Sterling Hayden, and other underappreciated hoods.

[Flangepart]

I'd just seen The GodFather agine. Man, what a film! Genius! And i happened to think about the scene in the resteraunt.before Michael Corleone tells them its time for a dirt nap. He did't get a lot of screen time, But Sterling Hayden showed why the old tough guys/bad guys had so much work. He, and Al Litteri had style, even when being a slob. Remember Sterling in The Killing? And Al in The Getaway? So, my question is, who do you conciter an underappreciated Tough/bad guy. Or Girl,thats cool too. Who yould you like to see get some better late then never reconicion?

[Chadzilla]

Charles Bronson - sure he made some crappy pappy towards the death of his career (Death Wish 3?  Assassination?) but just go back and take a look at Machine Gun Kelly, The Great Escape, and The Magnificent Seven.  He was a tough guy that could act.

[peter johnson]

Elisha Cook Jr.
Ward Bond
Jack Palance (Well, he gets some recognition now, but not for things like SHANE, which is what he should be recognized for & not doing 1-arm pushups)
Jack Elam
Joel McRae(Yeah, yeah, usually a good guy, but he played his share of thugs too).
Not even an exhaustive list -- It is a good point that there are so many undersung actors out there who get the job well done & make it look so easy, that, well, they couldn't have been really ACTING, could they?

[Ringneck]

Flange,

            I lean towards the corn bread mafia types.  So my best tough guy call would be the ensemble from White Lightning.   Ned Beatty as the evil sheriff, and "Big Bear" the corn liquor entrepeneur.  THe "sequel" Gator wasnt that great but Jerry Reed did a good job as 'Bama McCall who was just like the boys we used ot have try and lean on us whe nI used to run less than legal slots in this county as a younger man.  

           Also, you have to dig George Kennedy's character Red from "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot", and his crazy M2 carbine.  

BradlaGrange

[Mofo Rising]

Interestingly enough, I found a book written by Jack Palance in the library the other day.  It was a love story told in blank verse.  I ventured not to read it.

[peter johnson]

I own a curious paperback fable by Alan Arkin, called "The Clearing".  I'm yet to get through it all -- it seems to be a roman a clef on the human condition with talking animals filling in for various human types.
Did anyone ever see that perfectly dreadful thing by Richard Thomas?  It's just called "Poems" & came out at the height of his fame as John Boy Walton.  A more puerile collection of adolescent angst would be hard to come by.
I have tried repeatedly to get ahold of a copy of "Tall Dark & Gruesome", the Christopher Lee autobiography, but even places that advertise it seem to be out.
*****
It's pretty clear that some stars shouldn't write books.

[Flangepart]

Got that right, Peter. Lots of good honest work by actors who took the job seriously, and gave a performance that looked easy as puttin' a pare of comfortable shoes.

[Chadzilla]

While working as an assistant manager of the local blockbuster video there was a brief and very laughable tie-in with actors that wrote books.  The book would be displayed alongside the rental stock titles starring said actor.  The first up was Kirk Douglas and his first novel Dancing in the Dark, a giggle inducing sex and soap opera about a hollywood director.  This book is so bad that attempting to read it may cause blindness.  He followed that novel with another called The Gift and then, thankfully, he stopped writing books.

The second, and final, actor/author was Michael Caine and his book Acting in Film, which was quite good.  That man is a consumate professional.  My fondest memory of him comes from that acting author tie-in.  Blockbuster plays tapes filled with clips and commercials on monitors around the store, feel sorry for the wage slaves that hear this garbage day in and day out.  On the acting author tie-in tape there was a commercial for Jaws the Revenge (the dead serious this movie will scare you out of the water theatrical trailer) and, immediately after it ended, they cut to Caine (who was sitting on a movie theater set) in the midst of a convulsive giggle fit regarding said film.  His bubbling statement regarding JtR was simple "I did it strickly for the money and have never seen it."

Oh how lucky he is.

[Flangepart]

See! Two words: House Payment : Thats why some good actors do schlock. Not all of them....but the good ones, eh, i can forgive 'em.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Yeah, the old guys are still the best. Here are some more underappreciated hoods from underappreciated films. Larry "Buster" Crabbe and Anthony Quinn from "Tip-Off Girls." William Conrad, Jack Lambert, and Charles McGraw from "The Killers." And
Ed Brophy, Bruce Cabot, Warren Hymer, and Cesar Romero from "Show Them No Mercy." Enjoy

[Steve.]

Gig Young and Robert Webber in Peckinpah's deranged nightmare "Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia" - Gig  looks like he slightly enjoyed massacring that  Mexican family with trusty machine-gun, and Webber (playing a gay gringo hood) certainly shows some nifty elbow-work on the hooker that tries rubbing him up - cue a mass evacuation of the bar. Also in Sam's vein - Al Letieri in "The Getaway".