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THOMPSON, MARSHALL (James Marshall Thompson 1926– ). American actor.
As a bright young graduate
of Occidental College, with some experience in writing plays, Thompson broke
into films solely because he was a handsome young man at a time when many of
Hollywood's male stars were off fighting World War II. His years as a male ingenue
included a supporting role as a teenage son in the forgotten fantasy The
Cockeyed Miracle, but he first came to the attention of science fiction
fans as the paramour of Faith DOMERGUE
in the risible Cult of the Cobra, wherein he was alternately bland and
annoying. Now reduced in yeoman work in television, Thompson was chosen to star
in a cheap production called Fiend without a Face, the film in which he
first indicated unusual skill, playing an officer investigating the menace of
invisible flying brains and almost making the premise seem believable; he also
served for a while as the film's uncredited director when Arthur Crabtree
briefly refused to work on what he correctly suspected would be an atrocious
project. Thompson's other starring roles of the 1950s demand more discussion.
In It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Thompson first polished to
perfection his hurt-puppy expression as the commander of the first expedition
to Mars, falsely accused of murder when no members of the relief expedition,
understandably, believes his story about a ridiculous Martian monster that killed
all of his crewmates. Fortunately for Marshall, said ridiculous monster then
shows up on board their return flight and starts killing the crew, proving his
alibi and allowing him to take over as the film's hero. He was even more
effective in a lesser film, First Man into Space, as the older brother
of the cocky pilot who ventures too far into outer space; properly dedicated to
following all the rules, he nevertheless must endure remaining on the ground
because his irresponsible brother is also a better pilot. Later, in the scene
where he confronts his brother, now transformed into a ludicrous-looking
monster, he not only refrains from well-deserved laughter but actually manages
to briefly give the film some genuine emotional impact, which anyone watching
its first hour would have deemed impossible.
His subsequent
opportunities for acting in the genre, however, would not involve such
stimulating challenges, as he starred in the short-lived television series World
of Giants, performed perfunctorily as an astronaut in the series Men
into Space, and portrayed an underwater scientist in Around the World
under the Sea. None of these projects involved what had become his true
passion, the wildlife of Africa, discovered while working on the film East
of Kilimanjaro (1957). Seeking to escape from the sorts of roles he was
getting, Thompson called upon his long-dormant writing skills and developed the
story for a film about an avuncular veterinarian tending to Africa's ailing
animals, Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion (1965), which then inspired the
successful television series Daktari (1966-1969). His days of
snake-women, flying brains, and rubber-suited monsters behind him, Marshall
Thompson had finally become a star, and had finally earned some peace of mind. It
thus seems fitting that in his last decades of acting following that series'
cancellation, Thompson tended to avoid science fiction and instead focused on
crime dramas and family films. Knowing what he had had to endure, no one can
blame him for that.
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