BEST and WORST Actor in a Role of Ours?

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Sterling Hayden as Jim Bowie in the Last Command. Alamo heros weren't all 6'4" or 6'5" like John Wayne as Davy Crockett. Or Jim Arness in that other "Alamo movie."
 
Eutycus said:
Sterling Hayden as Jim Bowie in the Last Command. Alamo heros weren't all 6'4" or 6'5" like John Wayne as Davy Crockett. Or Jim Arness in that other "Alamo movie."
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John Wayne wasn't that convincing when portraying character's other than himself (with other names of course). He made a great "John Wayne" type of character but was terrible as a small statured Davy Crockett.
 
The only good thing about cold mountain was that Nicole Kidman is fairly easy on the eyes. The LeMat revolver was a nice touch. And the albino looking home guard was believable (I’m sure I’ve met his offspring once or twice). Other than that, not so great.
 
As to Gettysburg being “yank sided” I guess that’s fairly accurate considering how that battle ended. Martin sheen did all right when you consider the Lee was Ill during that battle. His portrayal of Lee was listless and lacking fire. Although I’ve always wondered if that’s true or merely an excuse to save Lee’s reputation for a poorly fought battle. He was usually superb but not that time.
 
Wes Studi and D. D.Lewis dis a great job. The scene that impressed me most as far as getting the details right, is when they come to the sally port of the fort, open their frizzens and wipe the priming out of the pan to make them safe. They don’t focus on it or explain it it’s just a subtle expression of detail.
 
Artificer said:
Though "we're fightin" for our rats" was a very common reply on why Confederate Enlisted Soldiers fought, the most common answer from period accounts seems to have been "B/cause You All (or Yall) are down Hyar."

I think they emphasized the "fightin' for our rats" because someone like Chamberlain's Kid Brother with a good Maine education, would not have understood what they meant and that made it a little more accurate for the period.

Gus
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Someone has to fight for their rats… poor little guys can’t even load a musket. I live in NY and many people think that every southerner was an evil ******* drinking mint juleps, and whipping the slaves and were all about secession due to slavery. Obviously the rich and powerful wanted to maintain slavery as they made their money that way. And, as is typical of history, the rich start wars, the poor get killed. The average southerners were proud, independent sorts who didn’t want to get ordered about by strangers. So I’d guess they were pissed off about their rights to be left alone. Now, they’d have done better to revolt against their leaders rather than the federal government but their leaders were able to get them stirred up enough to fight. Of course apologists for the confederacy like to point to states rights and deny slavery had anything to do with it but Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas articles of secession are full of references to keeping slavery. The average southerners got screwed. By their leaders, by reconstruction, and by public opinion.
 
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2 shots said:
the best. granny from the beverly hillbillys :thumb:
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2 shots said:
the best. granny from the beverly hillbillys :thumb:
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Speaking of Beverly Hillbilly actors, Max Baer Jr (Jethro) starred as Sgt. Luther Liskell in the Glenn Ford movie by the name of "A Long Ride Home" or as it's sometimes called "A Time for Killing". It had 2 titles. Not really sure why.Take your pick which title but Baer was terrible in his part.
 
Eutycus said:
Speaking of Beverly Hillbilly actors, Max Baer Jr (Jethro) starred as Sgt. Luther Liskell in the Glenn Ford movie by the name of "A Long Ride Home" or as it's sometimes called "A Time for Killing". It had 2 titles. Not really sure why.Take your pick which title but Baer was terrible in his part.
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Wonder if Baer is still alive?
 
Golfswithwolves said:
I give the best actor laurels to Wes Studi as Magua in "Last of the Mohicans". I've no worst actor nominees. I liked Spencer Tracy as Rogers in "Northwest Passage" but I thought the Rangers' light green elf suits were pretty comical!
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Oh, so that movie was NW Passage and not Elf after all, I though the main character elf was kind of short for Will Farrell.
 
Artificer said:
Could not agree more. Different folks are bound to have different opinions and that's part of the fun.



For me-
Robert Duvall (though he didn't speak with a Virginia Gentleman Southron accent of the period) was light years ahead of Martin Sheen in Gettysburg. Of course I almost puked when I saw Sheen in that role in Gettysburg.

To my mind, Sam Elliot was not "mumbling" when he portrayed Colonel Buford, but rather growling and spoke in a manner of a man who had fought battles before and knew the importance of holding that position to the Army and to the Union. Thus he was extremely believable.

The movie Gettysburg was chock full of the most believable portrayals of Union and Confederate Officers I have ever seen. Now I like Tom Berenger from his other works and though he also did not do a proper Southron Accent, he made a very believable Longstreet. But if there was one character in Gettysburg that I felt was almost eerily accurate was Stephen Lang portraying George Pickett.

When I saw Stephen Lang was going to do General Thomas Jonathan Jackson in the following movie Gods and Generals, I did not think he was going to be believable. However, I was truly impressed he portrayed Stonewall so well.

Actually, I was ready not to be impressed by Gettysburg or Gods and Generals when those movies came out.

As a member of the Reenactment Unit "Archer's Brigade," we got to reenact Pickett's Charge on the original site at Gettysburg in I think it was 1982? KanawhaRanger might remember better than I. It was the first time Reenactors had been allowed to do it on National Park Property in decades.

By 1987, I had risen to the Brevet Rank of Lt. Colonel when I commanded the Second of the Two Grand Confederate Divisions at the 125th year reenactment of Cedar Mountain. My permanent rank was Captain commanding a VA INF Company and X.O. in "Longstreet's Corps." I was offered Command of a Confederate Regiment in "Gettysburg," though I could not take it as I was then stationed in California and could not take the 45 days off to do it. I was unbelievably disappointed when I later found out they only took about 10 to 12 days to film it and I WOULD have returned for that.

I lived in Fredericksburg, VA in the 70's and 80's, so I knew the ground of the Battle of Fredericksburg like my own hand. Though I fully understand his faults as well as his good points, General Jackson became even more of a Hero to me the more I learned about him.

So with all that I was expecting both movies to fall quite short of my hopes, but instead was genuinely surprised how well they did in both movies.

Gus
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I was greatly disappointed when I found out that Tommy Lee Jones was offered the part of Lee in Gettysburg, and he turned it down. He would have been the BEST possible choice.
Martin Sheen was never very convincing in playing Lee.
Most of the time he looked like his eyes were going to pop out.
And he is so short he had to look up at almost all the other characters ( and yes, I know in real life Lee was not tall ).
 
OldMaineWoodsman said:
John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Under appreciated. All kidding aside...

John Carradine as a superb villain Loyalist in "Drums Along the Mohawk." Blue Back wearing his eye-patch at the end is awesome.
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Didn't Orson Welles and Lee J. Cobb also play Kahn or a Kahn-like character in other movies. The makeup was okay but they were not very convincing on the accents.
 

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