Best Actor- All Time (according to IMDB)

Thanks Nebbit. I will always love John Wayne's good movies, I think thet are some of the best. But there is no doubt that he made a lot of bad ones.

What I find interesting from these lists is what happened to Paul Muni? He was in great movies from 1929 to 1948 and then came back for one really good movie in 1959, The Last Angry Man, and then he was done. What happened to him?

And how could the Academy Awards Nominations list (3 or more nominations) be missing Toshiro Mifune, Alec Guinness, Cary Grant, Jean Gabin and Henry Fonda. They would all be in my top 10 actors of all Time.

I'll list my top 10 actors of all time soon.

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Of course, no one list "proves" one actor is better than another. But if you look at enough lists based on various criteria, you can start to get at least some understanding of how one actor's career measures against that of another. For instance, even when adjusted for inflation, none of Wayne's movies are among the 100 American films with the biggest box office grosses.

Didn't one of the fan magazines or someone used to do an annual poll of movie goers or movie theater owners to see which actor and actress brought the biggest audiences to their films? I seem to recall seeing a newsreel in which Gable and Bette Davis got awards as the most popular stars or biggest boxoffice draws that year, but I can't find any references to such a public opinion poll in an online search. Still, if I remember correctly both Wayne and Roy Rogers were considered the most popular stars of different years. Moreover, they appeared in one film together, The Dark Command, in which both Wayne and Rogers managed to hold their own in scenes with Walter Pidgeon, a really good actor featured in some of the best films here and in England during that era.

I would love to see a comparision of the Western movie careers of John Wayne and Roy Rogers in the 1940s-1950s, the King of the Singing Cowboy vs. Wayne's slightly more realistic or dramatic films, like The Angel and the Badman; one appealing more to kids and the other to more adult audiences in that he at least kisses the girl and not his horse.

I do think Wayne was a better actor than he often got credit for. But he appeared in a lot of really bad films in the 1930s-1940s-1950s, at least as bad and probably worse than many of Rogers's low-budgetr films. Moreover, in his later years, he turned out some really formula films that he just walked through, justifying some disdain for his acting abilities. But in between, he turned in a few really great performances, particularly The Quite Man and The High and the Mighty. (Both of those films are as good as it gets.) And he managed to hold his own in others with people like Katherine Hepburn, who holds the record for the most Oscar nominations, and Walter Brennan who earned 3 Oscars for real performances, not for outliving the competition.

Paul Muni retired after The Last Angry Man but he and Hollywood weren't comfortable with each other even before then. For one thing, Muni didn't just play a part--he virtually became the person he was playing, to the point that he often didn't look quite the same from one role to the next. For instance, in Juarez, he looks almost exactly like real photos of Mexican patriot Benito Juarez! You can imagine how that went over in a studio system built on having its stars instantly recognizable to their fans (Gregory Peck once caught flack from the studio chiefs for growing a realistic western style mustache for his great role in The Gunfighter). Also, he was more than a little eccentric and sometimes hard to work with on the set. Worse, his wife was his manager and used to alienate directors by insisting that they reshoot scenes she didn't like.

Muni got his start in theater and like most actors of that period, thought the stage was the real theater as opposed to the meaningless but lucrative movies. I think he did a lot of stage work in New York between movies in Hollywood. Moreover, I don't think it's any accident that Muni dropped out of Hollywood during the late 1940s-1950s, when the House Committee on Un-American Activities was pressing Hollywood actors to confess communist contacts and name people in the movies that they suspected of being communists. Muni was an immigrant from eastern Europe, Jewish, and politically a liberal, which would have made him red meat for the Un-American Activities sharks. I don't remember him ever being accused or investigated, but the committee members liked to get their pictures made with movie stars and so didn't bother with potential communists working the New York theaters.

