How can you describe actor George Nader (1921-2002 heart failure, pneumonia and strokes)? He was beefcake and gay and not the best of actors and Universal studios thought of him as a sub-par Rock Hudson (1925-85 AIDS). However, this actor who came from the theatre won a Golden Globe in 1955 as Best Newcomer and had a voice and physique which while not iconic or classical was one which helped produce an interesting body of work, not least his debut movie Robot Monster (1953). Sadly, at 34, the Golden Globe came too late.
Having survived the debacle of Phil Tucker’s (1927-85 rumours of suicide) Robot Monster, which is considered one of the worst movies of all time, for the next five years Nader made a string of movies for Universal as a contract player and his most interesting performance is probably the Richard Carlson (1912-77 cerebral haemorrhage) directed Appointment with a Shadow (1957).
It was 1957 which more or less spelt the end of Nader’s career at Universal although he made three or four movies that year. It was obvious that the actor would not be a big star. The movies he made previously include Four Guns to the Border (1954) which was also directed by actor Richard Carlson, someone who had capitalised on his acting successes in It Came from Outer Space (1953) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) to direct some minor movies which also included The Saga of Hemp Brown (1958), but most of Carlson’s directorial efforts are dull affairs including the Mexican shot Kid Rodelo (1966) while his first movie Riders to the Stars (1954) had him cope with a new widescreen process.
But back to Nader, who always wore brylceemed hair along with his six foot one inch swimmer’s physique toned and further strengthened by weightlifting. Nader knew Carlson since he starred in the standard western Four Guns to the Border (1954) which is in colour and nicely framed but the script as usual is lacking something in terms of cult material. Nader was in the Tony Curtis (1921-2002 heart attack) movie Six Bridges to Cross (1955) which has some great location work and Curtis shows off his acting chops beyond a pretty face in the final scene. Nader is his typical self and though it is a supporting role he is solid. Perhaps it is because his persona had dated as there is no real star in the making as you would possibly term him as over the hill. That is the strange thing about Nader as he received a Golden Globe-lite as a consolation prize as it was possibly known he really wouldn’t succeed. Three must have been sympathy for this actor if it wasn’t only for his beefcake in terms of the box office. However, this sympathy didn’t last long in terms of masculine producers at Universal. Rock Hudson carved out a solid career producing several hits which kept him in check with the front office. Nader may very well have run off the rails.
The same year he starred with Maureen O’Hara (1920-2015 in sleep) in Lady Godiva in Coventry (1955) which is costume drama where Nader’s hair starts off without brylcreem and then is applied liberally. The movie is okay and O’Hara as you would expect rides a horse through the streets of ancient England with peeping toms blinded by red hot pokers if they looked.
Away All Boats (1956) came the same year with Jeff Candler (1918-61 blood poisoning), Lex Barker (1919-73 heart attack) and Julie Adams (1926-2019 no cause). This is an epic World War Two movie set in the Pacific and probably one of Chandler’s and Nader’s best. Again Nader is the sturdy officer who questions himself. Away All Boats is one of three movies Nader made with Julia Adams including Six Bridges to Cross. Away all Boats is in colour and Cinemascope and Clint Eastwood can be spotted somewhere in the war torn melees.
The final major year in Nader’s career was 1957 when he made half a dozen movies. Perhaps he just burned himself out? The next film has just such a scenario.
“You’ll have to forget you’re too/two low par,” says Nader’s girlfriend’s character in Appointment with a Shadow (1957). It is as though Nader has met his own performances as an actor and himself as he plays an alcoholic who feels he has failed in his chosen profession which in this case is a reporter.
His girlfriend’s further retort is: “And if you don’t love me there’s a bottle of scotch in the kitchen.”
Carlson directed this one and he and Nader had worked in the theatre which I believe is where Nader felt most at home recalling his youth. His alcoholic reporter is two drinks below par and too Nietzschean if that is possible as he has lost the plot and the movie is about finding the plot before its seventy two minute running time ends. In this film we see a believably tired and emotional Nader who does appear to be going through a real bout of drunken behaviour and seems to be angling for an award. This was never going to happen again as Nader seems to be unable to give a natural performance. He most certainly is tortured in this one and there is motivation behind his acting. It is only a one dimensional portrayal however.
Appointment with a Shadow (1957) lobby card
Appointment with a Shadow gives Nader scenes of manic energy looking for a bottle or being concerned about his relationship with his girlfriend and it is a pretty good stab at a serious addiction movie as they were starting to emerge – the issue movie. This movie shows Nader chain smoking at his keyboard while pondering the bottle all to the same Joseph Gershenson (`1904-88) directed music used in The Tattered Dress (1957) which also angled Jeff Chandler for an Oscar.
Window dressing in Appointment with a Shadow is Joanna Moore (1034-97 lung cancer) who is making her film debut and looking very much like Kim Novak. The thing with Nader in this movie is that he is almost believable as a drunk and certainly he is looking the part. Whereas Universal’s The Tattered Dress has a better script and director, Appointment with a Shadow just doesn’t delve deep enough and is ham-strung by a standard murder plot.
