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Strange movie apperances.

Started by Glebe, November 13, 2013, 01:09:25 AM

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Glebe

Inspired by mention in the Jim Davidson thread of Big Jim's appearances in A Zed and Two Noughts and Color Me Kubrick... TV actors, performers and minor celebrities who you'd never expect to see in a 'proper film'. A few I can think of at the moment:

A young Keith Chegwin in Roman Polanski's MacBeth[nb]Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck to make amends![/nb].

Freddie Starr as Stacey Keach's sidekick in The Squeeze.

Stephen 'Blakey' Lewis in The Krays.

Richard Briers in mate Kenneth 'Kenny Darling' Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (a scene with De Niro) and Hamlet (with Jack Lemon, et al).

Brian Connolly and - yes! - Christopher Biggins in Circus (which is admittedly a minor British crime caper).

Paaaaul


chocky909

Dexter Fletcher in Bugsy Malone. Mark Heap and Kevin Eldon in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

Glebe

Quote from: chocky909 on November 13, 2013, 02:07:03 AM
Dexter Fletcher in Bugsy Malone. Mark Heap and Kevin Eldon in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

...Ooh yes, and Eldon in Hugo.

Johnny Townmouse

Tim Booth (lead singer from James) in Batman Begins.

George Lucas in Beverly Hills Cop III.

the psyche intangible

Ian Brown was in one of the Potter films.


Glebe

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on November 13, 2013, 03:05:26 AM
Tim Booth (lead singer from James) in Batman Begins.

George Lucas in Beverly Hills Cop III.

More memory-jogging... Risteard Cooper of Irish comedy team Apres Match has a brief appearance as 'Captain Simonson' in BB... also the guy who plays the pilot in the airplane episode of Father Ted plays the judge in the courtroom scene.

I'll see your Lucas with a Spielberg in The Blues Brothers. However let's not turn this into a director cameo thread...

Tarantino Films are rife with them. He has a knack (and compulsion probably) to get great actors from his favourite movies and stick them in tiny roles of his film, along with just random wild-cards...

...Like Paul Rust, Mike Myers and BJ Novak in 'Inglourious Basterds'. Or even Jonah Hill or Don Johnson in Django?

Tom Savini, renowned make-up and visual fx artist (and Bikie in the original Dawn of the Dead) in a few of them. Most recently saw him in Django Unchained as one of Candy's thugs. Although I guess he's had a lot of cameos in films from people who are a fan of his work.

Then in the actors he clearly loves, you've got Rod Taylor from the Birds as Winston Churchill, John Jarrett as the Aussie Bushranger in Django. Franco Nero, the original Django popping up in Django Unchained opposite Jamie Foxx. Ah, these are already a lot of names but there's too many to list in his entire career.

Glebe

...not to mention Day of the Dead's Joseph Pilato as 'Dean Martin' in Pulp Fiction. Which also featured The Commitments' Bronagh Gallager in the infamous neddle-in-the-chest scene!

Noodle Lizard

Lilly Allen in 'Elizabeth'.
Not exactly an appearance, but Bob Dylan's son Jesse directing goofy gangsta-stoner flick 'How High'.
Cate Blanchett in 'Hot Fuzz', which I only found out about recently and must be among the most pointless cameos in film history[nb]Bet you don't even know who she was in it, do you?[/nb].
Flea in everything he rocks up in.
Tim Heidecker in 'Bridesmaids' doing absolutely nothing and having no lines.
Louis CK and Andrew Dice Clay in 'Blue Jasmine'.  That's not normal.
Jim Norton in 'Spiderman' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFvIdTbaMhA)
John Barrowman in Oscar-nominated 'Zero Dark Thirty'.
Matt Damon in 'Eurotrip' (someone must have had some serious dirt on him).
Anyone mentioned Alanis Morrissette playing God in 'Dogma'?

Ehh ... speaking of Harry Potter, there's an extended sequence in which Harry and Hermione dance to a Nick Cave song.  How did the music supervisor slip that one in?

