Great Movies Almost Ruined By A Single Performance (1 Viewer)

[Indy Guy]

What a great topic. I think i could find an endless number of moments in wonderful or not so great films where I get that feeling everything is falling apart while a certain character is on screen. Here are a few that immediately come to mind;
*Carol Burnett as "Carol Burnett" in Annie.
*The superb voice cast for the animated Charlotte's Web reverts to Saturday morning levels for a single baby gosling voice. It's delivered in baby talk by an adult using falsetto.
*Alison Doody in Last Crusade...her personality is not in league with Allen or Capshaw. Fortunately Connery was on board to provide a believable relationship for Indy.
*Ray Winstone in Crystal Skull...totally irritating!
*The trio of obnoxious Gargoyles in Disney's Hunchback (corrected to perfection in the later stage adaptation)
*Frank Porretta in Song of Norway as Edward Greig's buddy...this performance sinks a pleasant unremarkable musical.
*Governor Radcliff and his lacky in the otherwise beautifully animated Pocahontas. (This role is redeemed in the made for video sequel).
On the other extreme, a brilliant supporting performance can be the reason you return to a film again and again...even when the character is meant to be obnoxious.
David Holt's rendition of Sidney Sawyer in Selznick's Tom Sawyer and Paul Lynde's Templeton the rat in the above Charlotte's Web, are so over the top perfect, they make surrounding weaker roles worth sitting through!

 

[Kevin Antonio (Kev)]

Joanna dru in red river. The whole ending made that film a run of the mill western. Everything prior to her was a masterpiece by hawks. Should have stuck with the books ending as well.

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Jack Lemmon as "Professor Fate"/"Prince Friedrich Hapnick" in The Great Race (1965).

He's merely mediocre, chewing the scenery as Fate, but insufferable as the Prince. In the alternate-reality version of my imagination, the dual role would've gone to Vincent Price --in lieu of War-Gods of the Deep and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (both 1965), even though I enjoy AIP's patented low-rent charms of both films.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Joanna dru in red river. The whole ending made that film a run of the mill western. Everything prior to her was a masterpiece by hawks. Should have stuck with the books ending as well.

It wasn’t Dru’s fault for the ending.

 

[Worth]

That's obviously a performance that would never be done today. I look at it as meant to be goofy intentionally and I believe we are not supposed to be watching it as an honest portrayal of a person but rather as an intentionally clownish Mickey Rooney. Mickey always wanted to be a scene stealer and I think he wants us to see the character as him, not as a performance of a person from another culture.

I take it as a comedy performance not one meant to insult or offend anyone. In looks horrid when you look at it in light of how things are today, but back then, they hired a comic actor to do a comic part.

Compare Rooney to Peter Sellers in The Party (also with Blake Edwards). Sellers is doing a similar sort of thing - and it obviously wouldn't fly today - but he still brings a depth of feeling and humanity to the part. He's playing a real person, Rooney's doing a caricature.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Compare Rooney to Peter Sellers in The Party (also with Blake Edwards). Sellers is doing a similar sort of thing - and it obviously wouldn't fly today - but he still brings a depth of feeling and humanity to the part. He's playing a real person, Rooney's doing a caricature.

...or Peter Sellers in Murder By Death. His Sidney Wang is far more reserved than being a caricature. Also wouldn't fly today.

 

[Kevin Antonio (Kev)]

It wasn’t Dru’s fault for the ending.

That's true she didn't make that ending, but her scenes with Clift never resonated with me and her acting at the end is dreadful. Personally I feel that part would have been better with someone like a angie Dickinson. Although she would have probably been too young. She had worldliness quality to her that Joanna dru didn't have.

 

[Bartman]

Noel Coward in The Italian Job. Every scene he's in is throw of balance.

 

[Kevin Antonio (Kev)]

Whoever cast redford in The Chase should have been drug tested. Redford as a southern boy name bubba (or as Brando would say " bubber") .....only in Hollywood. Shame because everyone else is well casted for their parts in that uneven film.

 

[jayembee]

...or Peter Sellers in Murder By Death. His Sidney Wang is far more reserved than being a caricature. Also wouldn't fly today.

That's a strange example. The whole point of his playing the character as such was to satirize the consistent use of white actors to play Charlie Chan, right up to casting an Asian-American actor (Richard Narita) as his "Number One Son".

 

[Ronald Epstein]

That's a strange example. The whole point of his playing the character as such was to satirize the consistent use of white actors to play Charlie Chan, right up to casting an Asian-American actor (Richard Narita) as his "Number One Son".

I never looked at it that way. Nor did I ever think it came off as being offensive or purposely done to make a point.

 

[Tino]

Harrison Ford in The Return Of The Jedi.

 

[mskaye]

Whoever cast redford in The Chase should have been drug tested. Redford as a southern boy name bubba (or as Brando would say " bubber") .....only in Hollywood. Shame because everyone else is well casted for their parts in that uneven film.

The Chase isn't ruined by one performance. It's simply one of those films - flawed on many levels, poorly conceived film for a myriad reasons probably starting at a disconnect between the director's ambitions and what he was able to do. It certainly aimed high and did try and tackle a lot of topical (sadly still relevant) issues. When I watched it, I felt the casting was maybe the least of its problems. It's just off and very forgettable unfortunately. The stars aligned for Arthur Penn on his next film.

 

[Matt Hough]

Carol Burnett is even worse in The Front Page remake. Even she thought it was a miserable performance.

 

[Robert Crawford]

That's true she didn't make that ending, but her scenes with Clift never resonated with me and her acting at the end is dreadful. Personally I feel that part would have been better with someone like a angie Dickinson. Although she would have probably been too young. She had worldliness quality to her that Joanna dru didn't have.

Angie Dickinson was 15 years old when Red River was filmed in 1946. The original actress that Hawks wanted to cast for that role was Margaret Sheridan/The Thing from Another World. However, she became pregnant with her first child, so Dru was her replacement. I never minded Dru in that role, however, my first viewing of Red River was 60 years ago when I was a young boy. The actress in that movie that I really had a thing for was Coleen Gray, who played Wayne's tragic love interest.

Margaret Sheridan

Coleen Gray

 

[cinerama10]

Natalie Wood in the original West Side Story

 

[bujaki]

Although she was in a handful of good movies, she was never in a flat-out masterpiece. However, she always managed to detract from them (except for The Shrike): June Allyson.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Although she was in a handful of good movies, she was never in a flat-out masterpiece. However, she always managed to detract from them (except for The Shrike): June Allyson.

Oh boy, calling Thomas T.

 

[Sam Favate]

George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Almost. It’s still one of my favorite Bond films, and I watch it often. But every so often during the film his performance takes me right out of it for few seconds. Considering his complete lack of experience he does an admirable job, but still…

As Lazenby’s former career as a model suggests, he’s a stand-in in this movie. Nothing more.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

Peter Sellers in Trail of the Pink Panther. His performance was D.O.A. largely because Peter had been D.O.A. about 18 months prior to filming. Alas it was not a great movie anyway…