugh Jackman but there may be more; Joseph Gordon-Levitt did pretty well in 500 Days of Summer. Thanks for sharing, this cheered me up.
Love Christopher Walken. Maybe Kevin Spacey will do a birthday tribute? ;-)
I’m sure you’ve seen Spike Jonze’s video for Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice?” All him, all cool.
Space commando – Yes! I love that so much! Totally cool!
From one benign loon to another, Happy Birthday, Herr Walken.
I’m glad you mentioned him in At Close Range. That performance would be on my list of all-time great villians, and shocked me when I saw it. He has a moment where he’s driving around in a rage, then stops and sits very still with his eyes closed. He then opens his eyes and gives about the scariest look I’ve seen in a movie. You know his intentions from his expression. Chilling.
Hard to believe that’s the same guy in this clip.
He is so terrifying in that movie. How about when he says, during the standoff with Sean Penn, “I love ya … I mean, I love ya …” and it’s so freakin’ empty. No. No, you do NOT “love” him, you psychopath, don’t even dare to say that word. He’s so brilliant in that movie – one of my favorite Walken performances.
I have kids, and his actions in that movie are about 10 times worse to me than anything Hannibal Lector ever did.
Interesting fact on the scene you mention, the “standoff”:
Walken always inspected every prop gun personally, so that he would be comfortable with it. But Sean Penn switched prop guns at the last second, so that Walken could see him do it, right before they said action.
You can see Walken recoil in fear when Penn points the gun at him, and as great an actor as he is, that’s a real reaction.
They were both great in that, as was Chris Penn (rip), whose last line reading of “Oh Dad” still chokes me up.
YouTube fun: Christopher Walken’s low-tech instructional video of himself making Chicken with Pears is surreal…for me, it surpasses even David Lynch’s arty two-part epic on making quinoa. :)
Christopher Walken TAP DANCES?!? Holy fucking crap!
That’s how he got started as a youngun!
I remember seeing him come out all somber as the guest host on Saturday Night Live and burst into a song and tap-dance number. Brilliant.
Love it. And if this just possibly, sorta, y’know… somehow leads to some kind of unusual, exhaustive 22-part retrospective of Christopher Walken… just sayin’ is all.
James Cagney.