Product: Mad Max (1979)
Rating: 5.0
Melvin Gibson:INCREDIBLY Lucky To Avoid Typecasting!
As Bob Denver, for all practical purposes, became "Gilligan," in real life -- as Frances Bouvier became "Aunt Bea," and Bob Keeshan "Captain Kangaroo" -- the young and beautiful Melvin Gibson, in this earliest of roles, was incredibly, unbelievably fortunate to avoid career-long typecasting as nothing but a cheesecake, eye-candy, silver-screen pretty-boy.This fine debut film, in which Melvin Gibson had to do little more than look extremely nice, exude male lusciousness and wear tight leather pants, came dangerously close to relegating him to Fabio status, committing him to a relatively brief film future of appearance-only, stand-and-model roles in subsequent movies. However, the overwhelming power of Melvin's acting talent (facial expressions, talking, walking, and driving vehicles) -- the raw guts of thespian talent and drive -- managed to save him from a perpetuation of calendar pin-up roles, catapulting him to an infinitely higher plane of cinematic accomplishment than is accessible by a mere male model (see Bird On A Wire, The River, Lethal Weapon VII, etc, Melvin's list is literally endless).It was that determination which wrenched Melvin Gibson out of the male-model mold and elevated him to Oscar quality. Think of Gomer and Goober Pyle, of Herman Munster, Dan Rather and Sheila Jackson Lee... and see how intertwined, how enmeshed, how tied up those actors became with their roles. Melvin Gibson was lucky to avoid the same sort of typecasting that severely restricted the careers of these unfortunate folks, and would have condemned him to being known for the rest of his life as nothing but a darn good looking hunk of meat (as they say).We all knew Goober Pyle -- and we can all say for a definite fact that Melvin Gibson (Mad Max) is no Goober Pyle.