Oscar Profile #28: John Huston

Born August 5, 1906 in Nevada, Missouri, a small town that legend has it was won by his grandfather in a poker game, his father was the extraordinary actor and vaudevillian, Walter Huston. Young John had his first professional gig as part of Walter’s vaudeville act when he was just three years old.

A frail child, he suffered from an enlarged heart and a kidney ailment, but overcame them to become Amateur Lightweight Champion of California, winning 22 of the 25 bouts he was given. His trademark broken nose was a result of this activity. On stage in starring roles from 1925 and on screen in bit parts from 1929, he became a screenwriter in 1930. Winning acclaim for his screenplays for Jezebel and Juarez, he won the first of his fifteen Oscar nominations, eight of them for writing, for co-writing the screenplay of 1940’s Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet. The film, which was about the German doctor who spent his life searching for a cure for syphilis, was one of many controversial films with which he became associated throughout his career.

The following year he made his directorial debut with the third, and far and away best, film version of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. He received an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for that as well as for the screenplay for Sergeant York, on which he collaborated.

His career continued through his World War II service as he made several documentaries for the U.S. government including the controversial Let There Be Light, narrated by his father, which was completed in 1946. The film which followed seventy-five mentally disturbed veterans was banned by the government and not shown anywhere until 1980.

He and fellow director William Wyler formed the Committee for the First Amendment in 1947, which strove to undermine the activities of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. An ardent supporter of human rights, he would eventually move to Ireland in protest against the Hollywood blacklist.

In the meantime he had one of his best years in 1948 with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Key Largo. His father won an Oscar for his supporting role in the former, while veteran actress Claire Trevor won for her supporting role in the latter. John himself took home Oscars for both writing and directing Treasure.

The early 1950s proved fertile ground for Huston with such films as The Asphalt Jungle, The African Queen and Moulin Rouge. The late 1950s and early 1960s produced a number of distinguished, if somewhat less significant films, such as Moby Dick, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and Freud. A return to acting brought him his first and only Oscar nomination for acting in Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal.

He followed that with one of his strongest directorial efforts in years, the film version of Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana, but hit a fallow period with one bomb after another until 1972’s Fat City restored his critical reputation. Another acting gig in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown earned him renewed respect as a Renaissance man. After that his films were hit and miss with the lead-footed film version of Annie in 1982 his nadir.

His next, and final, three films were all masterpieces, each one better than the last. In 1984, came his film of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano; in 1985, the black comedy, Prizzi’s Honor, for which he received his final Oscar nomination; and in 1987, his film of James Joyce’s The Dead, which was released after his death in August of that year, shortly after his 81st birthday.

His grandson Jack Huston, whose father Tony Huston wrote the screenplay for The Dead, carries on the Huston family acting tradition. He has a featured role in the Golden Globe and SAG award winning series, Boardwalk Empire.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)

The third time proved to be the charm for this much filmed Dashiell Hammett mystery classic. Humphrey Bogart made the perfect Sam Spade and the supporting players including Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook Jr. and Lee Patrick was perfectly cast as well. Huston’s directorial debut was a smashing success.

THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)

Huston’s double Oscar winner is justly famous for providing his father, veteran Walter Huston, with the role that finally won him an Oscar on his fourth try. Playing a conniving, toothless old prospector, the senior Huston all but steals the film from Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt, both of whom are equally fine. Although often classified as a western, the film takes place both outside the perimeters of the Old West in central Mexico, and the times, it’s set in 1925.

THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)

Set in German East Africa during World War I, the film version of C.S. Forester’s novel is the film that finally brought Humphrey Bogart an Oscar as the gin swilling captain of a wreck of a boat in which he ferries missionary Katharine Hepburn through perilous waters. Both stars are at their peak here.

PRIZZI’S HONOR (1985)

Huston does for daughter Anjelica what he did for his father, Walter, i.e. directs her in an Oscar winning performance as Jack Nicholson’s vengeance seeking jilted mistress in this hilarious black comedy. Huston himself won various awards including the New York Film Critics Award, the National Board of Review Award and the Golden Globe, but had to settle for a mere Oscar nomination, his fifteenth, for this one.

THE DEAD (1987)

Not many go out with a bang as Huston did, directing this beautifully realized expanded version of James Joyce’s short story. His son Tony received an Oscar nod for his screenplay and his daughter Anjelica once again shone as the middle-aged woman for whom a Christmas dinner brings back memories of a lost love. Donal McCann as her husband gets to recite the film’s famous last lines derived from Joyce’s longer verse. It’s sheer poetry as is the entire film.