|
Post by Hoosier X on Sept 25, 2024 11:23:20 GMT -5
I'm also reminded of actor Raymond Burr. Many of his early roles he played a menacing gangster type. His best evil character was in Hitchcock's 1954 Rear Window. Once the TV show Perry Mason began in 1957 it all changed for him Raymond Burr has a pretty good role as the heavy in Borderline, with Claire Trevor and Fred McMurray.
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Sept 25, 2024 12:48:17 GMT -5
I'm also reminded of actor Raymond Burr. Many of his early roles he played a menacing gangster type. His best evil character was in Hitchcock's 1954 Rear Window. Once the TV show Perry Mason began in 1957 it all changed for him Ramen burger has it pretty good role as the heavy in Borderline, with Claire Trevor and Fred McMurray. Ramen Burger? Sounds like a weird fusion cuisine restaurant.
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Sept 25, 2024 13:01:01 GMT -5
I found it interesting to see Stewart Granger, in The Wild Geese, after seeing him in swashbucklers, like The Prisoner of Zenda and Scaramouche, as well as stuff like King Solomon's Mines. In The Wild Geese, he is a merchant banker who funds a mercenary force in a mission to rescue a deposed leader, in Africa, before a rival can kill him. He is heavily invested in mining concerns and the current dictator has nationalized their interests, so he wants the mercenary leader, played by Richard Burton, to get the deposed rival out, before he is executed, to then build a revolution around him and regain power and control of the mines. He then uses the mission as a negotiating tool with the current government and signs new agreements, then sells out the mercenaries, by ordering their extraction aircraft to leave them behind. They then have to fight their way out of the country and get to a small airstrip, with a DC-3 that can fly them across the border, before government troops can catch them. Granger is suitably oily and has a 6 ft stick up his backside, acting the ultra-conservative City financial baron, even to the point of intimidating a mafia don into dropping a contract on one of the mercenary officers, who murdered a "family" (in both sense of the word, in crime circles) member who conned him into delivering drugs. He threatens to use the newspapers he controls to make operations impossible, due to the publicity, unless they drop the contract. The boss agrees to avoid the headache and because the kid's operations were unsanctioned.
You can't wait for Granger to receive justice, in the film, especially with some of the things that happen, along the way.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Sept 25, 2024 13:48:50 GMT -5
Ramen burger has it pretty good role as the heavy in Borderline, with Claire Trevor and Fred McMurray. Ramen Burger? Sounds like a weird fusion cuisine restaurant. Oops! I’ve been walking dogs at the rescue and running errands this morning and somehow it came out “Ramen Burger” in the rush. That’s supposed to say “Raymond Burr.” It’s fixed! But now I’m hungry for a Ramen Burger!
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Sept 25, 2024 13:54:31 GMT -5
There are a few actors I only recall seeing in heroic roles: Dirk Benedict, Don Johnson and Peter Graves come to mind. I’d like to see any villainous roles they’ve played. Peter Graves is the Nazi snitch in Stalag 17. The POWs beat him up when they find out he’s been planted in the barracks to spy on them for the Nazis who run the camp.
|
|
|
Post by tartanphantom on Sept 25, 2024 22:29:37 GMT -5
Interesting that none of you have mentioned Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd.
Not exactly Mr. Wholesome Q. Niceguy.
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Sept 26, 2024 0:07:20 GMT -5
One example of an actor playing against type that I only came across just now while looking up something else is A Man Called Sledge in which, to quote the wikipedia page, James Garner stars "in an extremely offbeat role as a grimly evil thief".
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Sept 29, 2024 4:56:25 GMT -5
Watched the 1979 Canadian-produced disaster film City on Fire last night...
...mainly out of curiosity, because I kept seeing it when scrolling through the movies offered on HBO and I had never even heard of it (and I have a soft sport for movies filmed in the 1970s). It's got a real ensemble cast, including Barry Newman, Ava Gardner, Shelly Winters, Henry Fonda, James Franciscus, Susan Clark (who probably guest-starred in damn near every network TV show in the 1970s; edited to add: and then Webster in the 1980s) and Leslie Nielsen - in what was probably one of his last straight-up dramatic roles (Airplane! and a major shift in his career trajectory were only a year away). However, the cast could not save this one: first, the premise is pretty ridiculous - a big chunk of a major, unnamed US city starts gets caught in a ginormous fire due to a explosions at an oil refinery located close to the downtown area, there because of shady deals by the corrupt and ambitious mayor (Nielsen); secondly, and most importantly, it's just kind of dull. The story concentrates way too much on the soap-operatic drama between the various characters rather than the bread and butter of a good disaster film, tense scenes of action, destruction and heroism.
|
|
|
Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 29, 2024 8:07:27 GMT -5
Always pleased to find a classic film I've never seen before. This time a gritty crime noir from 1957 Short Cut To Hell with Robert Ivers and Georgann Johnson. Ivers is a professional hitman, double-crossed by his client and now determined to kill him. Simple and straight forward plot from a Graham Greene story. The hitman is the star and is a totally despicable person. I was unfamiliar with the names of Ivers and Georgann Johnson but they did fine jobs and looking at their resumes they both had been in plenty of movies I have seen. The movie moves at a brisk pace and is quite entertaining There is one thing that makes the film quite notable. It's the only movie directed by James Cagney Available on YouTube as well
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 30, 2024 20:02:29 GMT -5
I've just watched Samurai Rebellion (1967) in which Toshiro Mifune gives my favourite performance ever.
