Kent Smith's earnest, straightforward manner gives troubled characters someone ordinary to stand beside. We value that contribution, though in Cat People his stiffness leaves Simone Simon doing too much of the work.
Fi1m perspective
When Kent Smith speaks as Oliver Reed in Cat People (1942), the dialogue does not always sound lived in. His earnest manner offers the film a useful ordinary presence, but we need to believe in the man as well as recognise the type. Smith can leave Simone Simon doing too much of the emotional work. We rate the film highly, with a reservation about its leading man: playing somebody conventional still requires enough feeling to make us care what happens to him.
Nor is the difficulty entirely his. DeWitt Bodeen's script sometimes gives us too little sense of the people involved, and Tom Conway's Dr. Louis Judd can be stiff too. We were frightened by Cat People, and it was Simon's performance and Nicholas Musuraca's shadows that did it. The film needs the contrast supplied by Smith's straightforward manner, particularly when the people around him seem troubled. His performance helps establish that difference, without always making Oliver convincing in his own right.
His early-1940s leading roles at RKO made use of that conventional presence, before the later move towards professional and authority figures. He returned as Oliver in The Curse of the Cat People (1944), produced, like the original, by Val Lewton; the sequel moved towards psychological drama. The doctor in Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase (1946) and the pragmatic architect Peter Keating in King Vidor's The Fountainhead (1949) suggest how readily he could fit into an ensemble. These are parts in which respectability gives an actor something definite to work with.
From the late 1950s, character parts and television took up more of his work. General Mark Webster in Sayonara (1957) and Dr. Robert Morton in Peyton Place (1964) make the progression easy to follow: the ordinary leading man had become someone other characters might consult or obey. There is room for that kind of actor without pretending every reserved performance contains hidden depths. Start with Cat People, but go for Simon and the shadows rather than expecting Smith to carry the evening.
Biography
Kent Smith (born Frank Kent Smith) was an American actor with a career in theatre, film and television spanning from 1929 to 1978.
Born in New York City on 19 March 1907, he was educated at Harvard University and made his Broadway debut in 1932 in Men Must Fight. He appeared in numerous stage productions including Saint Joan, Antony and Cleopatra and Bus Stop. His film debut came in The Garden Murder Case (1936). He gained notice for his role as Oliver Reed in Cat People (1942) and reprised it in The Curse of the Cat People (1944). Other film credits include The Spiral Staircase (1946), The Fountainhead (1949) and Sayonara (1957), in which he played Gen. Webster.
Smith later worked extensively in television, with appearances in series such as Peyton Place, The Invaders and Wonder Woman. He was married to actresses Betty Gillette (1937–1954) and Edith Atwater (from 1962). He died on 23 April 1985 in Woodland Hills, California.
