When the Sundance Kid played Death himself

I didn't expect to be writing a second post today after this morning's big news:

Don’t stop believing

Some news, as they say

What's Alan Watching?Alan Sepinwall

But then some bigger news happened: Robert Redford, one of the all-time icons of the big screen, died. And even though he was known almost entirely for his work in movies, there's a TV connection that made me feel like I had to write about him(*).

(*) This post is out in front of the paywall, just to give everyone a small taste of what will be coming on the paid tiers beyond reviews and recaps.

As many of you know, I've spent much of the past year researching and writing a biography of Rod Serling, which will come out sometime next year. This involved rewatching every Twilight Zone episode (or in some cases, watching them for the first time), all of Night Gallery, and finally checking out Serling's work in live TV drama of the Fifties that put him on the map in the first place. Among those was the very last episode of the acclaimed anthology drama Playhouse 90, "In the Presence of Mine Enemies," set in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. An incredibly young Robert Redford played a German soldier given a despicable order by his commander. (Trigger warning for the clip: involves discussion of sexual assault.)

The episode — and Redford's character in particular — proved controversial, one of several times in Serling's career where he wound up being protested by both sides of the political aisle at once. (There will be more on that in the book.) But that's much more about the context in which Redford's character is placed at the end of the story than anything he did with his performance.

Redford did a fair amount of TV work for the first few years of his career — an Alfred Hitchcock Presents here, a Maverick there. He and Serling only worked together one other time, on a Twilight Zone Season Three episode called "Nothing in the Dark." Written by George Clayton Johnson and directed by Lamont Johnson (no relation), the episode focuses on an elderly woman, Wanda Dunn (played by Gladys Cooper), who lives in a tiny basement apartment and spends her every waking minute doing convinced that Death himself will come for her, and that she has to do everything possible to fend him off. A wounded police officer turns up at her door, pleading for help, and she reluctantly lets him in, even though she claims to have seen Death take on human form before. In this case — spoiler alert from 63 years ago — she turns out to have guessed wrong.

It's a beautiful episode, one of my favorite of the non-Serling Twilight Zones, and so much of that is a credit to Redford's performance as Death. He's so gentle, so soft-spoken, and ultimately so kind, that you believe he could assuage all of this terrified woman's fears about what will come after she takes his hand. You watch this, and you are not shocked that this beautiful, charismatic, gifted performer was able to become a big honking movie star.

Speaking of which, while I've never been a movie critic, I grew up watching Redford in so many movies, and I thought I'd offer thoughts on a few of my favorites:

• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Screenwriter William Goldman has said that he knows this will be the first thing mentioned in his obituary. An argument could be made for that regarding Redford, Paul Newman, and everybody else, if they all — Goldman included — didn't have so many other bangers. But you want to talk about a film powered by movie star wattage? The script is full of indelible lines ("Who are these guys?"), and there are lovely visual sequences like the bicycle ride. Ultimately, though, you just want to watch Redford and Newman look great and have illegal levels of onscreen chemistry together. Newman has the more overtly funny role, but I love how dryly Redford plays Sundance's exasperation with all the situations Butch keeps placing him into.
• The Natural: It shouldn't work. He's way too old for the part, especially in the early scenes but even after Roy is making his comeback with the Knights. The book is a fictionalized take on Shoeless Joe, and the movie ends with Roy winning the big game and setting off literal fireworks with one swing of the bat. But he just commands the screen, and makes Roy's innate decency so compelling, that when you combine that with the iconic score, and the great supporting cast Barry Levinson assembled, it all works.
• All the President's Men: Redford and Goldman, together again, with Dustin Hoffman and director Alan J. Pakula. A buddy movie, a step-by-step investigative procedural, and a movie that has the guts to end at a moment where it appears like Woodward and Bernstein have failed, because it knows the audience knows how the story actually ends. The newspaper movie. (Drama, anyway; I'll hear arguments for His Girl Friday.)
• Three Days of the Condor: Possibly the only Redford onscreen pairing hotter than him and Newman was him with Faye Dunaway. Peak Seventies conspiracy thriller right here.
• The Hot Rock and Sneakers: I suspect a lot of you have seen the latter, an all-star 90s caper movie featuring Redford as the straight man to a team of hackers played by Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, and an absolutely wonderful David Strathairn. A crackerjack entertainment, and a great example once again of how Redford's pure solidity as a performer allows the actors around him to go to ridiculous places. As for the former, it's one of countless adaptations of various books from Donald E. Westlake's hilarious series of crime books about bumbling thief John Dortmunder — who's been played in other films by actors ranging from George C. Scott to Martin Lawrence. This is a classic movie about New York in the early Seventies, where everything keeps going wrong for Dortmunder and his crew in part because it feels like the city itself is conspiring against them. It's the rare Redford film where he's never the coolest guy in the room, even though he pulls off some impressive antics along the way. It's unfortunately not streaming (all the other ones mentioned are available for digital rental or purchase), but if you should come across a copy of it on DVD, I highly recommend it. Also, check out this Super Seventies poster for it:

One more thought: People lamented the fact that after the release of Redford's "final" acting performance in the winning The Old Man and the Gun, he then did a cameo during the time heist sequence of Avengers: Endgame. But even that wasn't his final screen performance. Instead, he saved that for a cameo in a show he produced, the terrific AMC period cop drama Dark Winds, where he popped up with fellow producer George R.R. Martin just to say what everyone's feeling about the remaining A Song of Ice and Fire books:

Coming tomorrow for paid subscribers: my review of Netflix's Black Rabbit. See you there.