Al's Omniflick Spotlight: The Nefarious 10

I've made it a point to commemorate my blog milestones and would like to so again by celebrating my 125th posting. I thought it would be fun to list some of my favorite villains from the last 100 years of cinema. Though I abhor lists, my wife suggested the theme to me, which I embraced eagerly after considering the idea for a few moments.

The undertaking is hardly a simple task, given the staggering number of scoundrels and miscreants who populate movie history's rogue's gallery.
Any list could swell well into the hundreds but I've learned from past Spotlight posts that it's better to keep them concise and tidy.
So what criteria did I employ to make my selections? The most obvious was the visceral criterion. I chose villains I hate to love but love to fear. I also tried to stay clear of villains who might appear on an AFI list, such as Darth Vader, Norman Bates or the shark from Jaws though some of my selections might appear there as well.

I ask that female readers please overlook my inclusion of only one villain-ess, as men make up the evil bastard majority in the movie universe. Maybe I'll create a companion list in a future Spotlight devoted solely to the harpies of cinema. You can hold me to it.

My list is brief but I hope you all find it entertaining and stimulating. They appear chronologically. Please feel free to mention some of your favorites in the comments section below.

1. Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre)--From Fritz Lang's M

Fritz Lang's slithery serial killer from his 1931 classic is every bit as menacing and frightening as Hannibal Lecter and maybe more so considering his victims are young children. Peter Lorre was an outstanding casting choice. He never overplays his character and like some villains, he can be dangerously charming. His Beckert could easily make one obsessive about checking locked doors and windows and maybe never allowing one's children out in public.

2. Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer)--From George Cukor's Gaslight

Gregory Anton can mostly be credited for the term Gaslighting, which is defined as one's attempt to make another doubt one's sanity. And no one can employ the tactic quite like Gregory Anton, who nearly robs his wife Paula (beautifully played by Ingrid Bergman) of her mental health for material gain. Boyer is a cunning, malevolent dandy and very unforgettable.

3. Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin (Angela Lansbury)--From John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate

It's entirely appropriate that I would include Angela Lansbury on this list. She also happens to play Charles Boyer's accomplice in Gaslight. Here she is even more manipulative and could easily challenge Lady MacBeth for Machiavellian, scheming superiority. As the wife of Senator John Yerkes Iselin, a presidential hopeful and pawn of powerful communist forces, Mrs. Iselin is the mastermind behind his campaign and provides the brains that counter her husband's bumbling ineptitude. Angela Lansbury is brilliant as a power-mad, treasonous menace who pursues her sinister agenda with a monomaniacal fervor.

4. Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin)--From John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Liberty Valance isn't the crafty, malign individual Eleanor Shaw Iselin or Gregory Anton prove to be; his villainy is of a different flavor. He is vicious, violent and brutal and his presence in any room is enough to silence conversation and intimidate the most stalwart male specimens. His stentorian voice alone could make milk curdle. Though Jimmy Stewart's Ransom Stoddard has the guts and the resolve to face his frightening nemesis, we know he is hopelessly over-matched, outgunned, and over-powered; almost laughably so. Liberty Valance is Lee Marvin's finest performance, in my opinion, and one of John Ford's most memorable characters.

5. Sentenza/Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef)--From Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

As The Bad in the title of Sergio Leone's unforgettable western, Lee Van Cleef's character wastes little time establishing his villainy credentials. Like Liberty Valance, violence is his means to any end but unlike Valance, Sentenza/Angel Eyes' leavens his aggression with Mephistophelian guile in his fox-like pursuit of $200,000 in gold coins. He is the kind of killer who has few qualms about shooting his employer after receiving his pay or murdering without conscience all the male members of a family in their home after sitting down to share a meal with them. Even the way he slices a loaf of bread is delightfully evil. Sentenza/Angel Eyes is Van Cleef's most famous role and one he played with devilish relish.

6. Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski)--From Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Unlike the aforementioned baddies, Don Lope de Aguirre is the only character based on a real-life historic, personage. From what I've read, the real Aguirre was hardly different from the man Klaus Kinski superbly depicts in Herzog's film. As part of a Spanish expedition seeking Eldorado, the mythical city of gold, Aguirre seizes control of the campaign and breaks ties with the Spanish crown. In doing so, his lust for power and gold twists his mind and leaves the expedition terrorized and often bloodied. Kinski's maniacal gaze has few peers in cinema for conveying dangerous insanity. His convincing performance makes us believe Aguirre is the Wrath of God.

7. Noah Cross (John Huston)--From Roman Polanski's Chinatown

If there are still politicians like Noah Cross in America, we're finished as a democracy. Not only does he murder, intimidate and cheat to control the water supply in a drought-ravaged Los Angeles, he has an unholy relationship with his daughter, which rounds out his SOB profile. When he says to Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but, believe me, you don't," the ominous, cryptic statement tells us Gittes has yet to see the size and scope of Cross' corrupt manipulation of the police, Angeleno politics and the real estate market. What is particularly frightening about Cross is that he is accountable to no one and unlike many of the villains that comprise this list, we learn his comeuppance is unlikely. Some evil is just too powerful to overcome.

8. Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper)--From David Lynch's Blue Velvet

Frank Booth, a nitrous oxide-inhaling, demented, violent, murderous fiend from the darkest hell, might get along famously with Liberty Valance. There are very few people he doesn't terrorize and when he first sizes up the innocent and straight-arrow Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), he wastes little time threatening him too. His sexual encounters with Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) consist of mostly nitrous oxide-fueled, sado-masochistic humiliation. He even has a few choice, hostile words for Jeffrey's taste in beer. It's hard to believe that the same man who portrayed the hippie, motorcycle-rider Billy in Easy Rider also inhabits the role of Lynch's creepiest underworld ghoul. Terrific performance of a terrifying monster.

9. Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman)--From Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven

Sometimes bad can wear a sheriff's badge. Little Bill Daggett, keeper of law and order (at least from his own definitions of those abstract concepts) in a frontier town called Big Whiskey, seems more a threat to the public peace than any of the criminals and lawbreakers who come into his muddy municipality. He is lenient to cowboys who slice up a prostitute's face but administers a vicious beating to a former gunslinger (Richard Harris) who violates his town's gun ordinance though said gunman is only guilty of having a shave. Later, his brutal whipping of Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) makes the entire town recoil and flinch. Daggett's crookedness extends literally to his housebuilding, which betrays a comic incompetence. Hackman won an Oscar for his offbeat performance as a violent man with a complicated personality. It is a well-deserved award. Little Bill Daggett is surely one of cinema's great villains.

10. Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz)--From Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds

It is often said that the devil's most potent weapon is his charm. This applies to Colonel Hans Landa; one of the most charming screen-creeps I've even seen. Waltz's performance is exceptional and he too won an Oscar for his portrayal of a sadistic Nazi on the hunt for Jews. Landa is charming until he isn't, when his expression changes from benign amity to malign humorlessness. The scene where Landa discusses the delights of apple strudel with Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) portrays this beautifully. After he waxes rhapsodic for awhile about the perfect strudel, his Luciferian venom abruptly appears as he snuffs out a cigarette in middle of the sweet and delectable-looking dessert. The second time I watched Inglorious Basterds, I almost hated to see Landa get his comeuppance; he's that magnetic.

So there is my very short list of memorable villains. I hope you enjoyed it. Sometime, though not soon, I'll assemble a list of some more bad guys (and gals). I also hope you find the time to visit or revisit some of the characters on the list. They are forever fascinating and mesmerizing.

IMDB links: M, Gaslight, The Manchurian Candidate, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Chinatown, Blue Velvet, Unforgiven and Inglorious Basterds.