James Caan: The Amjad Khan of Hollywood

James Caan become branded Sonny for most of his career, thanks to his role as Don Corleone’s volatile sexually- crackling energy (his wife in the film even tells her friends about how well endowed he is) which went with him to the grave. Ironically in his last screen appearance in The Queen Bees, James Caan played an 80-plus rake finding true love in veteran Ellen Burstyn. Sonny Corleone believed only in true lust. And that’s how audiences remember James Caan to this day, as the hot-headed libidinous Mafioso. James Caan’s gentler roles like the one in Cinderella Liberty, which came a year after The Godfather after forgotten. Caan played a sailor who falls in love with a sex worker played by Marsha Mason and decides to co-parent her teenaged son. Caan’s efforts to ingratiate himself to the Fallen Woman was dubbed chivalrous. And how about the sensitive gentle songwriter Billy Rose in the Barbra Streisand musical Funny Lady? Yes, that was James Caan, so sensitive suave and seductive, Streisand slithered to sighing submission so swiftly! No one remembers Caan in his many other memorable roles. For Coppola, the actor did a film prior to _The Godfather_ called The Rain People where he again played the heroine’s self-appointed protector a la Cinderella Liberty. Caan’s best performance was in Karel Reisz’ The Gambler in 1974, a haunting exploration of academia and decadence. Caan played a New York professor addicted to gambling. His performance was hailed as a revelation, filled with nuances that even director Reisz couldn’t have conceived. [caption id=“attachment_10905081” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  James Caan in a still from The Gambler[/caption] There was so much more to James Caan than The Godfather. He remained trapped in the image of the uncontrollable brat for all his career. This must have been hurtful to the actor who wanted to spread his wings far and wide. Caan’s predicament was no different from what Amjad Khan faced after Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay. No matter what Khan attempted after Sholay it was always compared with Gabbar Singh. Amjad’s very fine performances in Feroz Khan’s Qurbani, Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khilari, Gulzar’s Meera, Raj Sippy’s Inkaar, Prakash Mehra’s Muqaddar Ka Sikandar and Rahul Rawail’s Love Story went unacknowledged. He died heartbroken. James Caan was happy at the end. Being such an integral part of The Godfather which is considered by many as the finest film ever made, is reward enough for all the other neglected performances. James Caan’s last film Queen Bees is about dying with one’s boots on. Remember the 1952 Japanese classic Ikiru about ageing with grace? Well, Queen Bees is also a meditation on mortality, albeit one that is severely deprived of subtlety and stymied by stock situations and characters . Though the cast is impressive it isn’t a pleasant experience to see the great Ellen Burstyn (remember her magnificent Oscar-winning performance in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More?) and the one-time sex symbol Anne Margaret playing octogenarians. It took me a while to recognize the slouching old man who plays Burstyn’s love interest. It was none other than James Caan the rebellious Corleone son in The Godfather, now a faint replica of his fiery self. To see this once young and charismatic cast reduced to a wintry wispy shadow of the past is heartbreaking, much more than the film which tries to be a cheerful treatise on the old and ends ups looking like an evening for the old where the veteran cast tries to have fun with numbers. Burstyn is Helen who lives all alone and can’t get along with her daughter Laura ( Elizabeth Mitchell). The daughter admittedly comes across as a bit of a party pooper, much to Helen’s (and ours) annoyance. Helen must be moved to an old folks’ home when her own residence needs repairs. She would rather stay with strangers than with her own child. (I can see many parents empathizing with that). The rest of the film is an over-cute under-cooked autumnal poolside party with wheelchairs replacing pool chairs. While Ellen Burstyn is just passable in this impossibly artificial upbeat drama, the one to watch is standup comic Jane Curtin as the cranky unpleasant Janet whose loss of faith is attributable to loneliness. There is no dearth of emotional pockets in the plot. These are never explored nor given a chance to grow organically in a plot that seems anxious to score with the audience but fails to cloak its excitement. The false exuberance of the narrative soon gets to you. Sequences such as the one where Helen and her black friend Sally (Loretta Divine) whip up a storm in the bedroom, are only meant to spotlight the screenwriter’s desperation to show us that the old too can have fun if they try. I totally get that. And I am one with the basic premise of this old-is-gold film. But the execution and the characters are so shallow and uninspiring they seem to be advocating chawanprash rather than living a truly zestful life. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News,  India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.