R.I.P. actor Jon Finch

 

Actor Jon Finch has died with almost no fanfare-- the only immediately available obituary was in the local newspaper in the English town where spent his last years. He has always been a favorite of mine-- brooding, irate, Byronic-- like Klaus Kinski, the kind of actor that you loved to watch but would have PAID to not to have to work with. Finch did a beautiful job as Roman Polanski's MACBETH, and delivered his signature performance in Hitchcock's last truly great film, FRENZY, as mean, drunken, self-destructive Dick Blaney. Finch really soared as an actor in Robert Fuest's THE FINAL PROGRAMME. If anyone ever chooses to film Michael Moorcock's berserk Jerry Cornelius novels again, they will be hard-pressed to find an actor who could fall so utterly perfectly into the role of J.C. 

Finch was eerily perfect as the surly, bitter, spitting cobra Dick Blaney in Hitchcock's phenomenal FRENZY. He's a perfect foil for the film's villain, the (superficially) amiable Bob Rusk (played by the late Barry Foster). Blaney is the kind of character who calls nearly everybody "a bastard"- women included- which helps make FRENZY one of the best "bad mood movies" that I know of. 

Ironically, just days before I heard about Finch's passing, I was quoting one of his lines from THE FINAL PROGRAMME in an essay: "Well, for a start, I'm going to sit here and get smashed out of my mind. And I also have it on very good authority that the world is coming to an end. I thought I'd go home and watch it on television."

R.I.P.