A dirty old Lord takes a pretty young lady (Ichi) as his concubine, much to her disgust. Feudal rules, eh? Although she bears him a son in due time, he quickly discards her for a newer model. Since Ichi has a strong character, she gives the Lord and his new concubine a piece of her mind and a few bruises; as punishment, she is made to marry the elder son of a vassal.
Her new family is not keen on this marriage, as the lady is tainted by the scandal... but against expectations, she and her new husband fall in love. The family's mother, a real harpy, is naturally quite upset; her husband (Mifune), however, grows quite fond of his daughter-in-law. He is also awed by the love between his son and her, because his own arranged marriage was ever loveless. He's also ga-ga over his new granddaughter!
Fate strikes when the Lord's young heir dies, making Ichi's son the new heir. As it wouldn't do to have the heir's mother be married to a vassal, the Lord's courtiers put pressure on Ichi and her family to get her to return to the Lord's castle. When she refuses, it leads to a family feud; she is however steadfast, backed by her husband and father-in-law.
Eventually she is abducted under false pretences, and when her husband demands her back he exposes himself and his family to increasingly tyrannical threats.
From then on, it goes really Shakespearean.
I really loved it. I don't know the director, Masaki Kobayashi, but would be curious to see more of his work. (The cinematography is also beautiful. And I so love black & white films!)
|
|
|
Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 30, 2024 21:19:37 GMT -5
I really loved it. I don't know the director, Masaki Kobatashi, but would be curious to see more of his work. (The cinematography is also beautiful. And I so love black & white films!) That would be Masaki Kobayashi. I also seen and enjoyed this film I also would like to see more of his films. Criterion has 3 more (Kwaidan, Harakiri, The Human Condition) They also have a Eclipse Series Collection set #38 with 4 more Kobayashi movies.
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Sept 30, 2024 23:33:02 GMT -5
Short Cut to Hell and Samurai Rebellion are both new to me, I'll add them to my list. Looking up Kobayashi, I see there are a few of his I'll want to see, maybe Black River first. The latest "classic" movie I watched was The Border (1982), which I found just a little disappointing. Not a huge let-down, since I hadn't heard enough about it to have any well-defined expectations, but with such a strong cast - including Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Warren Oates, Valerie Perrine, among others - and a scenario I found interesting and that is still relevant today - illegal immigration across the border from Mexico into the US - I thought it had potential.
And it wasn't bad, just not as good on the whole as I felt its parts might sum up to. Hmmm, I suppose that means I did have some expectations after all, more than I'd realised. It's hard to say quite what's wrong with it, but I never felt involved with the action of the story the way you do in a movie that really grabs you. But I'd say it's still worth a look if you haven't seen it, especially if you're a fan of any of those actors or of 80s films or pop-culture in general.
|
|
|
Post by commond on Oct 1, 2024 3:25:46 GMT -5
Kobayashi was a highly regarded director in the 1960s. He made a string of critically acclaimed films -- The Human Condition trilogy, his samurai films Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, and the horror film Kwaidan. Like many of his contemporaries, he struggled to make films after the studio system collapsed but was still active in the 70s and 80s. The Human Condition trilogy is almost 10 hours long but one of the great film trilogies. It stars the great Tatsuya Nakadai, who is one of the great Japanese actors of the era. Nakadai also stars in Harakiri.
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 3, 2024 19:32:19 GMT -5
I just watched Hitchcock's The 39 Steps from 1935. What a pleasant film, full of humour and intelligence. The Scottish innkeeper protecting her customers was a riot! The twist at the end was also pretty clever.
Now back to Halloween stuff!
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Oct 3, 2024 21:52:52 GMT -5
I just watched Hitchcock's The 39 Steps from 1935. What a pleasant film, full of humour and intelligence. The Scottish innkeeper protecting her customers was a riot! The twist at the end was also pretty clever. Now back to Halloween stuff! I watched that one not too long ago myself. Yes, excellent film. And what a good cast. Everyone was good but I was especially taken with Madeleine Carroll. I liked her so much in The 39 Steps that I meant to look for some of her earlier movies but then forgot, so thanks for reminding me.
|
|