|
|
Post by fathermushroom on Aug 8, 2011 20:06:11 GMT -5
I was watching "Sidehackers" and realized that I really LIKE Ross Hagen in the two flicks they did for MST3K.
I think he was actually a pretty good actor, and despite the vile nature of those films his character was likeable and I wanted good things to happen to him.
Ross would be really good, in a better film. Now, I confess to being completely ignorant of whether or not he ever starred in something more substantial. But here's my thread:
Which MST3K actors did you think were really good in a totally crappy movie, and deserved to be cast in something good?
RULE: Don't bother with known greats like Gregory Peck, who actually DID star in better movies.
Your turn!
|
|
|
|
Post by inlovewithcrow on Aug 8, 2011 21:37:21 GMT -5
I've said it before: I totally believed Abby Dalton in Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent. I believed she was a great leader, that she hated her foes and that she loved that idiotic blond guy and would die for him (the blond male actor, though, I didn't believe for a second). Her career is really rather sad to me, as she was a better actress than a lifetime of guest roles on TV would suggest, but somehow her career never took off. (I also spent two hours reading obituaries on IMDB the other day and ended up despondent similarly, for surely some of those actors were quite good but just never got that break, you know? So they die with their six or sixteen credits on an imdb page and that's all she wrote. Excuse me while I go sip some hemlock now.)
Fathermushroom, I thought you were a Jonathan Haze fan!
And many of those doughy white guys and older gals were pretty good character actors.
|
|
|
|
Post by mrsphyllistorgo on Aug 9, 2011 12:40:21 GMT -5
Ross Hagen was devoted to his craft, not a dillitante or dabbler. He starred in movies that were influenced by Easy Rider with their natural settings, shocking endings, and conflicted characters, and it shows, but he also cared about building a character and working each day to improve in his chosen profession.
As for other actors, Joyce Meadows as Carrie in Girl In Lovers Lane is a favorite around here, and for good reason.
Her Carrie Anders was a lovely, shaded and nuanced creation--quiet but not shy, bashful but not prudish. She knows she not the vivacious type and she's okay with that. But when she meets Big she knows what she wants, and is more then okay with the physical side of things --so much so it freaks Big out, in fact. She's so much her own person he doesn't know how to deal until it's too late.
Plus, and most creepily, she was being stalked and in a far too typical manner, was told it was all her imagination, that Jesse was a harmless idiot. The way Meadows conveys her unease around Jesse, how she tries to believe he's harmless but knows without doubt that he means her harm, is great.
(An in another all too realistic strain, even after Jesse sexually assaults her the first time [yes, that's what it is], nothing is done to or about him until Carrie is murdered and Bix nearly so.)
So here's to Joyce Meadows, who cared enough to do her best in every frame.
I tried to make my dress yellow with my mind but I got tired.
|
|
|
|
Post by continosbuckle on Aug 9, 2011 15:32:34 GMT -5
Does Peter Breck count as someone who went on to do better things?
The Crawling Hand was just dopey, but Mooney in The Beatniks was written so terribly, so stupidly, that the guy never had a chance. It was as if more than half the time the motivation the screenwriter had for his character was "he's just crazy and thus he does crazy things." He deserved better.
I also wonder how well Kevin Casey would have done if she had been in a film that had a competent director, a competent writer, and competent co-stars. She wasn't great in Skydivers, but she did some good, and was obviously putting in effort when no one else was. She deserved better than to have her role written and directed by Coleman Francis, and to be cast opposite Tony Cardoza and Eric Tomlin.
|
|
|
|
Post by zombiewhacker on Aug 9, 2011 18:29:31 GMT -5
I was thinking about this the other day while watching Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders. There's an actress who plays an antique store clerk. Merlin runs into her and asks if she's seen his monkey.  But seriously, folks. The store clerk tells him that she just sold his toy monkey a short time ago, yada yada. We've all seen the movie. Anyway, it's easy when watching a really bad movie to throw the baby out with the bath water. But the actress playing the store clerk demonstrated genuine talent; certainly she was several cuts above her "peers." She was an older lady, but still attractive. Well-spoken. And her acting style was completely natural, unlike almost everyone else in that film. So I checked her IMDB. Her name was Julia Leigh Miller. She made exactly two movies in her career, this film and something else. At the very least she deserved to have gotten more work as a character actress, maybe doing episodic TV work or something. |
|
|
|
Post by fathermushroom on Aug 9, 2011 19:32:04 GMT -5
Yes, Inlovewithcrow, I am a booster for Jonathan Haze! You have to give the guy props, if you consider the range of characters he's played in MST'd movies. Not all great parts, even, but quite varied in scope.