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on November 13, 2013, 05:59:58 AM

Cate Blanchett in 'Hot Fuzz', which I only found out about recently and must be among the most pointless cameos in film history[nb]Bet you don't even know who she was in it, do you?[/nb].

Same with Peter Jackson's cameo as the man who stabs Simon Pegg's character, dressed as Father Christmas.

BeardFaceMan

I'm still not quite sure how Rik Mayall ended up in An American Werewolf In London. Was a real surprise, that one.

El Unicornio, mang

Sid Owen (Ricky from Eastenders) in Al Pacino film Revolution



It was also quite weird seeing Eddie Marsan playing a rednecky drug lord in the Miami Vice movie.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

#13
Quote from: BeardFaceMan on November 13, 2013, 07:46:25 AM
I'm still not quite sure how Rik Mayall ended up in An American Werewolf In London. Was a real surprise, that one.

Twiggy had seen Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson perfrorming as The Dangerous Brothers in That London, and had been so amused by them that he went backstage afterwards to invite them both to be in his film what he was making at the time, despite not having any parts in the already-completed script for them (hence Mayall's silence extra-like performance). Ade Edmonson couldn't be arsed to show up.

Kane Jones

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on November 13, 2013, 08:51:47 AM
John Belushi had seen Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson perfrorming as The Dangerous Brothers in That London, and had been so amused by them that he went backstage afterwrads to invite them both to be in his film what he was making at the time, despite not having any parts in the already-completed script for them (hence Mayall's silence extra-like performance). Ade Edmonson couldn't be arsed to show up.

Erm.. Landis, surely?

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Bah. I feel a proper See You Next Tuesday Now :(

Kane Jones

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on November 13, 2013, 09:31:06 AM
Bah. I feel a proper See You Next Tuesday Now :(

Nah, don't be silly.  I'm just a pedantic SYNT, that's all.

Famous Mortimer

The Wes Craven / Sam Raimi mutual poster appreciation in their films?

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

That's very gracious of you, but I now feel as silly as Dan Aykroyd John Landis himself must have felt after he was inadvertently and more or less directly responsible for the deaths of Victor Morrow and two children during the filming of 'The Twilight Zone'.

BTW, Ronnie Corbett having more or less a leading role in 'Burke and Hare' could also be considered a strange movie appearance.

(to Kane Jones' post)

does this post need more or less 'more or less''s?

Noodle Lizard

Speaking of John Landis, he turned up fairly randomly in a movie I watched the other day ('Look' by adam Rifkin).  I don't know if it's a strange appearance as such, but ...

He does have a strange appearance, though.  Like Graham Linehan's more respectable older brother or something.

Queneau

Leonard Rossiter in 2001: A Space Odyssey surprised me first time around. But then I suppose that is down to me having seen Rising Damp and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin as a kid, perhaps nobody else found it strange.

A similar thing, as a kid, I knew Joe Pesci from Home Alone and only later did I see him in Goodfellas and Raging Bull. So those are both in reverse.

non capisco

There's a jarring moment in the undersung 1936 Hitchcock film 'Sabotage' where two shady protagonists meet in an aquarium to exchange secrets and a young Charles Hawtrey suddenly wanders past attempting to impress his date with a load of waffle about the mating habits of oysters.


Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: non capisco on November 13, 2013, 11:02:53 AM
There's a jarring moment in the undersung 1936 Hitchcock film 'Sabotage' where two shady protagonists meet in an aquarium to exchange secrets and a young Charles Hawtrey suddenly wanders past attempting to impress his date with a load of waffle about the mating habits of oysters.

"Oooh, 'ello!", you thought to yourself, upon seeing the scene.

Ignatius_S

Probably stretching the idea here, but Graham Fellows' involvement in Stage Fright (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcVc-hMniUE) is one that I've always found interesting. It's an Aardman short film, for which he provides all the voices – the whole thing is brilliant.

