Movie Villains

[Jack Scorpion]

I second Mitchum and Webb. I was never really that impressed with Dan Duryea.

Kathleen Turner in Body Heat? Hah!

Rural English in Straw Dogs.

Welles in The Touch of Evil.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

See if this one displays:

http://neveryetmelted.com/wp-images/JackPalance.jpg

karol

 

[imoldfashioned]

Classics
Margaret Hamilton (The Wizard of Oz—she still scares me more than any other movie villain)
Basil Rathbone (the Errol Flynn movies, Anna Karenina)
Jane Greer (Out of the Past)
Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity)
Boris Karloff (Anything!)
George Sanders (Rebecca, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, All About Eve)
James Mason (North by Northwest)
Robert Mitchum (Night of the Hunter)
eta Of course, Jack Palance! He made Shane in my opinion
Also Henry Daniell in Camille; love him, wish he'd done more

Modern
Alan Arkin (Wait Until Dark—I first saw this in a theater and he completely terrified me; I had trouble watching Little Miss Sunshine because I kept thinking about this performance)
Laurence Olivier (Marathon Man)
Alan Rickman (Die Hard)
James Spader (Nearly anything!)

 

[K.D. Lightner]

imoldfashioned: You know, you reminded me: I have had the same reaction to Arkin over the years.

I am not a screaming sort of gal, but there was that one scene in Wait Until Dark, when I swear I jumped two feet out of my chair!

karol

 

[griffer]

Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark- A surprising and deep perfromance.

Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty- Very violent, but ultimately sympathetic villain- a post-modern, sci-fi Frankenstein.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Christopher Lee is one of the few Draculas who has given me the chills. He looked pretty menacing in Lord of the Rings, too.

The only other Dracula character who gave me the willies was Max Schreck in the 1922 films, Nosferatu.

karol

 

[Haversack]

Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Sanders, and Basil Rathbone have already been mentioned. (I will remark that George Sanders also provided the voice for Shera Khan in Disney's animated _The Jungle Book_).

I would also add Raymond Massey to the list. Besides his roles as Phillip the Second in _Fire Over England_, ("And? And? And?...), and as Black Michael in _The Prisoner of Zenda_, who could forget his role as older brother Jonathan Brewster in _Arsenic and Old Lace_? A villain whose depravity made even Peter Lorre blanch - "No! Not the Melbourne method, please!"

Haversack.

 

[imoldfashioned]

Good one Haversack--I love Raymond Massey. Have you read his autobiography (two books)? Really quite wonderful.

KD--I saw Wait Until Dark for the first time at a women's college in a full auditorium and I've never heard such screaming during a movie. Arkin is just chilling in that film--and those dark glasses completely creeped me out. He's an awfully good actor.

 

[LadyStardust]

Conrad Veidt
Basil Rathbone

and George Sanders as Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe

 

[Technonut]

Peter Falk - Crime Inc.

Joe Pesci - Goodfellas

Robert Mitchum - Cape Fear, Night of the Hunter

Richard Widmark - Street w/No Name, Kiss of Death

Nazis. Love to hate those guys in any WWII pic.

One of my favorites Feraud ....

"You know what I do to squealers?"

 

[K.D. Lightner]

How About James Bond films:

I remember Gerte Frobe as Goldfinger, of course, and that character Oddjob (the guy who wore a metal bowler. I think it was a bowler).

I remember Lotta Lenya playing Rosa Klebb, and Robert Shaw who played a bad guy in From Russia With Love. Shaw certainly belongs on our villain thread -- he almost always played a bad guy, or at least a man who was dangerous.

There was Joseph Wiseman who played Dr. No.

You can see by my list, I am a bit outdated on Bond movies. I never saw a Bond film after Connery, so have probably missed out on some nasty, nasty villains.

karol

 

[Technonut]

How could I forget Andy Robinson as the Scorpio killer in Dirty Harry?.... :eusa_doh:

 

[griffer]

How About James Bond films...

Oh, please, Xenia Onatop-

Famke Janssen

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Gail Patrick in My Man Godfrey (1936).
Actually, I don't love to hate her and her witchery, I LOVE HER!! It's Carole Lombard that gets under my skin in that movie [huh]

 

[Dixon's Dame]

Lee Marvin - Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (among many others)

 

[Naphtali]

Rule: Memorable heroes are memorable because of their enemies. And memorable usually means complex characterizations rather than stick figures -- Arthur Kennedy in "Bend of the River" as opposed to villains in any Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. I cannot name any of the movies or characters within same. . . . See how memorable they are?
***
Arthur Kennedy in "Bend of the River."

John Mcintire in "The Far Country."

John Wayne (versus himself) in "Red River" and "The Searchers."

Glen Ford in "The Man from Colorado."

Although we don't know him until the end, can anyone remember sleeping after meeting Norman Bates?

Jason Robards, Jr. in "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

And wasn't Ted Levine a sweetheart in "Silence of the Lambs?"

Bette Davis in every movie she was in.

Paul Freeman in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Never forget that the actor who made "Dirty Harry" a household name is Andrew Robinson. None of Harry's subsequent adversaries measured up; none of the subsequent films in the series did either.

Ross Martin in "Experiment in Terror."
***
More anon.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Naphtali -- I think you are absolutely right, there are lots of action films where I know there was a villain or maybe a whole gang of them, but could not name them.

Until you mentioned it, I had not thought of John Wayne as a baddie, but, yes, I remember now how I fretted the first time I saw The Searchers, fearful he would kill his own niece, even though I knew he wouldn't.

John Malkovich: I just thought of him, has played his fair share of bad guys. And he is certainly memorable. Against Eastwood, in In The Line of Fire, he was an absolute monster.

karol


.

 

[Rafter]

Paul Muni as Tony Camonte in the "original" Scarface.

James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy.

Edward G. Robinson as Caesar Enrico Bandello in Little Caesar.

Warren Beatty & Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde.

Robert Mitchum as Max Cady in Cape Fear.

Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty.


And the gruesome twosome,
Kathy Bates as Annie in Misery and Glenn Close as Alex in Fatal Attraction!

 

[Hawkcigar]

Rule: Memorable heroes are memorable because of their enemies. And memorable usually means complex characterizations rather than stick figures -- Arthur Kennedy in "Bend of the River" as opposed to villains in any Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. I cannot name any of the movies or characters within same. . . . See how memorable they are?
***
Arthur Kennedy in "Bend of the River."

John Mcintire in "The Far Country."

John Wayne (versus himself) in "Red River" and "The Searchers."

Glen Ford in "The Man from Colorado."

Although we don't know him until the end, can anyone remember sleeping after meeting Norman Bates?

Jason Robards, Jr. in "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

And wasn't Ted Levine a sweetheart in "Silence of the Lambs?"

Bette Davis in every movie she was in.

Paul Freeman in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Never forget that the actor who made "Dirty Harry" a household name is Andrew Robinson. None of Harry's subsequent adversaries measured up; none of the subsequent films in the series did either.

Ross Martin in "Experiment in Terror."
***
More anon.

I think you are really on to something here. Two of my favorite movies are Winchester 73 and The Man From Laramie. Now I like the movies a lot because I'm a big James Stewart fan. But, would Stewart's character have been as "good" or likeable if not for Stephan McNally's portrayal of Dutch Henry Brown, or Arthur Kennedy's portrayal of Vic? You bring up a good point, Naphtali.

 

[Smithy]

Modern flick but I thought Gary Oldman did a sterling job as the nutter bad guy/cop in Leon (The Professional).