More than Gene Autry? As one of Gene's former movie sidekicks Pat Butram once said, "Gene used to ride into the sunset, and now he owns it." Desi Arnez also was more successful in business than he was in films, racking up a fortune through his Desilu Productions. If I remember correctly, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans made a lot of money off of selling their names for various products. The story as I remember it was that the studio contract had them making lots of personal appearance at no extra pay, so they started selling products at those appearances which led eventually to Roy and Dale outfits, lunch boxes, watches, etc. I think I read somewhere they were one of the first movie stars to get in the "associated products" business which now a big part of movie deals like Star Wars, LoR, Harry Potter.

ohh... it's quite difficult to choose the best among the best... actors have their own unique ways and strategies in terms of their performance... they are all good...

but for me... i like johnny depp... he always makes himself unique in every movie...

You are not alone. I added him to the chart on the preceding page and he is 7th out of 77 people I have so far, rated on percentage of his movies over 7.0 (he had 56%).

I don't think he is necessarily the 7th best actor of all time but the chart does say something about his ability to choose good movies to act in, his desire to be in quality movies and perhaps his ability to make a mediocre movie good, just with his presence.

He is an actor I always enjoy watching, too.

Since this thread started out as a discussions of John Wayne's acting chops (or lack thereof), I'll address my comments to that end.

As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate The Duke more and more. It's true, he made more lousy films than good ones, but in some of the good ones he did a pretty decent job. What I've noticed, though, is that Wayne's best performances seem to be in films directed by John Ford: The Searchers, The Quiet Man, and the "cavalry trilogy": Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande), among others.

There are some actors who do well only in the hands of a good director (or, perhaps, a certain kind of director). I suspect John Wayne may have been this type of actor, because he surely made a fair share of movies in which he sucked (The Green Berets....shudder)

Of course, he also did well in Rio Bravo, The Cowboys, True Grit, and The Shootist, none of which were directed by Ford, so I could be full of sh*t.

My votes for the Duke's (not the Duck's, Holden!) best performances are The Quiet Man and Red River. Those also happen to be his best films, in my opinion.

I love The Quiet Man. I can see a little sloppness in Ford's Oscar-winning direction, but it's the characters and their situations which make the film one of my faves. The scene where Sean Thornton sits silently next to his wife (Maureen O'Hara), smoking a cigarette, is probably the most powerfully-realistic thing I ever saw Wayne do. That, plus the whole courtship (throwing his bowler across the beautiful green of Eire, running through the ponds) makes this icon out to be totally human.

Howard Hawks' Red River has a pretty great performance for anybody. Thomas Dunson is used to getting his way, whether it's with women, workers or cattle, but this film puts an autocratic character through the ringer, more than once. This is actually a pretty bizarre mainstream macho film, comsidering that the women are just as strong as Dunson, and a "Kid" ends up teaching him a lesson. My brother, who was about five-years-old when he saw it in its original theatrical release, told me that the closest thing he could compare it to was Star Wars. It was that spectacular a cinematic experience for him.

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Depp is very like Paul Muni in his ability to change his looks, his body language, and essentially become another person in each role.

I would submit that Rio Bravo, The Cowboys, True Grit, and The Shootist were well below the quality of the John Ford films, however. I disliked the stilted dialogue of True Grit as well as the penchant in that period of casting popular singers and athletes in Wayne movies. Glenn Campbell didn't add a thing to TG nor did Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo, although it essentially saved Dean Martin's movie career. But Robert Duval was the best thing in TG just as Bruce Dern was the one who held audiences' attention in the gimmicky The Cowboys. The Shootist was a prime example of Wayne's penchant for changing a story line to fit his perception of himself as the cowboy hero. In the book of the same title, the kid played by Ron Howard steals the money that the old gunfighter leaves for his mom, takes his horse, and then shoots the less-than-mortally wounded old man in the back with his own gun before running away from home. In other words, the kid ignores the old gunfighter's teachings in favor of becoming an equally famous gunfighter himself. Just ask yourself about the film's ending--what's the bartender's motivation for killing Wayne? You're never even aware of him in the story until he fires his shotgun.

