In sticking to MST films, I’ll specify John Ireland from Gunslinger. That job with that character was as good as anyone could have done it.
Outside of it, Jurgen Prochnow in ‘House of the Dead’. He outacts that entire cast combined and multiplied by a hundred. The scenes he’s in only highlight how awful the rest of them are.
I forgot John Ireland was in Gunslinger. His daughter was in Alien from L.A.
Do we have any other cases of a parent and a child both being in experiments?
Arch Hall Sr. and Arch Hall Jr. were both in Eegah! Does that count?
Yes it does. Didn’t think of them.
It’s as if Peter Breck out-acts the production crew: most of the failings around his performance come from editing and continuity glitches. Or he got enough into his character that he had trouble staying consistent take-to-take.
The latest Mortal Kombat Movie. The Actor who played Kano stole the show. Basically he’s the the only reason anyone should watch this travesty.
Perhaps I could interest you in a cozy mystery about quilters?
Bela Lugosi is so good in this:
He won Martin Landau an Oscar!
Starcrash is a dumb movie but Plummer, who I have no doubt didn’t give a poo about the movie itself, definitely is trying. The last speech is dumb but he’s definitely delivering it like it’s Puck’s speech at the end of the end of a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Yet somehow, this is an even bigger farce.
Yes, but his lines… were… so… slow.
Yep. Plummer is a good actor but space is not gravitas.
I can’t quite remember the episode but I remember one of the movies being riffed was about a space crew finding a jungle planet inhabited by cavemen type people, and there was some sort of time-space shenanigans going on? One of the big riffs being that one of the crew dying needlessly died trying to cross an acid(?) pond on a tree bridge, when they could have easily walked around it on the obviously small set. it ends with one of the crewmembers staying on the planet with what turns out to be a descendant of one of their other crewmembers and PLOT TWIST they are adam and eve and the planet is earth. I remember the captain in that movie was incredibly serious despite the cheesy set design of the spaceship and the somewhat flawed space physics and was acting like he was trying to go for an oscar.
I could just as easily have placed it in the Ram Chips thread, but Cathy Downs, who is jilted heiress Dorothy Chappel in The She-Creature is so charming and engaged with the dreary story that she looks to have wandered in from an entirely different movie. Nobody else (understandably) seems to give a flying leap about what they’re doing.
(It’s hard to believe she’s the same woman as the whiny, clingy fiance’ in The Amazing Colossal Man, but hey… She played that part as it was written. Can’t really fault her for wanting the paychecks to keep coming.)
ah, I remember actually liking The Girl in Lovers Lane, though it unintentionally comes across as a gay romance in some aspects.
IMHO it’s a pretty good movie. Joyce Meadows was indeed compelling and understated in her role.
Big Stupid? Eh, bargain basement wannabe method actor.
But you know, when two men share a boxcar…things can happen! (No, I never got that vibe from the flick, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the two main male characters did have some kind of chemistry, I suppose. And Big Stupid did go to a lot of trouble to protect his boy ward’s “innocence.” Not sure about that.)
Jack Elam? No idea what his deal was (his character, I mean)!
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Beverly Garland in Swamp Diamonds was outstanding as well (as in everything else she was featured in on MST3K). Really, the only credible performance in the movie.
For some reason, I can’t stand Marie Windsor in anything I’ve seen her in, and this one is no exception. It could just be that she seemed to specialize in playing really terrible, awful creatures.
People make of these things what they will, and more power to them. I guess I don’t find either Bix or Danny interesting enough to consider the subtext in their relationship. Bix is a jerk and Danny’s about as charismatic as last week’s tapioca.
One thing Bix is right about: he’d be an awful romantic partner for Carrie, but honestly that’d apply regardless of who he was in a relationship with.
Ann-Margaret in Kitten with a Whip comes to mind. The film’s a no-budget trifle, and John Forsythe is a bland leading man, but Ann-Margaret burns up the screen whenever she’s on.
Ya might wanna check out “A Talking Cat!?!” where he LITERALLY phones in his performance. Rifftrax did it. It’s one of my faves.
Definitely Beverly Garland. She’s always solid; a real pro who is often better than the material.
Re Christopher Plummer, his career had many ups and downs, but he remained a professional throughout. By 2007, at the latest, he was doing those end-of-life roles where he’s was 80% likely to die as part of the story, and he did some of his best work the last 15 years of his life.