|
|
Post by Matthew the Swordsman on Jun 21, 2017 8:46:26 GMT
For example, Norma Talmadge was an actress known for her silent melodramas, but she also gave a strong performance in the comedy film Kiki (1926).
So on that note, what are some other films which feature strong comedic performances by actors/actresses better known for doing drama?
|
|
|
|
Post by sostie on Jun 21, 2017 9:44:43 GMT
Victor Mature - After The Fox
Denholm Elliott - Trading Places
Robert DeNiro - Midnight Run
Ralph Fiennes - Grand Budapest Hotel
Meryl Streep - Death Becomes Her
Jason Statham - SPY
|
|
|
|
Post by mikef6 on Jun 21, 2017 16:14:47 GMT
Nope, it's not easy at all. Here is my first contribution, but I'm still thinking!
Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire
John Barrymore in Twentieth Century
Boris Karloff in The Raven (1963) and The Comedy of Terrors
For Cagney, I would add "A Midsummer Night's Dream" a classical comedy performance that broke out of his tough guy persona several years before "Yankee Doodle Dandy."
|
|
|
|
Post by bravomailer on Jun 21, 2017 16:21:46 GMT
Well, Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges reworked themselves into comedic actors.
DeNiro's performance in Midnight Run has been rightly mentioned but the first that came to my mind was King of Comedy, though that role had a dark side to it.
Marlon Brando in Bedtime Story which was remade into Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
|
|
|
|
Post by teleadm on Jun 21, 2017 17:54:01 GMT
Charlton Heston in The Pigeon That Took Rome 1962
Anna Magnani in The Secret of Santa Vittoria 1969
Vittorio Gassman in I soliti ignoti / Big Deal on Madonna Street 1958
|
|
|
|
Post by BATouttaheck on Jun 21, 2017 18:33:35 GMT
First one that came to mind was: TOOTSIE - Dustin Hoffman Not fall down laughing funny type films but Bogart and Wm Holden in SABRINA. Gregory Peck in ROMAN HOLIDAY. Brando IN GUYS and DOLLS and TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON Cagney did many comedies but he is really over-the-top fun in ONE,TWO,THREE Peter O'Toole - MY FAVORITE YEAR Jane Fonda - NINE TO FIVE - she really held her own with Dolly and Lily nice thread, btw ! Matthew the Swordsman |
|
|
|
Post by politicidal on Jun 22, 2017 17:22:04 GMT
Ralph Fiennes was superb in The Grand Budapest Hotel I thought.
|
|
|
|
Post by mikef6 on Jun 22, 2017 17:36:51 GMT
Spencer Tracy did a couple of comedies with Katharine Hepburn, e.g. Pat and Mike. He also fit in with all the funny people going hysterical (because he is a great actor) in “It’s a Mad…Mad World.”
Kirk Douglas moved into some more light-hearted fare as he got older. “Villain” is one of the more overtly comic films he made.
Michael Caine, Ralph Richardson, and John Mills in “The Wrong Box.”
Recent retiree Daniel Day-Lewis in “Stars and Bars.” I not sure it can be described as a “strong comedic performance” as required by the O.P., but it looks like the closest DDL came to comedy. I don’t recall “My Beautiful Laundrette” well enough to know if there are the comedic elements to qualify.
|
|
|
|
Post by teleadm on Jun 22, 2017 17:46:29 GMT
I thought someone would have mentioned her by now, Bette Davis in The Bride Came C.O.D. 1941, The Man Who Came to Dinner 1942 and June Bride 1948.
|
|
|
|
Post by bravomailer on Jun 22, 2017 17:48:20 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by BATouttaheck on Jun 22, 2017 18:02:04 GMT
. GEORGE HAMILTON was becoming a serious actor but somehow, somewhere he morphed into the Tan Funny Man. "Noted these days for his dashing, sporting, jet-setter image and perpetually bronzed skin tones in commercials, film spoofs and reality shows, George Hamilton was, at the onset, a serious contender for dramatic film stardom."
"MGM (towards the end of the contract system) saw in George a budding talent with photogenic appeal. It wasted no time putting him in films following some guest appearances on TV. His first film, a lead in Crime & Punishment, USA (1959), was an offbeat, updated adaptation of the Fyodor Dostoevsky novel. While the film was not overwhelmingly successful, George's heartthrob appeal was obvious. He was awarded a Golden Globe for "Most Promising Newcomer" as well as being nominated for "Best Foreign Actor" by the British Film Academy (BAFTA). This in turn led to an enviable series of film showcases, including the memorable Southern drama Home from the Hill (1960), which starred Robert Mitchum and Eleanor Parker and featured another handsome, up-and-coming George (George Peppard); Angel Baby (1961), in which he played an impressionable lad who meets up with evangelist Mercedes McCambridge; and Light in the Piazza (1962) (another BAFTA nomination), in which he portrays an Italian playboy who falls madly for American tourist Yvette Mimieux to the ever-growing concern of her mother Olivia de Havilland. Along with the good, however, came the bad and the inane, which included the dreary sudsers All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960) and By Love Possessed (1961) and the youthful spring-break romps Where the Boys Are (1960), which had Connie Francis warbling the title tune while slick-as-car-seat-leather George pursued coed Dolores Hart, and Looking for Love (1964), which was more of the same."
more at : mini=biography cont. I think I first noticed him in Home From the Hill. Which is pretty good since it was his third film. My favorite funny George is Love at First Bite |
|
|
|
Post by teleadm on Jun 22, 2017 18:11:35 GMT
George Hamilton Love at First Bite 1979 I liked that one too, that means he did the shap turn to comedy before Leslie Neilsen and Lloyd Bridges.
|
|
|
|
Post by BATouttaheck on Jun 22, 2017 18:22:25 GMT
teleadmI saw an interview with Leslie Neilson once upon a time. He said that he just enjoyed doing the lighter comedy roles much more than the serious things. Personally, I tend to prefer the pre-Naked Gun/ Airplane Leslie. I remember seeing him in Tammy and The Bachelor, Hot Summer Night and The Sheepman (he was a dastardly hisss-booo-able villain in that one ! )
|
|
|
|
Post by teleadm on Jun 22, 2017 18:41:12 GMT
Yes many of those parodies went overboard after the first Naked Gun.
|
|
|
|
Post by sostie on Jun 23, 2017 9:58:30 GMT
Zucker & Abrahams seemed to populate their films with serious actors in comedy roles, and get some decent perfomances out of them...
AIRPLANE (& II)
Peter Graves
Robert Stack
Lloyd Bridges
William Shatner
Chuck Connors
TOP SECRET
Jeremy Kemp
Omar Sharif
Peter Cushing
Michael Gough
BIG BUSINESS
Fred Ward
|
|
|
|
Post by manfromplanetx on Jun 23, 2017 22:46:21 GMT
Some say she was miscast but I love Linda Darnell as Daphne in Preston Sturges black comedy Unfaithfully Yours (1948). Showing another side to her usual dramatic persona, she plays the subtle and dead-pan humour brilliantly...
|
|
