darkblue

He has a prominent place on my list of favorites. Saw a lot of his 60's movies when I worked as an usher from 1965-70. Our theatre showed them all and I became a fan from 'Situation Hopeless, But Not Serious' on, enjoying every single performance he gave, one by one. A very special screen actor.

Here's a great bit from SCTV. It's supposed to be an episode of 'Monster Chiller Horror Theatre" but, as often happened, the wrong thing gets aired. In this instance it's a tape of Dick Cavett interviewing Bobby Bittman about Bittman's movie 'Funny Stuff'. The interview starts at the 2 minute mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCKldfd151k

Indeed, it was a composite of personalities and styles from Shecky Greene to Sammy Davis to Jerry Lewis to Rat Pack personalities in general - Johnny LaRue, Lola Heatherington and Sammy Maudlin playing into that as well. Lewis did become the major personality force behind the Bittman projection - "as a comic in all seriousness".

They also laughed themselves silly at the Jackovasaurs we sent over there. Oh, wait - that might have been a dream....or a South Park storyline.

Could someone please courier over a box of tissues to TopBilled. He's crying again.

He most definitely would NOT have liked it. Lewis is not known for his sense of humour. He's inordinately proud and always took himself and his position way serious. The Bobby Bittman character that Eugene Levy created so brilliantly for SCTV was very much based on Lewis' humorless and self-important real-life persona.

Waiting for a really funny moment or two in most Jerry Lewis movies can be excruciating. An example of this is 'The Disorderly Orderly' - there is one hilarious sight gag involving him trying to roll spaghetti on his fork. It's the only laugh out loud moment in the entire movie. This is common to his films and makes watching them a tedious endeavour. I've found only three exceptions to this generality: 'The Delicate Delinquent' (1957) has some funny silliness going for it early on. 'The Nutty Professor' (1963) has some early moments that are quite humorous - that all ends of course the moment the nerdy professor turns into an obnoxious puke. The other is the only Lewis vehicle that I ever found to be truly funny as a movie - almost the whole movie is hilarious. That would be 'The Patsy' (1964). Easily the greatest film of his solo career - and with the batch of Hollywood legends that appear in it, it's a wonder TCM has never run it.

Jack Lemmon owns the role of Ensign Pulver. So far, anyway. As Shelly Levene in 'Glengarry Glen Ross' he was so brilliant that that may also be a role that can't be improved upon by anyone else.

John is a great Russell. 'Lawman' was one of my favorite westerns. Here's another great Russell - my favorite actress named Russell. Theresa.

Aa, they're all gonna croak of old age soon anyway so what's the difference.

Was that the guy who was always grabbing rides on car hoods?

I'm sure he was speaking about 'Star Trek' on TV. Boy, that picture of Shatner there has one wondering what the girdle must've been made from. Cold-rolled steel?

Perfect example!! Perkins will always be THE Norman Bates, no matter who else plays the role. In fact, I think this may be the best example of an actor owning a role yet mentioned.

There's no excuse for a dvd distributor like Shout to be pawning off partial episodes like what's done for syndication (to allow for more commercials). I had no idea Shout did stuff like that.

I think one could argue with credibility that Yul Brynner owns the role of The King.

I was gonna "like" this post until I got to the second paragraph. Boris is definitely the best Frankenstein monster ever, in my opinion. However, Bela - for all his iconic imagery in the role - is not necessarily the "best". Lee is more bracing and Oldman was by far the most interesting. It's difficult to choose - the part has been played by so many - but, gun to my head - I'd probably give the award to Max Schreck.

She's fantastic as Blanche Dubois. I consider that to be her crowning achievement as an actor.

I really like Lon Chaney Jr's performance as Lenny Small in Milestone's 'Of Mice and Men' (1939). In my opinion he owns that role (as no one else has been able to improve on that performance - again in my opinion). Actors who "own" roles might make for a highly discussable thread of its own. Another who meets the criteria would be Brando as Stanley Kowalski. Chaney as Lenny; Brando as Stanley - it's not easy to improve upon perfect.

So, when I was 12, I had this huge crush on her - just like most of the guys in school who watched the Hillbillies every week. Does anyone remember the rumour from around 1963 or so that she had lost her legs to a shark attack? I was horrified at the time - really broken hearted. Turned out to be untrue, of course - but it was temporarily devastating "news" to me at that time.

Thant's my problem exactly with all the so-called "classic" movies TCM shows from the studio age - 98 percent of them are such lousy to mediocre movies.

It's visitors Jack and Sandy versus the New York of the early 70's. A terrific movie - Sandy is very funny. You'll be hearing her voice saying "oh, my God" for hours afterward.

No more or less than every other channel that a viewer watches when they're not watching TCM. I guess that would mean that when someone is watching TCM, TCM is not cutting into MeTV any more or less than any other channel would be. I always said that that other thread's proclamation was idiotic - and time hasn't made it any less so.

You can't know what every idiot is watching just by what one idiot watches.

Wow, this thread should last the rest of your life, and get like a million posts. It'll probably end up being the greatest thread ever.

Bobcat Goldthwait.