Best Baddie - Ford Films

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ken123
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Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by ken123 »

Male - Walter Brennan - Lee Marvin ------ Female ??????????? i -
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mrsl
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by mrsl »

.
Henry Fonda - Fort Apache

He caused more deaths than any other character in any other film as an egotistical S.O.B.
.
Anne


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ken123
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by ken123 »

mrsl wrote:.
Henry Fonda - Fort Apache

He caused more deaths than any other character in any other film as an egotistical S.O.B.
.

I agree !
stuart.uk
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by stuart.uk »

Henry Brandon-The Searchers
Karl Malden-Cheyenne Attumn
klondike

Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by klondike »

The schoolmaster from How Green Was My Valley.
Remember how we all shuddered breathlessly as we watched him beating defenseless little Huw Gruffydd, who took that vile abuse like the bravest of soldiers, as we ground our teeth & lusted for retribution on that cruelest of cowards, aye, at the hands of Huw's "great tribe" of brothers.
But no, though they offered to "have his very bones steaming from out his flesh", stoic li'l Huw declined, the very soul of manliness & nobility.
But no such restraint on ol' Dai Bando, eh? Though we canna reach forth to grasp the quavering shirt of that poltroon, good old Boxing Bando stepped up & taught him a lesson, ehh?
MikeBSG
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by MikeBSG »

Lee Marvin in "Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" trumps any other Ford Western villains.

As for females, well, all I can think of are the ladies who run Dallas out of town in "Stagecoach."

(It is funny. I watched William S. hart's "Hell's Hinges" a few years ago and was startled to see that the Temperence people were actually looked up to and not ridiculed. Then I realized that "Hell's Hinges" was 1916 or 1917, in other words BEFORE Prohibition.)
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JackFavell
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by JackFavell »

Though I've got to go with Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance, runner up would be Henry Fonda's Thursday in Fort Apache. I'd say Mike Mazurski as Tunga Khan in Seven Women is pretty awful too.

I'm fascinated with Ford's view of evil - in Fort Apache and The Informer, the characters who do the most evil things are the protagonists. In the latter, Gypo is somewhat sympathetic, as if the evil he does is somehow outside of who he is, it can be traced directly to the social situation he finds himself in. In Thursday, he is not evil, but the things he does are - because he cannot see what is right there before him, and cannot admit that others might know better.

Most of the time, Ford sees evil as something within us or within the institutions we create, not as a "bad guy out there" - though he went that route in Lost Patrol. The bigger evil in that film is the fear within the men. In The Searchers, Scar and Ethan are almost the same character. Scar is no worse than Ethan, at any rate. Some of the bigger evils in Ford films are fear, rigidness, intolerance, an almost fanatical devotion to the pope (that's a joke, too much Monty Python) - poverty, martinetism, emotional coldness, racism, slavish adherence to almost anything - like authority or traditions (all the while upholding certain traditions with one hand, Ford tears some of them down with the other), and ignorance or destruction of the land or native folkways.

I like the gradations of bad or evil characters in The Grapes of Wrath. For instance, the big cat driver turns out to be just an ordinary neighbor who needs a job, or the men who try to bust up the dance, who are somewhat faceless and seem deluded by prejudice, or the man who hits Casey, or the owners of the first picker's compound. They always have an excuse for what they are doing, and a buck to pass when it comes to responsibility.

As for women villains, I can only think of one - Agatha Andrews in Seven Women, played by Margaret Leighton. Even she is out of control of herself, and so not so evil as the things she does. Deluded and repressed, she ends up paying for her "evil" actions by losing her mind.
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movieman1957
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by movieman1957 »

Gee, when you answer a question you go all out. Enjoyed it.

I tend to lean to the Brennan and Marvin group. Fonda's "Thursday" is a more complicated one as I am sure he never thought of himself as evil. (That others I think know and use it to their benefit.) That may make Fonda's actions all the more tragic.
Chris

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
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JackFavell
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by JackFavell »

Oh Chris, you know I get obsessed with Ford. :D

I can't believe I forgot about Brennan.... now he really is a baddie......
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ken123
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by ken123 »

As a group da Cleggs.
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mrsl
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by mrsl »

.
movieman:

Fonda may be tragic to some but his own ego caused so much heartache. Here is this officer from the East who is angry because he did not want to be transferred to the West which he knows nothing about. Immediately he digs in to change the way things are run as if manners and etiquette will keep the fort safe. He has a Captain who has spent his entire life living on the western prairie, except for the few years of the Civil War, but when he tries to suggest things in a completely military format, Friday ignores him, mainly because JW is of a lower rank. When Friday decides JW's word to an Indian is not to be honored, and JW again tries to tell him he is inviting trouble, Friday does as all bullies do and makes fun of JW by sending him to the chuck wagon to 'protect' the food and watch the braver men fight the battle. Friday has all the traits of Liberty Valence - the ego, the manner of running the lives of the people who follow him, hitting out when crossed, and not caring about what others think.

I just wanted to make it clear just why I think he is such a bad guy. I remember seeing Fort Apache the first time, and as soon as Henry Fonda came on screen, I knew I was not going to like him. It was something about his carriage I think.
.
Anne


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movieman1957
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Re: Best Baddie - Ford Films

Post by movieman1957 »

I wasn't saying Fonda was as much as his decisions were. I think most characters are well aware of their darker nature. They use it to make trouble for others. I am not convinced that "Thursday" was, in his own mind, doing anything more than his duty. We know what he is and the consequences, as do his men, and we both can only watch as he leads the troop to its destruction.

It may be I assign a different type of evil to him than the others I mentioned.
Chris

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
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