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Popular Culture Review
Peck’s sea captain is the bravest brawler, most desired lover, and the only
ethical sailor in the Pacific. His reputation precedes him to Russian America
where he wages a one-man war against colonialism, aristocracy, the exploitation
of women, seal hunting, and poorly trimmed jibs. Peck’s performance is a rule
proving exception.
It may be that in the later 20th century, the Proper Bostonian is not limited to
characters of undiluted WASP heritage. In the 1974 film The Verdict, consider
Paul Newman’s Frank Galvin versus James Mason’s Edward J. Concannon.
Newman’s character is a shamrock-on-his-sleeve Boston Irish Catholic who
antagonizes the “Irish Yankee” portrayed by Mason. The face-off between the
characters recalls Spencer Tracy’s Frank Skeffington against Basil Rathbone’s
Norman Cass in The Last Hurrah. Rathbone’s performance’s icy detachment
contrasts beautifully with the wily warmth of Tracy’s Skeffington.
Of such is the contrast between Newman and Mason, though Newman’s
character ratchets up the confrontation due to his hotheadedness. The Verdict is
a legal drama, based on an actual case, featuring an important early exchange
that Newman and Mason “do not have” in the judge’s chamber, the judge
played, with no attempt to hide his Irish origins, by Milo O’Shea. Mason spends
most of the scene in just barely perceptible exasperation, and he delivers his
coup de grace with the careful donning of his Melton overcoat. He takes it off of
the coat rack, puts it on, sighs ruefully, and leaves. Newman has kept his coat
on. This is, of course, a signal faux pas for a Proper Bostonian. Once upon a
time, Leo G. Carroll’s performance in the stage adaptation of The Late George
Apley was dismissed by Boston Brahmins almost solely on the basis of an
entrance he made wearing his overcoat into a drawing room. Returning to The
Verdict, it is not only that Newman arrives late for the appointment; he makes
no effort to distinguish between his lateness and the necessity of restoring
propriety by hanging up his coat. We need not expound upon the “Irish” judge
taking his breakfast at his desk, yet we may contrast his feeding from a tray with
another aspect of Mason’s characterization.
The most telling moment in Mason’s performance is his lithe exit from his
law office after ordering the junior partners to work overtime on the case.
Escorted out by his entourage, he looks back over his shoulder and exhales,
“We’ll be at Locke-Ober’s.” What is crucial in this line delivery is the way
Mason throws it away. It is clear from his intonation that dining at the centuryold “Winter Place wine rooms” (as Lucius Beebe referred to the grand old
restaurant) is his habit, that this is by no means an occasion. Contrast the
Victorian elegance conjured by Locke-Ober’s with the barroom in which
Newman’s Galvin and his cohort take their meals. It does not even look as
though the food is served on plates, but is put in some sort of basket. Later, in
dialogue between Galvin’s mentor, Mickey Morrissey, played by Jack Warden
and the plot’s meta-legal Mata Hari, Laura Fischer, played by Charlotte
Rampling (an English actress); we get Galvin’s back-story. He had aspired to
the elitist, genteel way of life Mason’s character affords us glimpses of. We