5 responses to “Weekly Dead, 2/17”

1. 

   granville

   02/18/2026

   Can’t believe Robert Duvall was 95. Actors like this seem perpetually 55. Even in “Network” he seems like he’s older than his appearance. Ed Harris is another actor like that.

   Roy Medvedev could be a dry read but because a lot of his info was anecdotal they sometimes stood out. In “The Unknown Stalin,” he made various communist leaders seem more like mafia capos than revolutionary leaders or gray bureaucrats. The “Old Bolsheviks” that Stalin purged had earlier purged their own rivals, so they understood the score, but sometimes made appeals anyway, writing private letters to Stalin addressing him by his underground alias (“Koba”) and asking bluntly if he really needed them to die (he never answered, which was an answer, and kept the letters, which was kinda insane).

   Another letter he never answered but kept was from Tito of Yugoslavia, after he broke from the Soviet Union, listing by name all of the assassins Stalin had sent to kill him and warning that if he didn’t stop, Tito himself would send a man to Moscow “and there would be no need to send another.”

   It’s hard to imagine these people as real human beings so it’s helpful to just imagine them as Tessio from Godfather I, knowing he was caught in the jaws of death for his own crimes but just throwing an appeal out there to Tom Hagen anyway…

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2. 

   Doug Holland

   02/18/2026

   In this confession booth, I’ll admit that Let History Judge is the only Medvedev I’ve read, and with a lot of skimming, so I doubtless missed some of the subtleties and impact. It’s been decades, but my recollection is that he’d done all the research and had terrific stories to tell, but he wasn’t particularly gifted at telling them.

   To Kill a Mockingbird was where Duvall first hit me hard, The Godfather is where I started to recognize him, but The Great Santini is my favorite. He’s only a supporting character, but the whole movie would collapse without him.

   He was in a crazy large number of really good movies, and always he was a reason why they were good.

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   1. 

      Claude Reigns

      02/18/2026

      Every time I see Boo Radley’s on-screen reveal – the way he winces at the light, contrasted with Scout’s goody grin of recognition – I weep like a baby. Duvall was always good. I also love his cameo on the swingset in the opening moments of the 1978 Body Snatchers – creepy as hell. No more actors like that: Duvall, Rip Torn, Ben Gazarra, etc.

      And now Tom Noonan is gone, too. Incredible in Manhunter, Heat, etc.

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      1. 

         Claude Reigns

         02/18/2026

         “goofy” not “goody”

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      2. 

         Doug Holland

         02/18/2026

         I think I read somewhere that Duvall just happened to be on an adjacent set that morning, and volunteered to wear the outfit, and yeah, it’s one of the great moments in a great film.

         Crap, hadn’t heard about Tom Noonan. He was what made Manhunter tick and explode. Just glanced at his IMDB and — holy crap, he was on Roadside Picnic the TV show, which I never knew existed and now must find. Love that book!

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