Ernie Kovacs being wonderfully and surprisingly menacing as Captain Segura in the final collaboration between Greene and Reed, Our Man in Havana.

Bob Dylan in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Nick Cave's turn as the singer The Assassination of Jesse James..., he had obviously acted in films before (e.g. Johnny Suede, Ghosts of the Civil) but his appearance here was unexpected.

Jeremy Hardy in Mike Figgis' Hotel. Actually, quite a few people have unusual roles in that film, like David Schwimmer and John Malkovich.

Quote from: Glebe on November 13, 2013, 01:09:25 AM....Richard Briers in mate Kenneth 'Kenny Darling' Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (a scene with De Niro) and Hamlet (with Jack Lemon, et al)....

By that stage of his career, Briers was focusing on more serious work and even before being a household name did a lot of theatre work, so I don't think that credit is any more surprising than him being in RSC productions.

Quote from: Bored of Canada on November 13, 2013, 03:46:58 AM
Tarantino Films are rife with them. He has a knack (and compulsion probably) to get great actors from his favourite movies and stick them in tiny roles of his film, along with just random wild-cards...

Sadly, this isn't often to great effect – that isn't to say that they put in poor performances, but in many cases they don't bring anything to the table that lesser known actors wouldn't have. Often with this kind of approach, I find the cameo to have been a waste of the person and/or rather pointless.

With Johnson role, though, it's just the kind that he's being doing as he seems to be much more of a character actor these days.

Quote from: Queneau on November 13, 2013, 10:40:27 AMLeonard Rossiter in 2001: A Space Odyssey surprised me first time around. But then I suppose that is down to me having seen Rising Damp and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin as a kid, perhaps nobody else found it strange....

Those two sitcom roles are very iconic  and so identified with Rossiter that I think it's hard to appreciate just how much that he did. I had pretty much the same initial reaction to him in 2001 and was left thinking how good he was – when I later saw him in more serious roles like A Kind of Loving (he's only in two or three scenes in a very minor role) or Barry Lyndon, I knew he was going to be good.

I had a similar reaction to seeing Frank Thornton in films like Victim.

Quote from: non capisco on November 13, 2013, 11:02:53 AM
There's a jarring moment in the undersung 1936 Hitchcock film 'Sabotage' where two shady protagonists meet in an aquarium to exchange secrets and a young Charles Hawtrey suddenly wanders past attempting to impress his date with a load of waffle about the mating habits of oysters.

Yes, it certainly takes you out of the moment – however, in other roles that I've seen Hawtrey in (e.g. Passport to Pimlico, the Will Hay films) that didn't happen. For me, I suspect, why it jarred so was more to do with the way that Hitchcock would hammer the humorous moments in.

Wet Blanket

I'm always surprised when Pauline Quirke turns up in The Elephant Man, and that Dexter Fletcher is the young kid who works for the carnival bastard.

Brundle-Fly

I was watching Eaten Alive (1977) Tobe Hooper's follow up shocker to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and was impressed by the actress playing the tough old brothel hostess.



Looking at the end credits I was surprised it was Carolyn Jones who played Morticia in The Addams Family TV show.



And furhur surprised to discover it was Jones who played Ronnie in King Creole (1958)



That's what you call a varied career.

zomgmouse

Ralph Richardson in Rollerball.
Connie Booth in 84 Charing Cross Road.
Jamie Lee Curtis as Buckaroo Banzai's mother.
Omar Epps (aka Foreman in House) in Breakfast of Champions.
Peter Boyle in Taxi Driver (and Albert Brooks for that matter).
Jack Nicholson in Tommy.
Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein.

Thomas

David Cann in 1984, that surprised me.

checkoutgirl

Janet Street Porter in the film Blow Up (1966) She's doesn't speak and is only in it dancing for a few seconds but all the same. It's supposed to be one of the best films ever and it's got pissing Janet Street Porter in it. I want my money back.


Fabian Thomsett

Brian Murphy (George from George and Mildred) in The Devils.

Ian Dury in Judge Dredd.