I've been crusing through the episodes, and there are loads of people who performed honorably in crappy movies, but they don't count for this thread because they either did better elsewhere, or were suitably compensated by being in a picture with significant backing (for example, the woman who played the pretty ichthyologist in "Revenge of the Creature," as well as the sister in "Untamed Youth." She's great, actually, but those were fairly big budget flicks, and she would have been appreciated in her time.)
Joe Don Baker was effective as Mitchell. Totally believable and, to me, likeable despite everything the Brains threw at him.
Terry from "Teenage Crime Wave" was, I thought, doing a good job. (Not her character, of course--the actress!)
The lead from "High School Big Shot" was excellent at every level. Sadly he died not too long afterward.
|
|
|
|
Post by inlovewithcrow on Aug 9, 2011 20:27:38 GMT -5
imo, Girl in Lover's Lane and HS Big shot were awell acted for the most part, even bit roles. Carrie's dad, the whore in the tub, for instance. Or in HSBS, the HS English teacher--dead on portrayal for that era. Teenage Crime Wave wasn't bad, either--the young bad guy was a little over the top, but the farm family was all well acted. And in Daddy-O, I thought Sandra Giles had some real moments I liked John Lupton in the Rebel Set, but he went on to have a healthy TV guest star career, so he might not count.
|
|
|
|
Post by georgeworge on Aug 10, 2011 19:56:45 GMT -5
Jim "the long haired jerk" from Zombie Nightmare.
Man I hated that guy's character, which means He was a pretty good actor!
He deserved to be in a good movie.
|
|
|
|
Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 10, 2011 20:09:18 GMT -5
Jim "the long haired jerk" from Zombie Nightmare. Man I hated that guy's character, which means He was a pretty good actor! He deserved to be in a good movie. He went on to bigger things. |
|
|
|
Post by mrsphyllistorgo on Aug 10, 2011 22:08:30 GMT -5
Wow, and he turned out handsome, too!
|
|
|
|
Post by Prime Minister Jim J. Bullock on Aug 11, 2011 20:53:51 GMT -5
Don Sullivan. The roles we saw him in Chase Winstead in Gila Monster and George Leland, in the Rebel Set( I maintain this was a decent film)were almost polar opposites; Leland was a angry punk-type who seemed bitter about his mother's her marriages, and Winstead was the hero who helped save the town, and pretty much conducted the entire investigation, while still having time to work at a a garage to support his family I thought that Mr. Sullivan did well in both roles, and certainly could have done well in better movies.
|
|
|
|
Post by Tennis Hog on Aug 28, 2011 16:29:32 GMT -5
I thought the actress who played Beth in The Skydivers (wasn't her name Kevin or something not traditionally female?) was leaps and bounds ahead of the men around her, although admittedly that's not hard to do. Her character seemed like a truly nice person, enthusiastic about skydiving and trying hard to make her marriage work. There's a scene where she's sitting in a pickup truck with a few men, wearing her flight suit and talking and laughing with them, and comes off as genuinely comfortable.
|
|
|
|
Post by bawoman on Feb 19, 2012 18:36:57 GMT -5
I have to agree about the actress who played "Terry" on "Teenage Crimewave", Molly McCart. I saw it recently and thought it was the best performance I'd seen in an MST3k movie. She was really charismatic and pretty, too.It's a pity she didnt become more well known.
|
|
|
|
Post by TheNewMads on Feb 20, 2012 3:08:57 GMT -5
I have to agree about the actress who played "Terry" on "Teenage Crimewave", Molly McCart. I saw it recently and thought it was the best performance I'd seen in an MST3k movie. She was really charismatic and pretty, too.It's a pity she didnt become more well known. a third on this, i was gonna post it before i saw it had been done. love her ferocious, jealous bedroom monologue about her crappy home life and why she wound up bitter. sadly she wasn't in much more except crime wave. i think a couple episodes of gunsmoke or something. |
|
|
|
Post by deusexmachina on Feb 20, 2012 18:05:30 GMT -5
Harvey B. Dunn (from Sinister Urge and Teenagers from Outer Space fame). While he was in some bigger B movies, he always brought a much needed old man smell to the movies that would have translated to a bigger picture. Can you picture Harvey as The Godfather?
|
|