Sweating out the alcohol and jumping through apartment windows…
“Crazy, man,” says a bongo playing beatnik about Nader’s behaviour and the actor is boyish in his behaviour at times much like Carlson’s early juvenile performance which almost seems incongruous to the script and his middle aged looks. He is ultimately wooden and can cry no real tears. But then he isn’t given the opportunity.
The script is by Aussie Alec Coppel (1907-72 colon cancer) who worked on Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and the David Niven sex comedy The Statue (1968). Coppel’s work in his homeland is the iconic aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (1897-1935 disappeared) biopic Smithy! (1946) before he moved onto Hollywood.
Another movie made by Nader is Flood Tide (1958) which also stars as a mother and son Cornell Borchers (1925-2014) and The Space Children’s Michel Ray (1944-). It was around this period that Nader’s career began to hit the skids. He had fewer films made but after his rather spent look in Appointment with a Shadow, here he is tanned and muscular once again. Perhaps he had already made enough money?
“The boy’s a cripple,” says someone about Ray who is also a bit of a twisted psychopath as he tries to draw attention to himself and kill people. Nader’s yacht in the movie is the Bad Fortune IV and one wonders if it is symbolic of Nader himself in terms of his career at this stage. Had he struck out more than three times at the studio in his morality? Being gay was a real issue and he was more open than most it has been reported.
“I’d examine your hormones under a microscope,” says one character to Nader while his girlfriend says: “He’s a little too old to burp.” Interesting?
Flood Tide looks good in widescreen black and white and I think Appointment with a Shadow would look good too but for some reason it has remained in the vaults and only television prints are available as if it has been deliberately buried.
Interesting for all the wrong reasons is 4 Girls in Town (1957). I would describe it as a ‘dead end’ movie in that all the careers of the actors in it are going nowhere and most of them ended their stardom with this movie. Nader’s career petered out with this one, while Julie Adams is ‘framed’ as an actress who can’t act and whose range is limited despite her ageing beauty. Meanwhile we have Gia Scala (1934-72 drug and alcohol overdose) for whom 1957 was a big year in terms of career build-up but without success as she failed to click.
Elsa Martinelli (1935-2017 cancer) is told she is beautiful by Nader but doesn’t quite fit in terms of stardom in America. She went on to make international films before a final appearance in the John Candy (1950-94 heart attack) comedy ensemble Once Upon a Crime (1992). Finally, A Fistful of Dollars (1964) actress Marianne Koch (1931-) also failed to become a star.
Nader is having a good time baiting Adams in her character’s acting ‘frame’ as he already knows from his previous year’s efforts he too is below par in terms of his acting prowess. His sexual magnetism as well as his presence are hollow but he is canny or mean enough to try and humiliate Adams.
Still talking about 4 Girls in Town and another failed actor in it is Grant Williams (1931-85 peritonitis) who was in a couple of Universal sci-fi movies in 1957. Rumoured to have been gay also he had sections of a movie he filmed shoe-horned into a hardcore gay movie later in his career, something he was embarrassed about when he was interviewed.
Is 4 Girls in Town a jinxed movie? Or was it deliberately set up to fail? Or fail all of its stars?
“I’m not an actress, never was,” says Martinelli as she departs the movie and on to a jet set life which her check.
Nader has fun being the scenes but he would only make The Female Animal (1958) with Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000 heart disease) as a major starrer. He bares his chest and it is finely chiselled showing he was more into body building than acting. But then don’t one and one go hand in hand?
Nader would have his next bout of success after doing television by going international himself. He did eight Jerry Cotton movies in Europe. Based on pulp fiction crime novels by various German writers, the Cotton movies start off with a familiar theme known as the Jerry Cotton March by Peter Thomas (1925-2020 no cause) which is hardly James Bond as a rather confident Nader is in his element. Interestingly, Thomas music was used by George Clooney in his directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002). There is action galore in the low budget Jerry Cotton movies using second unit work from American cities as well as copious car crashes and robberies. There is good use of quarries and old factories. The star is definitely Nader unless you are familiar with the European faces and he is still athletic enough to polish off the bad guys as the FBI G-man.
Several of the Jerry Cotton movies are in black and white which perhaps limits their appeal but they can be cinematic at times while the colour ones see Nader’s career through to a happy ending by the early 1970s when tastes were changing and violence became more brutal compared to the almost comic book fight scenes which are well choreographed.
It must be noted that Nader is well known for the gay novel Chrome. This science fiction novel is notorious for being about a space cadet who falls in love with a beautiful robot. Some have called the novel beautiful.
As for Nader, he lived with Rock Hudson’s old boyfriend for many years and turned 80 before ill health killed him in 2002. Beefcake but without acting ability to crack the real awards, Nader had a limited stiff necked appeal, but it appears he just wasn’t sexy enough for women and belonged to a bygone era. The 1950s won’t be remembered for any George Nader movies least of all Robot Monster. Which is ironic when we think of his novel Chrome. Further, Nader was in a car accident which saw him turn to writing and so the chrome element of a car may have influenced him turning his possible love for cars to his creation in his much talked about book. Thus the title.
Cult Film Alley 