He was an affable leading man who for some reason he seemed content to allow other actors to have the spotlight while he stood off to the side. Often he seemed barely afloat to me, out of ideas, bored and boring. He had a shallow trench of emotions and was not given to smiling. It was almost as if he had a facial paralysis except for his tendency to raise an eyebrow which he did often in an attempt to express an emotion. It is no accident that he supported the big actresses of the day... Lombard, Colbert, Stanwyck, Dietrich, Crawford and Hepburn... who didn't want him competing with them for attention. With one exception, his best films were ones in which he had supporting roles.
Born in Kankakee, Illinois, in 1908, his father was a concert violinist who later became a music teacher. When the boy was two the family moved to the mother's hometown of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, which MacMurray would always consider his hometown as well. He was educated at a military academy and later enrolled in the Chicago Art Institute.
Not surprisingly he had a love of music from his earliest years. Being a jock in high school did not sideline his ambitions to become a musician. In time he became an accomplished saxophone player, so much so that he performed with several bands, originally with local bands but ultimately with big-timers.
With his group, the California Collegians, he was featured on Broadway in 1930 in Three's a Crowd and would appear in other musicals. In 1933 he and Bob Hope were knocking 'em dead on Broadway in Roberta when they were spotted by a Paramount talent scout and both were signed by the studio.
MacMurray's films of the 1930's, 19 of them, were largely undistinguished but Katharine Hepburn must have seen something in him because she requested him for her leading man in George Stevens' highly-regarded film, Alice Adams (1935). Hepburn plays a smalltown girl who wishes to improve her social standing and MacMurray is the suitor who has the means to help her. It has a perfect sense of time and place.
The Gilded Lily (1935) is one of eight films where MacMurray supported Claudette Colbert. Most were romantic comedies and not very good. This is one of the better ones in which she, in a familiar plot, plays an entertainer involved with two men.
In 1936 the actor married a non-pro, Lily Lamont. They adopted two children and by all accounts it was a happy union, lasting for 17 years until her death.
Remember the Night (1940) is the first of four films MacMurray made with Barbara Stanwyck. This is a romantic comedy wherein a shoplifter and her prosecutor fall in love. Stanwyck seemed to bring out the best in MacMurray. He would later say about her:
I was lucky enough to make four pictures with Barbara. In the first I turned her in, in the second I killed her, in the third I left her for another woman, and in the fourth I pushed her over a waterfall. The one thing all these pictures had in common is that I fell in love with Barbara Stanwyck... and I did, too.
I confess that nearly all of the MacMurray flicks I saw I did so because I was itching to see the movie itself or I liked someone else in the film, usually his leading ladies. In a colorful adventure romp, The Forest Rangers (1942), he had two... Paulette Goddard and Susan Hayward. The actresses had just finished working together in Reap the Wild Wind and the public noticed what similar types they were along with similar looks. Here they are rivals for the affections of MacMurray (he should be so lucky) who is top-billed as a forest ranger investigating arson.
And the Angels Sings (1944) is a tuneful comedy featuring MacMurray as a bandleader who gets involved with a singing sister act, two of whom are Dorothy Lamour and Betty Hutton.
Could there be any question that MacMurray's best work ever is as the murderous insurance agent in Billy Wilder's superb film noir, Double Indemnity (1944)? Reunited with Stanwyck, as unscrupulous a dame the movies ever produced, MacMurray is putty in her strangling hands. Wilder hired the actor over several others precisely because it was far from a typical MacMurray role. And it worked to perfection.
The notices he got for Where Do We Go from Here? (1945) were a far cry from those he got for Double Indemnity. A cornball musical-fantasy with a military focus, all copies should be gathered up and burned. I only mention it for one reason. In the film June Haver loses him to Joan Leslie but in real life, nine years later, Haver would become the second Mrs. MacMurray and would remain so until he passed away. It was their only movie together.
Since I have always loved animal movies, Smoky (1946) got my attention. MacMurray falls for his boss Anne Baxter and also a wild stallion. He then reunited with Colbert for The Egg and I (1947), which laid an egg in my opinion but financially was one of their better films. They play a newly-married couple that buys a chicken farm with not so surprising or very interesting results. Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride played Ma and Pa Kettle and their characters were so popular that they appeared in their own franchise.
