Credit Report

 

FRONT DESK 

Credit Where It's Due 

Modesty, the old pal's act or simply owing someone a favor - what's the beef on the unbilled cameo?

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WHO'S THAT MYSTERY BLOKE IN ALIVE,BURBLING on about how he found God on the' mountain but then kind of lost him again? Blimey, if it's not old John Malkovich. And what about the TV station chief doling out the big reward in Accidental Hero? Blow me if it isn't Chevy Chase. But hang on a minute, they're not in those films _ both released this month - are they? At least, it doesn't say anywhere that they are, especially not in the credits. So what is it that possessed those hardly publicity-shy types to give of their services for bugger all acclaim? 

Whether done as a favor to a friend, owing someone a few bob or blind terror that said movie will turn out to be a bit of a bummer - "He just thought it'd be fun, I guess," trills Chase's enthusiastic L.A. publicity person - it would seem that unheralded appearances are as old as Hollywood itself, as Tom Soter and Jeff Dawson discover ... 

Laurel & Hardy in Pick A Star (1937) The studio Stuck in "unacknowledged" Laurel and Hardy between scenes of this Hal Roach production to beef up a rather lame comedy about a smallt own girl (Rosina Lawrence) and her rise to Hollywood stardom ... 

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Gene Kelly, Milton Berle, and Bing Crosby  in Let's Make Love (1960) Multi-millionaire Yves Montand, fed up with women chasing him just for his wad, tries to impress showgirI Marilyn Monroe by hiring an uncredited Gene Kelly, Bing Crosby and Milton BerIe to teach him how to dance, sing and" make people laugh." Her heart, how. ever, belongs to daddy ... 

Glenda Jackson in The Boy Friend (1971)  "Be so good I'll hate you," blubs the Member For Hampstead, star of Ken Russell's jazz musical, twisting an ankle and missing her stab at stardom when a vIsiting Hollywood director selects understudy Twiggy for the big picture instead. There's no 'cialism like so-cialism ... 

Robert Duvall in The Conversation (1974) Duvall shows his face as "The Director," hiring ace wire-tapper Gene Hackman to get information on his unfaithful wife. Like most of the people in Coppola's story, he's a mysterious cipher: tense, menacing and, quite possibly, planning a murder ... 

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Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein (1974)  Hackman is Harold the blind hermit who prays for a "friend" and ends up with big bolted Peter Boyle instead in that spoof of The Bride Of Frankenstein. "You see how heaven plans? Me a blind man and you a mute, " yells Hackman, pouring soup in the lap of the Doc Martened brute. "An incredibly big mute" 

Elizabeth Taylor in Winter Kills (1979)  Years before cameoing as Michael Jackson's besl mate on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Liz was honing her "guesting" skills in this Kennedy conspiracy comedy. In a voice-over sequence, Taylor is the Washington hostess supplying bedmates for the bullet-friendly Premier ... 

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Jenny Agutter in Darkman (1990)  Twenty years on from flagging down the 5.20 from York with her bright red bloomers, "doctor" Jen pops her head round the door at the burns unit where Liam Neeson is first brought in, probably having worked her way up from "nurse" in An American Werewolf In London ... 

F. Murray Abraham in The Bonfire Of The Vanities (1991)  "F" plays the disgruntled D.A. who - some say fortuitously - takes his moniker off the credits when a namecheck reveals that he's way down the pecking order when it comes to the billing ... 

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Sean Connery in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (1991)  Kept in anonymity to preserve a surprise finale to Costner's" swashbuckler," King Sean, as Richard The Lionheart, steals the show by donating his $300,000 fee to his pet charity, the Scottish Educational Trust ... 

Robin Williams in Dead Again (1992 The funny man goes all noble, not wishing his stature to dwarf this Branagh/Thompson noir homage. The discredited shrink, dispensing advice from the supermarket refrigerator, is thus struck off the register ... 

EMPIRE, 1993