Death after death after death

I mentioned last Friday when I did a briefs post that nobody big in the movies had died that recently. Wouldn't you know it, but that was the signal for the deaths to be announced of some people who were well-known or had long careers, one after the other. I'll take them in what I think would be the rough order of prominence.

Jack Ging died on Friday at the age of 90. He had much more of a career as a guest star on TV than in the movies, although he's in a couple of Clint Eastwood's films, notably Play Misty for Me and High Plains Drifter, although IMDb also says he's got an uncredited part in Hang 'Em High. I remembered the name from a couple of those low-budget movies Fox was distributing during the time when they needed the money to finance the Burton/Taylor Cleopatra although I couldn't think of the titles off-hand; there's Sniper's Ridge and Desire in the Dust.

Marsha Hunt was a month shy of her 105th birthday at the time of her death on Wednesday, although the death wasn't announced until the weekend. She's in the MGM version of Pride and Prejudice from 1940; had a role in The Human Comedy; and would go on to become one of the victims of Hollywood's fight against communism. I was actually planning on using one of her movies in this week's Thursday Movie Picks, so stay tuned.

Finally, Jean-Luc Godard, one of the leaders of the French New Wave, died today aged 91. I have to admit that I'm a much bigger fan of the works of François Truffaut than of Godard's, not being the biggest fan of the New Wave. Something like Truffaut's The 400 Blows is a lot more accessible than the overly talky Breathless, while I think Godard got it wrong when he had his falling out with Truffaut over the latter's Day for Night. Day for Night is also a much better movie about the movies than Godard's Contempt. But there's Alphaville, which is certainly different. I have a feeling TCM will be able to get enough stuff from Criterion to be able to do a programming tribute to Godard sometime later this year.