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

[Worf]

As the current head of Local 12 - Villains, Thieves and Scoundrels Union (AFoL & Teamsters), I'm curious to find out the villains here that folks LOVE to hate. I mean despise! The man or woman you wouldn't throw a Dixie cup of water on if they were on fire!

Here's my list off'n the top of my haid:

From film:
Surat Khan - "Charge of the Light Brigade"
Johnny Ludo - "Kiss of Death"
Don Barzini - "The Godfather"
Solazo - "The Godfather"
Khan - "Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan"
Curly Bill Brocious - "Tombstone"
Little Bill Dagget - "Unforgiven"
Major Strasse - "Casablanca"
Mr. Potter - "It's a Wonderful Life"
Max Cady - "Cape Fear"
Joan Crawford - "Mommy Dearest"
Kiza Soze - "The Usual Suspects"

Worfster

 

[LizzieMaine]

Warren William as Paul Kroll in "The Match King." In fact, Warren William in just about anything.

 

[Fading Fast]

Great thread theme.

I'm going to give more thought to it, but the three that immediately come to mind are

From "Boardwalk Empire:" Gyp Rosetti because he is smart, charismatic, rapacious and full-on crazy. He has all the skills needed to get what he wants, wants it all and has the unpredictability that comes with crazy. There are no rules - even Mafia rules - that he believes in. The guy scares the bejesus out of me.

From "Star Trek Voyager:" Species 8472, the Borg is scared of them - that says it all.

From "From Russia with Love:" Rosa Kleb, she is incredibly smart, singularly focused on her goal, and even as a small, middle aged woman with nothing more than a little knife coming out of the front of her shoe gave Bond a fight for his life. I have no desire to ever run into anyone like her.

 

[Bushman]

Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life", if only because he gets away with it. That dried up old crotchety prune.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Louis Calhern as Trentino in "Duck Soup." And then Louis Calhern parodying himself in that role as Winkelreid in "Diplomaniacs"

Edward Arnold as the fascist newspaper publisher in "Meet John Doe." Edward Arnold in just about every role he played in the thirties led up to that one.

Claire Dodd as Jimmy Cagney's evil girlfriend in "Footlight Parade," who was told by Joan Blondell "As long as there's sidewalks, sister, you've got a job."

 

[Benzadmiral]

Robert Mitchum as Max Cady in the original Cape Fear, without a doubt.

Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber the "exceptional thief," in Die Hard.

Both Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb and Robert Shaw as "Red" Grant in From Russia with Love.

Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Cagney as Cody Jarrett in White Heat.

And Bela Lugosi's Dracula in that film. I know, Lugosi's performance seems a little stagey to us now. But he really suggests a creature that is no longer alive as we know "alive." And when he is facing Van Helsing, trying to hypnotize him, and says in that low voice, "Come . . . here," I want to get up and walk toward the screen!

 

[MisterCairo]

Anton Chighur in No Country for Old Men.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I always find it interesting how some of the real lives of the actors who play such despicable characters revealed totally opposite personalities. Yeah, I know.. that's why it's called "acting," but it's still a source of amusement to me. I think that it takes a lot more skill to play a bad guy than a hero- especially when in real life you're essentially a decent person.

Margaret Hamilton, who portrayed the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz" was a former school teacher who actually loved kids, and I can recall seeing her on several children's television programs as a kid explaining to small children how she was merely playing a role, etc., and that the kids need not be afraid of her. She sure scared the daylights out of me when I was little and saw that film for the first time.

Another one was Edward G. Robinson: the definitive bad guy on the screen, but by all accounts, he was cultured and soft spoken in real life. You'd never know it from his roles as Rico in "Little Caesar" or as Johnny Rocco in "Key Largo."

 

[scottyrocks]

Robert Mitchum as Max Cady in the original Cape Fear, without a doubt.

Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber the "exceptional thief," in Die Hard.

Both Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb and Robert Shaw as "Red" Grant in From Russia with Love.

Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonien Singhn Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Cagney as Cody Jarrett in White Heat.

And Bela Lugosi's Dracula in that film. I know, Lugosi's performance seems a little stagey to us now. But he really suggests a creature that is no longer alive as we know "alive." And when he is facing Van Helsing, trying to hypnotize him, and says in that low voice, "Come . . . here," I want to get up and walk toward the screen!

Alan Rickman had a penchant for playing especially detestable villains. Another of those was Australian ranch owner Elliott Marston in Quigley Down Under (1990), and of course, Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films, until we discovered he was sort of a good guy.

Something about his dismissive, sneering voice.

 

[Denton]

Great topic. How about Mrs. Danvers (played by Judith Anderson) in Rebecca? One of my favorite performances in film. Mannered and way over-the-top yet perfect.

 

[AdeeC]

For me it's a no brainer. Kenneth Widmerpool played by Simon Russell Beale in English period series A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME 1997. Perhaps more evil but not as odious is his wife Pamela Flitton played by Miranda Richardson. The most perfect made in Hell match.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Emilio Fernandez as General Mapache in "The Wild Bunch"
Closely followed by Jorge Russek as Captain Zamora in "The Wild Bunch"
In turn closely followed by Afonso Arau as Lieutenant Herrera in "The Wild Bunch"
Perhaps overshadowed by Albert Dekker as the loathsome Harrigan in "The Wild Bunch"
Come to think of it, "The Wild Bunch"was a movie where even the good guys were bad guys.

 

[2jakes]

Some of my favorite villains growing up.
In no particular “odor”....

 

[Denton]

A few other thoughts. Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter. Bonita Granville in These Three. Walter Huston as Scratch in The Devil and Daniel Webster. Bette Davis in The Letter. Bette Davis in The Little Foxes. All great villains.

In the end I remain loyal to Mrs. Danvers.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Charles Laughton as the tyrannical (and possibly worse) father in 1934's The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

 

[Fading Fast]

From the movie "The Uninvited" Miss Holloway played by Cornelia Otis Skinner. She runs a "retreat" for the emotionally disturbed and is as creepy as they come. Also, while only alluded to, her character was probably a lesbian which fit the prejudice of the day. She's up there with Mrs. Danvers (referenced a few posts ago) as creepy women who just barely keep it together on the surface but are deep-in-the-crazy underneath.

 

[Stormy]

I have eagerly embraced many of the legendary villains. Some of them have gotten even better with time, compared to their current counterparts. AND there are those who I just can't stand! The following are to name a few:

"Streetcar Named Desire" - Stanley Kowalski
"Imitation of Life" (1959) - Frankie
"A Tale of Two Cities" (1980) - Therese Defarge
"Shawshank Redemption" - Warden Norton
"Boardwalk Empire" - Valentin Narcisse
"Casino" - Nicky Santoro

 

[LizzieMaine]

Eric Campbell in the Chaplin Mutual shorts.

 

[EngProf]

I vote for (or against) Nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Evil, scary, creepy...

 

[AdeeC]

Myna Loy carved a menacing career as a villain before she became A list. She was a serial killer in 13 Women and had unusual tastes for fullfilling sexual gratification in THE MASK OF FU MANCHU. She liked to torture her lovers.