Villains?

[laughingrat]

Whenever we're discussing "Singin' in the Rain," I surprise my friends by admitting that I feel sorry for Lina Lamont. Yeah, she's awful, yeah, she's obnoxious, but she's so pathetic!

Ten years ago, if you'd told me I'd wind up feeling bad for such a spiteful character, I'd've thought you were talking nonsense. Are there any movie villains you feel unusual sympathy towards? Any villains you've changed your attitude towards, over time?

Comments

[klia]

Sanders was an excellent heavy because he was so smarmy, like in Rebecca. Rains was just flat-out amazing, playing every kind of role under the sun from Alex Sebastian to Dr. Jaquith in Now, Voyager.

Robert Montgomery (geez, I just read that he was Elizabeth's father! How did I never hear that before today???) was an amazingly good psychopath in both Night Must Fall and Rage in Heaven, especially considering he did mostly lighter romantic roles (I just saw 3 or 4 movies he did with Norma Shearer last weekend :D).

I adored Bogie was because I thought he was so versatile. I saw him first in the movies he did with Bacall, and stuff like Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, so seeing him in The Petrified Forest was eye-opening. Same with Cagney -- even though The Public Enemy was one of his earlier films, I didn't see it until after years of seeing Yankee Doodle Dandy.

[themis]

Rage in Heaven is such a guilty pleasure for me! But he is a good villain in that - not one I sympathize with, though, he's an asshole - which is especially odd because allegedly he wasn't bothering to act, and also the "hero" is . . . George Sanders. Movies are funny!

[klia]

I don't have guilty pleasures -- I totally own that I sometimes like moves that aren't stellar. ;)

Yeah, it was bizarre to have Sanders as the hero and Montgomery as the psycho -- very topsy-turvy -- but that's one reason I liked it. Same with Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven -- very disconcerting! You'd expect Bette Davis or Joan Crawford in a role like that, but not Tierney.