Frank Albertson gives self-important businessmen enough comic force to register even in a small part. We rate his brisk supporting work, particularly when a director makes that broad, confident manner do something less comfortable than raise a laugh.
Fi1m perspective
Sam Wainwright’s braying greeting in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) is not the sort of thing an actor can deliver apologetically. Frank Albertson makes it fit a comic businessman whose confidence leaves little room for embarrassment. The broadness suits Frank Capra’s family fantasy; a restrained version of that greeting would hardly improve matters. Albertson is useful company here, giving a recurring supporting character a clear identity without making the film stop to explain him.
The early singing and dancing parts in Just Imagine (1930) and A Connecticut Yankee (1931) belong to a different phase. Supporting roles followed through the 1930s: he played Katharine Hepburn’s brother in Alice Adams (1935) and Leo Davis opposite the Marx Brothers in Room Service (1938). After the war came character parts and, from the 1950s, extensive television work. The shift from wide-eyed confusion to business-like pomposity suits an actor whose work depends on making a character immediately recognisable.
Alfred Hitchcock puts that pomposity to sharper use in Psycho (1960). As Tom Cassidy, Albertson has a brief early appearance that establishes the money which drives the plot. We were unsettled by Cassidy’s business-like assurance; Albertson makes this early encounter unpleasant before Hitchcock needs to frighten us. The character has a practical job to do, and Albertson gives him enough personality that the introduction of the money does not feel like an administrative necessity. We would take this concentrated use of his manner over the more expansive comedy of Sam Wainwright.
These are small contributions to films we recommend strongly, and neither requires Albertson to carry the story. His strength is economy, though his businessmen can seem fully accounted for after their first appearance. Capra can use that familiarity for comedy; Hitchcock makes the same sort of self-importance less agreeable. Start with Psycho if Sam Wainwright’s greeting has put you off.
Biography
Frank Albertson was an American character actor. Born Francis Healey Albertson in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, he entered the film industry in the early 1920s and appeared in well over 100 films and television productions between 1923 and 1964.
In his early career he often sang and danced, with roles in Just Imagine (1930) and A Connecticut Yankee (1931). He had supporting parts in Alice Adams (1935) and Room Service (1938), the latter opposite the Marx Brothers. During the Second World War he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit. Later credits include Sam Wainwright in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Tom Cassidy in Psycho (1960). He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
