Folks you love to hate! Tell us your Favorite Film Villains!

[skydog757]

There are plenty of villains/villainesses in Disney films that fit this category; fortunaley they almost always fall to their deaths in some manner . . .

 

[Doctor Strange]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisneyVillainDeath

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Dr. Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck) in ' The Boys From Brazil'

 

[MisterCairo]

Snidely Whiplash.

Boris and Natasha.

Pipi Longstockings.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Could not agree more. The "code," or the studios belief that happy endings equal better ticket sales made them slap a happy ending on "Suspicion" which is not how it went in the book "Before the Fact" that "Suspicion" was based upon. . . .

You could say it was the Production Code at that time. But then how do you explain the use of the same wildly unbelievable ending in the 1988 TV version on American Playhouse (yeah, I had to look it up) with Jane Curtin and Anthony Andrews?

Oh, and I don't know how I could have forgotten this seminal screen villain:

This film was for many years my all-time favorite picture, and it's still in the top 5 of thrillers.

 

[skydog757]

Walter White, with fewer and fewer redeeming qualities after the first few episodes. Fascinating character, but in the end a ruthless, greedy and power mad drug dealer who wanted to be feared.

 

[green papaya]

Sgt Barnes [Tom Berenger] in PLATOON

Rocky Sullivan [James Cagney] in ANGELS with DIRTY FACES

Tony Montana [Al Pacino] in SCARFACE

Paul Kersey [Charles Bronson] in DEATH WISH

Sniper, Serial Killer Scorpio [Andrew Robinson] in DIRTY HARRY

Col Kurtz [Marlon Brando] in APOCALYPSE NOW

Raisuli [Sean Connery] in the WIND and The LION

 

[LizzieMaine]

Rhett Butler in Gone With The WInd. Scarlett needed him like Georgia needed Sherman.

 

[nick123]

Nurse Ratchet!!

 

[Worf]

Rhett Butler in Gone With The WInd. Scarlett needed him like Georgia needed Sherman.

I personally think it's the other way round. Petty, selfish, greedy, vain and not above murder in cold blood. She went through husbands like a female Praying Mantis. Rhett was the only man to walk away ALIVE from her clutches. You sure you haven't confused Rhett with Scarlett? Lady Mary Grantham studied under this woman!

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ I'm with Worf on this one. If you take away the cultural clutter - what today we see as chauvinism - and go to their character, how they treat each other, their values, etc. - Rhett was an overall upstanding guy, she - while showing some grit and decency here and there - is to quote Worf, "petty, selfish, greedy, vain and not above murder in cold blood."

Both were human with human flaws, but Rhett measured pretty good on the decency scale in my book; Scarlett, not so much.

 

[skydog757]

Well, he did shoot a pony . . .

 

[James Linnehan]

The BORG

Resistance is futile.

 

[Fading Fast]

Every single person in "Mildred Pierce." Right down to the extras.

Coincidentally, we watched "Mildred Pierce" yesterday and felt that my earlier comment about her first husband being decent (and the only decent character in the movie) was supported. He - like all of us - is not perfect, but is a stand up guy who showed honor, decency and moral conviction and did some nice things for others "even when others weren't looking." Away from him, and maybe Eve Arden's character and the accountant, spraying the set with a machine gun wouldn't have hurt humanity one bit.

 

[Stiff Collar Skin]

The great Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity.

 

[Fading Fast]

The great Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity.

Outstanding movie - and I love Barbara Stanwyck - but I didn't find her super scary in this. She felt two dimensional; whereas, for me, the truly scary thing was watching Fred MacMurray's slow motion decent into murder. She was a generic bad woman; he was a complex person who knew what he was doing was wrong and yet couldn't help himself. His moral decent was scary as it felt real; it felt like it could happen to someone you knew; like when somebody commits a crime and all the neighbors say what a nice guy he was, how he bought ice-cream for the kids, etc.

 

[Stiff Collar Skin]

Outstanding movie - and I love Barbara Stanwyck - but I didn't find her super scary in this. She felt two dimensional; whereas, for me, the truly scary thing was watching Fred MacMurray's slow motion decent into murder. She was a generic bad woman; he was a complex person who knew what he was doing was wrong and yet couldn't help himself. His moral decent was scary as it felt real; it felt like it could happen to someone you knew; like when somebody commits a crime and all the neighbors say what a nice guy he was, how he bought ice-cream for the kids, etc.

Yes, you are right, Fred's character was a likeable guy who just happened to fall for a thoroughly rotten woman, and even after he murdered her husband you still could'nt help feeling sorry for him. I have a marvellous documentary on Stanwyck in which she said that Fred was never better, and it was unfair that he was not even Nominated for an Acadamy Award, neither was Edward G Robinson who's amazing speech about the different ways to commit suicide was worth an Oscar alone, and he did that all in one take.
Two years later Stanwyck played an equally ruthless woman in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, which also saw the debut of 30 year old Kirk Douglas as her weak, alcoholic husband.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Outstanding movie - and I love Barbara Stanwyck - but I didn't find her super scary in this. She felt two dimensional; whereas, for me, the truly scary thing was watching Fred MacMurray's slow motion decent into murder. She was a generic bad woman; he was a complex person who knew what he was doing was wrong and yet couldn't help himself. His moral decent was scary as it felt real; it felt like it could happen to someone you knew; like when somebody commits a crime and all the neighbors say what a nice guy he was, how he bought ice-cream for the kids, etc.

The most frightening thing in that picture was Stanwyck's wig.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ Nice

 

[Fading Fast]

Yes, you are right, Fred's character was a likeable guy who just happened to fall for a thoroughly rotten woman, and even after he murdered her husband you still could'nt help feeling sorry for him. I have a marvellous documentary on Stanwyck in which she said that Fred was never better, and it was unfair that he was not even Nominated for an Acadamy Award, neither was Edward G Robinson who's amazing speech about the different ways to commit suicide was worth an Oscar alone, and he did that all in one take.
Two years later Stanwyck played an equally ruthless woman in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, which also saw the debut of 30 year old Kirk Douglas as her weak, alcoholic husband.

Robinson is often the unsung hero of that movie as MacMurray and Stanwyck get all the attention, but his performance is incredible - he doesn't seem to be acting, but simply is his character.