Paddy Considine is a remarkable actor. Possibly one of the best actors I have ever had the pleasure of watching. That's truly saying something.

People go on and on about Johnny Depp being a chameleon and how he became Jack Sparrow and the like but he lacks the intensity of Mr Considine. Also, Depp isn't as versatile as some like to think. His characters tend to mostly be oddballs, which sort of goes with his supposed real life personality.

Paddy Considine is where it's at if you want a damn good actor who'll convey more emotions in a role than 20-year-old heroin addict having an orgasm.

Like they said in City Slickers, everyone loves the starting-the-cattle-drive scene in Red River, but some critics (including professionals) have said the film's ending seemed rushed and contrived. I think I even read somewhere once that the film was going over schedule and that no one had come up with a suitable ending, so the last scenes essentially were cobbled together on the spot. At least it always seemed so to me. For instance, when "Cherry" tries to stop Tunstill, they plug each other but then Wayne immediately turns his back on the younger gunfighter, which an experienced shootist wouldn't do unless he was sure his opponent was dead, while the other trailhands rush to the aid of Cherry who is still moving in the dust. So is Cherry dead or alive? Then comes the fistfight that Walter Brennan says he's been waiting for all of his life. But neither man wins the fight because the girl stops them at gunpoint, then throws away the gun and says "beat each other's brains out," while the two just gawk and grin like a couple of kids who have been caught stealing cookies. Tunstill makes his threats, rides all the way to Texas to recruit gunmen, comes all the way back to Kansas (making damn good time since he arrives just behind the herd), then gets backed down by a girl he hardly knows? Seems like he wasn't really the tough guy that we've been told he was all through the film. It's a good movie, except for the out-of-left-field ending.

Now that's a damn good line! Makes me ashame to admit I don't know who the hell Paddy is.

Just a friendly question, but how many times has everyone seen the ending to Red River? I'm a little weak since I've only watched the film about 20 times. What was I supposed to explain again? I'm listening to the new Radiohead, so I'm having a weird-ass experience about now. However, I'm not trying to make fun of anybody because I can honestly not defend my opinion right now with the Radiohead blasting into my soul. You could very well be correct, rufnek. Sorry.

Mr Paddy Considine. A darned fine young actor (well, younger than me anyway, so I can get away with saying that for a few years), quite possibly the best in England at the moment, who seems to be getting some global recognition.



EDIT - Maybe if I read further than a few posts I'd have found that this has already been discussed...

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Lol, no worries mate. But I have to say, you are missing out. I don't want to hype him up too much incase you watch him in a film where he has a small role (The Bourne Ultimatum) and go, "what was so special about him?" I would rather list a few movies that are essential to watch because of his performance.

If you can, get ahold of the following:

A Room For Romeo Brass

Dead Man's Shoes

24 Hour Party People

My Summer Of Love

Those films are essential Paddys as I like to call them. Especially the first two..

I'd put Russel Crowe high on my list. He has great range and is very natural.

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This is in response to rufnek's earlier post about the ending of Red River. Yeah, the movie went way over schedule and over budget. The problem was that the studio "rented" the cattle, and then there was a humongous rainstorm, which caused everything to be delayed and the price of the cattle, at least according to Pauline Kael, back in the day, raised the film's budget from $1.75 million to $3.25 million. Now, that sounds like horrible management of time and resources, but I still find it hard to believe that the cost overruns had anything to do with whether the ending didn't go exactly as planned. As I said earlier, the film is incredibly bizarre, especially sexually, but it delivers the goods pretty well, even if I prefer the same year's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

No, Mark F, you weren't "suppose to explain" anything. I simply expressed an opinion about the ending of Red River that I've read and with which I concur. I don't think the ending makes sense in the context of the rest of the movie, unless you assume Tunstill's whole personality changed in the course of that brief fist-fight. Since you've watched the movie 20 times, you may have more insight into the film than I, although I also have been a frequent viewer. But go ahead and listen to your music now. We'll talk later when you're ready.