Is there a droller, more consistently watchable screen actor than
Donald Sutherland? That amused, lugubrious baritone of his is as
instantly recognisable as James Mason’s, and it has enlivened so many
bad and average movies as well as immortalising a small handful of great
ones. His eyes can sparkle with mischief, or well up with gloomy emotion
– Ordinary People, for example, would be nothing without the
combination of melancholy and desperate cheer he brings to it. One
wishes that his prolific gifts for comedy were employed more often in
actual comedies; but they peek through all the time in his irresistible
villains, his madmen, and his snobs.
