CHARLTON HESTON R.I.P. He was a bit stiff, but so were some other leading men of his time -- Glenn Ford, Rod Taylor, and Rock Hudson come to mind. Heston was usually a little more interesting. The other stiffs could be powerful and forthright, but they were seldom as galvanic as he, because his commitment onscreen was unrelenting.

Consider Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments. The movie's kind of hilarious, but Heston isn't. And he should be, especially when he's describing Passover while extras make horror-movie noises offscreen. Even his superb voice, chiseled features, and Biblical makeup should not distract us from wondering how the Moses bit would play on a busy street-corner in Fresno. What puts him over? Probably the absence of anything like nuance. He's too busy executing the role, which he treats as a sacred trust, to trifle with humanizing touches. It's not because he's stupid, but because he has an abundance of that actor's gift of absolute concentration, which is deaf to absurdity and can resemble stupidity.

Of course you wouldn't call the performance intelligent, but this is clearly a circumstance in which an intelligent performance would spoil everything. Leading men often find themselves in such circumstances, which may explain Heston's success.

He didn't have a lot of gears, but he could surprise you. He's terrific in Ruby Gentry as a guy who knows better but can't keep his lustful eyes off Jennifer Jones. He's actually pretty sexy in the role, even sinuous. I can still hear him rasping his beloved's name ("rrrrROO-BEEeee!") through the door she has closed on him.

And for a ham-hunk of the old school, he took acting very seriously. He mounted a stage production of Long Day's Journey Into Night so he could play James Tyrone. He tried to get DeNiro to do Shakespeare. He always spoke highly of the talent of Vanessa Redgrave, who was politically his polar opposite. He took his own politics very seriously, but he knew to check his guns at the door of the temple of art.

UPDATE. Commenters come to the defense of Rod Taylor and Glenn Ford. My experience of Ford's and Taylor's oeuvres is limited, so I defer to their judgment.

But some commenters are mad at Michael Moore. In Bowling for Columbine Heston willingly and unnecessarily answered the bell as a credentialed representative of the People of the Gun. This wasn't a mugging, it was a press opportunity. If we profess to respect Heston for opening himself to Moore's blows, I should think our respect would prevent us from blaming Moore for landing them -- unless we're looking for a fake fight with pulled punches, to be applauded because it nurtures the old man's self-esteem. None of that P.C. crap for me, thanks, and I suspect for Heston.

Shall we also go easy on Bush because, as a dry drunk (or a real drunk -- reports vary), he is too emotionally fragile to defend himself from our criticism? And do watch out, because they'll be pulling this shit with McCain soon: "How dare you question his mental integrity! He's a very old man!"