Movie Review: Tab Hunter Confidential, Directed by Jeffrey Schwarz (2015)

Ad for Tab Hunter Confidential, 2015.

Tab Hunter, 1931-2018. It's all about those eyes and that smile.

The 2015 documentary Tab Hunter Confidential, directed by Jeffrey Schwarz, is a fascinating look at one of the biggest teen idols of the 1950’s. The documentary is based on Tab Hunter’s 2005 autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, and is centered on interviews with Hunter himself. 

Of course, Tab Hunter wasn’t his real name. He was born Arthur Kelm, and he later took his mother’s maiden name of Gelien after his parents’ divorce. He was renamed by the agent Henry Willson, who had a stable of handsome young actors under contract to him. Some of Willson’s clients were Guy Madison, Rory Calhoun, Troy Donahue, Robert Wagner, and Clint Walker. But Willson’s biggest discovery was a tall, dark and handsome actor who was born Roy Scherer, and later known as Roy Fitzgerald after his mother remarried. Willson gave Roy Fitzgerald the unlikely name of Rock Hudson, and he went on to become one of the most successful actors of the 1950’s and 1960’s. (Hudson and Hunter’s names later inspired the title of the satirical play and movie, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?) 

Like Hudson, Hunter was also a gay man who kept his sexuality hidden; for fear that his career would be ruined. After several successful films, Hunter was signed by Warner Brothers, and the studio gave him a huge publicity push. Hunter’s big break came in the 1955 movie Battle Cry, which was the 3^rd highest-grossing movie of the year. Hunter was a constant presence in movie magazines, and the studio engineered dates with Hunter and various young starlets. As one of those actresses says in the movie, “It was just like a regular date, only there was a third person along, and that third person was a photographer.” Warner Brothers paired Hunter with Natalie Wood in two 1956 movies, The Burning Hills, and The Girl He Left Behind, and their “dates” were breathlessly chronicled in movie magazines.

Hunter’s relationships with actor Anthony Perkins and ice skater Ronnie Robertson are examined in the film, and Hunter describes the strain of living a private life that couldn’t be public. Hunter was raised Catholic, and he speaks about how the church made him feel unwelcome because of his sexuality. 

Tab Hunter had a lot of different interests, including ice skating and horse riding. He was also a pretty good singer, and in 1957 he embarked on a musical career, scoring a huge hit with “Young Love,” which had a five week run at Number One. Hunter recorded “Young Love” for the Dot record label, and the record’s success prompted studio head Jack Warner to create Warner Brothers Records for Hunter to record on. 

1958 was probably the peak year of Hunter’s career, as he appeared in Gunman’s Walk, Lafayette Escadrille, and the classic musical Damn Yankees. In Damn Yankees, the main character, Joe Boyd, agrees to sell his soul to the devil if his beloved Washington Senators can beat the New York Yankees and win the American League pennant. Boyd is then transformed into youthful, handsome, athletic, all-American Joe Hardy. With his wholesome good looks and boy-next-door charm, Hunter was the perfect choice to play Joe Hardy. 

As Hunter’s career waned in the early 1960’s, he spent more time riding horses, competing in steeplechase events around the country. Hunter spent most of the 1970’s performing in dinner theater, before returning to movie screens in John Waters’ 1981 film Polyester. The unlikely pairing of Hunter with drag performer Divine was a hit, and they worked together again in 1985’s Lust in the Dust. In the early 1990’s, Hunter quietly retired from acting and devoted himself full time to his horses, and his life with his partner Allan Glaser. 

It’s so much fun to see Tab Hunter’s positive attitude throughout the documentary. He clearly has a sense of humor about his career, and the various ups and downs he faced. When he discusses the 1962 film, The Golden Arrow, Hunter says with a smile, “At least I got to ride a flying carpet.” Hunter doesn’t seem to have any bitterness about the hand life dealt him, and he speaks honestly about the difficult times in his life—like his mother’s mental illness, and his brother’s death in the Vietnam War. 

In the documentary you can also see how well Tab Hunter aged—he was in his 80’s when these interviews were filmed, but he looks about 20 years younger than that. His intense blue eyes and his winning smile are just the same as they were in the 1950’s. I said to my wife towards the end of the movie, “He never took a bad picture, did he?” 

On a personal note, my Mom was a big fan of Tab Hunter’s in the 1950’s, and she’s always retained an affection for Hunter—I suspect that his love of horses probably had something to do with it. In Tab Hunter Confidential, you get a sense of the kind of man he was, and he seems like a really cool guy. I’m also happy that Hunter lived long enough to see attitudes towards homosexuality change, and that he could live his life freely and openly.

Movie Review: Magnificent Obsession, starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman, directed by Douglas Sirk (1954)

Original poster for Magnificent Obsession, 1954. It's interesting that the ad mentions author Lloyd C. Douglas so prominently, but he was the author of The Robe, which was the highest grossing movie of 1953.

