Burt Lancaster’s Undimmed Magic

The well-nigh magical power of a charismatic first-magnitude star to sustain a film despite its difficulties has seldom been better demonstrated than by Burt Lancaster in “Rocket Gibraltar.”

The story, written by Amos Poe and directed by Daniel Petrie, is a sweet-natured family tale, with Lancaster as a 77-year-old grandfather presiding over a birthday ingathering of a bewildering assortment of sons, daughters, spouses and grandchildren.

The central premise is a fable--the grandkids taking Lancaster at his word about wanting a Viking funeral on a burning boat drifting out to sea. There are enough characters for a 26-week soap opera and too little time to develop their relations with Burt, let alone each other.

But, as the critics have universally agreed, here is Lancaster, being supremely watchable and sympathetic, even when he is just lying on a bed on a summer afternoon listening to his Billie Holiday records.

The well-traveled grandeur of his own life gave the film character rich dimensions that needed no words of exposition. The grizzled beard, the compassionate eyes and a certain inward serenity declared themselves.

Lancaster, who is in fact 74, sipped a cup of coffee in his high-rise Century City apartment one recent morning and grinned philosophically about the critics’ sometimes grudging praise for the film, based on his performance.

“The ending was a big risk,” Lancaster said. “I didn’t know if people would get emotionally involved with it or not. But I saw it at a small screening and there were tears at the end. I liked the part; there were chances for some shadings and it came off better than I thought it would.”

Levi Rockwell, Lancaster’s character in “Rocket Gibraltar,” is a blacklisted writer who had of necessity made a second living as a stand-up comic poised somewhere on a spectrum between Henny Youngman and Mort Sahl.

In one charming party scene, he does some of the old jokes for the grandchildren.

“They were really bad, deliberately bad,” Lancaster says. (“I knew a girl who had to go topless before she could even be a wallflower” is a fair sample.)

“My life is 90% memory,” Rockwell says. Lancaster has enough memories for a couple of lifetimes at least. He was remembering with amusement that he is still asked about “The Swimmer,” the surreal John Cheever story filmed by Frank Perry.

“They say they know what it meant. I say, ‘Tell me; I never understood it.’ Or they ask me to explain it, and I say, ‘Good luck.’ ”

The Cheever character swims home, after a party, through a long network of Westchester County swimming pools, and finds his house empty and abandoned, a well-weathered For Sale sign in the yard.

The film was troubled by more than story. The principal actress, Barbara Loden, quit before shooting was completed and Janice Rule replaced her. Lancaster says he paid for the last day’s work--$10,000--out of his own pocket because Columbia wouldn’t give producer Sam Spiegel any more money.

“Sam was off on that battleship yacht of his. He was fulfilling a last commitment to the studio and he didn’t want anything to do with us. He never came around,” Lancaster says with some amusement, 20 years after the experience.

Lancaster is also amused that “The Crimson Pirate,” which took a certain shellacking from the critics when it was released in 1952, has become a cult film, regarded now as a gem of the pirate genre.

“One of the reviewers said Roman Polanski should have studied ‘The Crimson Pirate” very carefully before he made his pirate film.”

Doing “The Leopard” with Luchino Visconti remains for him the high point of his professional life and indeed of his personal life, confirming a love affair with Italy that began when he was stationed there during World War II.

“I wondered: How can I play an Italian? How can I get into the part. It’s important, terribly important, for an actor to identify with the role.”

Although “The Leopard” has had a troubled history in this country, seen first in a cut version that did less than justice to the majesty of the film and his performance, it has the status of a classic.

Memories notwithstanding, Lancaster continues to work as often and as widely as he can. He has lately returned from Milan and Yugoslavia, where he played a cardinal in an Italian miniseries based on Alessandro Manzoni’s classic novel “I Promessi Sposi” (“The Promised Bride”).

He worked with Alberto Sordi, Franco Nero and F. Murray Abraham on that one.

“Now Sordi--what a character, what a scene-stealer! You’re doing a take and you say, ‘What’s this ?’ ” Lancaster says, mugging furiously, bending his head as if to look straight into the lens. Lancaster laughs. “But a wonderful actor when you keep him in line.”

Lancaster has also done a role in the forthcoming “Shoeless Joe,” the fifth of the present rush of baseball films, this one based on the fantasy by W. P. Kinsella.

The good roles do not come abundantly, Lancaster says. “You have to pick and choose very carefully.”

Losing a role in the film “The Old Gringo” on insurance grounds obviously stung because Lancaster had been signed, had visited the location and had had discussions on the script and loved the role, which in the end was played by Gregory Peck. The case is in the legal system and Lancaster cannot discuss it.

“In Europe,” Lancaster says, “the name obviously means something. I’m bankable. I give status to the release.” He flashes the famous smile. “I can bully them a little.

“Meanwhile, you’re marking time. You’re like a fighter. No fights but you keep in great shape. It was three years before ‘Atlantic City’ came along, and ‘Rocket Gibraltar’ was the best part since. Just so they keep coming along.”