One of the parts I like about making these photo movie covers is to "cast" the villains and supporting characters. Anyone who has seen NYPD Blue knows that Dennis Franz' Andy Sipowicz was basically Harvey Bullock, so that one was a no-brainer. Anthony Hopkins played a twisted ventriloquist controlled by his dummy to do evil deeds in the 1978 movie Magic, so that was another natural casting. I wonder if that movie inspired the creation of the Batman villain.
I have Hero at Large on dvd. I used to love watching that on HBO when I was a kid. This is great Ross!
ReplyDeleteTo me, Sipowicz was more like the slightly less-evil twin of the absolutely dirty cop he had played on HILL STREET BLUES. Only he f-bombed like vintage Robert Deniro...with none of the latter's acting talent. Whereas, in the comics, Harvey Bullock came across, to me, as physically inspired by Golden Age character actor William Bendix. But, with the mannerisms of Max Greevey (George Dzundza's character from the first season of LAW & ORDER: TOS).
ReplyDeleteRe: the casting of the Ventriloquist though? Brilliant! :-)
One could argue or not about the acting talent of Dennis Franz, but I don't know where you got that he ft bomber so much, seeing as how the show was on network television. The show definitely pushed the bound of what could be done on network tv, but I don't ever recall them going that far. In fact, I'm not sure that any network tv show has ever gone that far.
DeleteI'd be willing to bet that Sipowicz has at least influenced Bullock's personality, if only after the fact, so Dennis Franz playing the role seems about right, especially for the time that this "movie" would've been out.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Ventriloquist, the "Evil Ventriloquist Dummy" trope is somewhat older than the film Magic. I'm not sure about Sir Anthony in this role, though, unless he does a good American accent and I just don't know it; a better choice might be Jay Johnson, an actor who actually is a ventriloquist and who was quite active at the time (besides his iconic role on Soap, he was also a part of the cast of 1990's Broken Badges).
I do kind of wonder, though, how Keaton's Batman would react to Ritter's Captain Avenger. I think he'd consider him a nuisance at first, and eventually come to respect the guy's fervor, compassion, and determination.
Wasn't Eckhart in Batman '89 basically supposed to be Bullock, just with a different name?
ReplyDeleteTwilight Zone had a few fun dolls, especially Caesar and Me..such good memories with Mike doing the role no body wanted him in but no body said anything after seeing him on screen.
ReplyDeleteRoss, may you forever be a kid with your own candy store.
Nobody will ever top Sir Michael Redgrave's performance (in the 1945 anthology horror film "Dead of Night") as the seemingly dual-personality afflicted ventriloquist Maxwell Frere.
ReplyDelete@Ben W: I had that impression, too! Glad to finally learn I'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the special features on some of the current Marvel blu-ray disks, I never realized how much the CG made the actors look more awesome, and yet stay believable at the same time. I still remember the first Cap and Spidey live-action movies. If ILM and WETA were around back then, they sure would have had their work cut out for them.
ReplyDelete@ my namesake: my mother watched at least the first season of that show (because she thought David Caruso was cute). She half-seriously joked about the writers using six-and-a-half of what George Carlin used to call "The 7 Words You Can't Say On TV." So, I strongly suspect the f-bombs were in there someplace.
ReplyDeleteNot to disrespect your mother's account, butI really don't see how that was possible at that time. It was only a couple of years ago that the f-bomb was allowed on basic cable and it wasn't even required by the FCC to keep to the standards and practices of over the air channels. Also, I watched the show at the time,as well, and don't recall ever hearing it.
DeleteMaybe they toned it down after Caruso left the show. But, they permitted everything else to be said. And most of it seemed to get said by Dennis Franz' character. To a sadly over-abundant degree!
ReplyDelete"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."
I kind of feel like HERO AT LARGE would fit better crossing over with Keaton's BIRD MAN, but for the years separating the two films. I really do love all the live action covers, though. I'm hoping we get a photo-cover for the comic book adaptation of the SCOOBY-DOO MEETS THE GHOSTBUSTERS movie.
ReplyDeleteBurt Young would've been better as harvey Bullock.
ReplyDelete