"You have a very strong chin, have you thought about going into movies?" Jane Wyman, whose character has just gone blind, and Rock Hudson in Magnificent Obsession.

A very dramatic still of Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman from Magnificent Obsession. They've aged Rock's character by giving him a streak of grey in his hair.

Handsome leading man Rock Hudson, circa 1960.

Magnificent Obsession was the movie that established Rock Hudson as a major box office draw in 1954. Hudson’s first film role was in the 1948 movie Fighter Squadron, and although he only had one line, it took him 38 takes to deliver it perfectly. Hudson had slowly worked his way up into starring in B pictures at Universal, and Magnificent Obsession was a chance for Hudson to break through as a leading man. Hudson was the very definition of tall, dark, and handsome. At 6’5” he towered over his co-stars, and he looked like the perfect heroic leading man.

Magnificent Obsession was based on Lloyd C. Douglas’s 1929 novel of the same name, and it had first been filmed in 1935, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor. The film had helped boost Taylor to stardom in the same way that it helped Hudson’s career two decades later. For the remake, Jane Wyman was picked to play the female lead. Wyman was a well-established star who had won on Oscar for Best Actress for her role in 1948’s Johnny Belinda. Wyman was divorced from her second husband, actor Ronald Reagan, whose movie career was in decline by 1954, so that year he made the move to television and began hosting the long-running TV series General Electric Theater. 

Douglas Sirk directed Magnificent Obsession, and it was his third film with Hudson. Sirk would go on to direct Hudson in four more movies before retiring in 1959. Sirk’s use of a bright and bold color palette is one of his trademarks as a director, and the colors in Magnificent Obsession pop off the screen. 

The plot of Magnificent Obsession centers on spoiled rich playboy Bob Merrick (Hudson) whose only concern in life is setting new records in his speedboat. When he crashes it, the paramedics need to use a resuscitator on him. But while Merrick is being resuscitated, Dr. Phillips, a well-respected doctor in the area, has a heart attack, and dies because the only resuscitator in the area was being used on Merrick. Merrick recovers at the clinic that Dr. Phillips ran, and resentment runs high towards Merrick. Dr. Phillips’ widow Helen (Jane Wyman) discovers that the clinic is in debt, due in part to the generous philanthropy of Dr. Phillips towards his patients. After Merrick has recovered from his crash he resumes his dissipated lifestyle, and drunkenly runs his convertible off the road one evening. Fortunately, he runs his car off the road near the house of artist Edward Randolph (Otto Kruger) who was a close friend of Dr. Phillips. Randolph describes a new philosophy of living to Merrick, one based on kindness towards others, and doing good works for people without taking credit for them. Merrick is eager to try out this new philosophy and when he runs into Helen Phillips the next day, he tries to explain it to her. Helen does not like the smarmy Merrick, and as she tries to get away from him she gets hit by a car and is blinded. Ravaged by guilt, Merrick resumes the medial studies he had abandoned years before and starts going to the shore of the Phillips’ lake home, where he befriends Helen using an alias. (She doesn’t seem to recognize his voice.) He reads to her and keeps her company, and gradually he finds himself falling in love with her. Will the reformed Merrick be able to atone for the way he’s wrecked Helen’s life? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

Sure, Magnificent Obsession is pretty cheesy, but it’s an excellent slice of cheese, with superb performances all around. Jane Wyman was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress, losing out to Grace Kelly for her role in The Country Girl. Wyman is excellent as she portrays a woman suffering from the loss of her husband, and slowly awakening to a new love. The supporting cast of Otto Kruger, Barbara Rush as Helen’s step-daughter, and Agnes Moorehead as Helen’s nurse Nancy are all very good. Rock Hudson is perfect as Bob Merrick, and it’s easy to see why the part made him a star. Hudson already had the looks, and now he had the role to become a heartthrob. Magnificent Obsession really gives Hudson the best of both worlds, as in the beginning he gets to play the dissolute bad boy, and after Merrick reforms his ways, he gets to play the attentive and noble ideal man, thus he gets to appeal to all types of female viewers. 

In Magnificent Obsession Hudson began to find his screen type, which would be the nice, strong, heroic guy. Rock Hudson just seemed like a really nice guy, so often in his movies it doesn’t even seem like he’s acting. The scene where Merrick runs his car off the road and has a drunken conversation with the artist Randolph is actually quite funny, and it shows that Hudson’s gift for comedy was well developed long before Pillow Talk. There’s also another inadvertent nod to Pillow Talk in the scenes where Merrick is pretending to be someone else so Helen won’t know his true identity, just as in Pillow Talk, Hudson’s character pretends to be someone else and tricks Doris Day into falling in love with him. Of course, there might have been a reason that Hudson was so good at roles where he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t, as he hid his homosexuality from the public. 

Magnificent Obsession is an excellent movie if you’re in the mood for a good cheesy 1950’s drama, and it’s a key movie in the career of Rock Hudson, one of the great leading men of the era.