Keenan Wynn makes fast talk and blunt authority worth watching, even in a small part. We value his forceful supporting work, though the broader comic performances can push harder than the material needs.
Fi1m perspective
Wynn's expressive face and distinctive moustache make him easy to pick out, but the fast talk is just as useful. His promoters and conmen suggest men who would regard a pause as a business setback. We value that directness in a supporting player, who may have little time to establish a character. It can become tiring when the performance stays at the same emphatic level.
The early MGM years made supporting comedy his regular work, with the belligerent drunk in The Clock (1945) a typical assignment. Freelance film and television work followed his departure from the studio in the mid-1950s, and the parts were not all comic. Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956), made for television, put him opposite Ed Wynn in a dramatic role; Point Blank (1967) cast him as Yost alongside Lee Marvin. Those credits matter because it is easy to remember only the moustache and the comic insistence.
In Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), he plays Colonel Bat Guano among a collection of absurd men in charge. We laughed and then felt uneasy about laughing, because those men remained horribly recognisable. Wynn's bluntness fits the film, and a supporting actor need not rival Peter Sellers to be worth watching. We recommend it firmly, while retaining our objection to the broadest clowning, which sometimes crowds out the sharper jokes. We are less persuaded by the heavier playing in some of Wynn's later comedies.
His Sheriff in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) places that familiar face in a Western whose pauses matter as much as its violence. We recommend the film despite its tangled plotting, especially for the dread sustained by Ennio Morricone's music. Wynn is not the reason to watch all 166 minutes, but his presence is part of the pleasure of looking at its faces. Robert Altman's ensemble Nashville (1975), with Wynn as Mr Green, provides another reason to look beyond the comic roles. Choose Dr. Strangelove first, provided the prospect of laughing and feeling worse afterwards sounds like a reasonable evening.
Biography
Keenan Wynn (1916–1986) was an American character actor. Born Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn in New York City, he was the son of comedian Ed Wynn and the grandson of stage and screen actor Frank Keenan.
He began his career on the stage in the 1930s before moving into film and television. Wynn appeared in more than 170 films and numerous television productions. Among his credits are Colonel 'Bat' Guano in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), the sheriff in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Mr. Green in Nashville (1975) and Chester Copperpot in The Goonies (1985).
He received prominent billing in most of his roles and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