To tell you the unvarnished truth, I thought MacMurray and Colbert brought out the very worst in one other as costars. Their cutesyness wore thin and perhaps after working together so often, they just couldn't keep it fresh. (I am reminded that William Powell and Myrna Loy worked together 14 times and it always felt like the first time.) Well, obviously the public in those days wouldn't have agreed with me.
In 1954 he married Haver. She had quit Hollywood to become a nun and then she quit that as well. However, she never quit MacMurray and they were happily married for 37 years and the parents of adopted twin girls.
I actually discovered MacMurray in 1954, one of those years in which I think I saw every movie made. He made three films, all of which I very much liked... The Caine Mutiny, Pushover and Woman's World.
Cynicism captured MacMurray's acting prowess to a T. It was in evidence in all three of his 1954 films but especially in The Caine Mutiny as he spinelessly maneuvers others to do his bidding in taking down the ship's emotionally wrung-out captain. Another performance against type came in Pushover where he excelled at playing a cop who (one more time) goes wrong at the hands of a femme fatale (an astonishingly beautiful Kim Novak in her film debut).
Woman's World had one of those glittering casts where Clifton Webb as the head of an auto company brings his three top executives and their wives to New York to be looked over as the men vie for a big promotion. The couples are Van Heflin and Arlene Dahl, Cornel Wilde and June Allyson, and MacMurray and Lauren Bacall. It might have been better had MacMurray and Bacall not been in it. Their characters are insufferable bores and his inclusion in the trio suggests Webb's character isn't too bright after all.
Oddly, he plays the same type of morose character in The Rains of Ranchipur (1955) and an alcoholic to boot but somehow it works this time. I'll even go so far to add his character might have been the most interesting of the bunch, which included Lana Turner, Richard Burton and Michael Rennie, and he turns into a hero at the end. I found the rains, flood and disease an exciting antidote to the silly romances.
Despite some recent good work, his movie career took a hit. He appeared in a series of unimaginative, low-grade westerns and his reputation suffered. He did what all actors in his position did in those days... he turned to television. He was offered the lead roles in Perry Mason and The Untouchables and turned them down... a wise decision since I suspect he would not have been as successful as Raymond Burr and Robert Stack.
However, in 1959 he was rescued by Walt Disney who was making his first live-action comedy. Things were changing around Mickey's house and MacMurray would become Disney's first dad. The Shaggy Dog was a screaming big hit. He plays a befuddled ex-mailman who hates dogs and Tommy Kirk plays his son who, by way of an ancient spell, turns into a big, rowdy sheepdog.
At this time Billy Wilder came calling again and cast MacMurray (not the first choice) to portray a two-timing corporate exec sleazeball in the Oscar-winning best picture, The Apartment (1960). He was wonderful in the part which required audiences to forget they were watching The Shaggy Dog's dad. It would become MacMurray's last great stab at acting. For the rest of his career, he was on cruise-control. It was good of him to admit that the two films I did with Billy Wilder are the only two parts I did in my entire career that required any acting.
Also in 1960 he signed on to make the family television series My Three Sons, which was on for 12 years on two networks. He had a most interesting clause in his contract. All of his scenes for an entire season were filmed first so that he could do other work and play golf. Imagine that and how confusing that must have been for the other actors. I watched it a great deal but not because of MacMurray but rather the actors playing his two oldest sons, Tim Considine and Don Grady. Hello...!
Disney kept him employed playing addled leads in The Absent-Minded Professor, Bon Voyage, Son of Flubber (a successful sequel to Professor), Follow Me, Boys and The Happiest Millionaire.
After appearing way down in the cast list in the all-star flop, The Swarm (1978), MacMurray drew the curtain on his working life. He preferred being on his Russian River ranch to anything else. For years he'd been one of the wealthiest of Hollywood actors because of shrewd investments and being tight with a buck.
MacMurray had serious health issues since the 70's (throat cancer, a stroke and 10 years with leukemia) but it was pneumonia that claimed his life in Santa Monica in 1991. He was 83.
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Four great actors in their
various films together
Gee...I watched My Three Sons for Tim Considine and Don Grady too!!! :)
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