For the next entry in our Year by Year series, I proposed a list of Best Villain Death scenes. This idea proved problematic because what we would have, in effect, is an entire list of spoilers. So we went back to the drawing board for the next Year by Year feature. However, that idea of bad guys still appealed to me.
There is nothing like alliteration. The dearly departed musician Vic Chesnutt called it the “spice of life.” So as a death list of villains went out the window, it morphed into a list of Bitches, Bastards and Badasses.
Some of the more interesting characters in our filmic history fall into one of these categories. Do people really like the sweet and straitlaced Dorothy? Fuck no, it’s the Wicked Witch that runs away with The Wizard of Oz. I am pleased to present this new feature as we celebrate the biggest Bitches, Badasses the cinema world has thrown at us. - David Harris
1969: Pike Bishop (William Holden), The Wild Bunch, Badass
“If they move, kill ‘em!” William Holden’s Pike Bishop commands his wild bunch as they attempt to rob a bank at the beginning of Sam Peckinpah’s masterpiece. We are in the second decade of the 20th century, a time where bank robbers and the Wild West are now outmoded. Bishop and his rag-tag band of crooks no longer have a place in this milieu, passé and toothless. That makes him madder than hell.
With no place in a United States plagued with temperance movements and sly lawmen, Bishop maneuvers his bunch to a land where they can fit, the lawless deserts of Mexico. But he soon realizes this is no country for old men and leads his band, featuring priceless character actors such as Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates and Ben Johnson, out in a blaze of glory. And we’re not talking about one last job. In a suicide attack, the four remaining members of the Wild Bunch take on an entire Mexican army. As shots blaze, Pike shoots Mexican after Mexican, mowing them down first with his pistol and then a mounted machine gun as Peckinpah displays the bloodshed in a slow motion ballet of carnage.
The biggest badass moment? Pike is shot from behind and when he wheels around and realizes his assailant is a woman, he shouts, “Bitch!” He then proceeds to blow her away before turning back to the fire fight. - David Harris
1970: Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler), The Honeymoon Killers, Bitch
Sullen, bossy, whiny, jealous, gluttonous, manipulative, overweight and occasionally homicidal, Martha Beck is a singularly unpleasant character. Ironically, she’s a nurse but her attitude towards most everyone else is shown through her kicking a child’s wagon early in the film and telling a Jewish supervisor, “I’m not sure Hitler wasn’t right about you people!” Based on a true story that ended in the electric chair, Martha is one half of a con artist duo known as the Lonely Hearts Killers; smarmy, toupee wearing Ray meets women through “lonely hearts” ads, woos them, marries or promises to marry them and takes their money. Martha meets the oleaginous Ray the same way, but pretends to be his sister for the con. When she catches him making out with one of their victims, she screeches, “You promised!” and promptly tries to drown herself.
Shot quickly and on a limited budget by novice filmmakers (Martin Scorsese was the original director, but was dismissed for taking too long) The Honeymoon Killers is the anti-Bonnie and Clyde. Whereas that couple was young, sexy and glamorous, this couple is grotesque, tawdry and unlikable, shot in unflattering black and white resembling both amateur documentary and lurid tabloid fodder. Truffaut called it his favorite American film and the story was told in another movie featuring a ludicrously miscast Salma Hayek as Martha. Stoler, who subsequently appeared on a few episodes of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse,” looks a little like Divine and plays Martha as an unapologetic bitch, both pathetic and monstrous. And just wait until she picks up that hammer. - Lukas Sherman
1971: Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman), The French Connection, Badass
In the ’70s, only two things were hard-boiled: eggs and cops. Perhaps no police officer exemplified this than Popeye Doyle. Doyle is a cop with a turbulent service record, and amid accusations of racism and brutality, he brings in results. The French Connection deals with a seemingly untouchable French smuggler named Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) who arrives in New York City under the guise of an art dealer. Doyle and his partner learn through the grapevine that a large shipment of drugs is arriving in New York and that Charnier is the intended recipient, but they cannot find any hard evidence to convict him.
Gene Hackman fully encompasses the role- his hatred for Charnier becomes palpable. Doyle is an intellectual badass as well, diving into his police work. In one of the film’s most memorable moments, the police strip a car looking for dope, but find nothing… until Doyle checks the shipping manifest, and notes a difference in weight of the imported car. They continue, and Doyle triumphantly finds the drugs hidden in some rockers in the trunk. Physically, Popeye is no slouch either-he and his partner chase and beat down a stick-up artist in a Santa Claus suit, and later he chases a speeding rail across New York City, which devolves to an on-foot chase. In the film’s final moments, Doyle and company converge on the smugglers and in a horrifying mix-up, he accidentally shoots his boss. True to his nature, he takes no time to mourn, simply saying, “He’s still here” and continuing his pursuit.
The French Connection, and Popeye Doyle, cemented the ’70s as an era before political correctness, where red tape was less important than results. Doyle remains an iconic badass, and much like Charnier, “he’s still here.” - Rafael Gaitan
1972: Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), Aguirre, The Wrath of God, Bastard
The five films German director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski made together are often overshadowed by their legendary on-set clashes, which included death threats, as documented in Herzog’s affectionate/critical film about Kinski, My Best Fiend. Kinski is one of the few actors on this list who doesn’t need a film role to be a bastard, just check out his autobiography. Their first collaboration, Aguirre, The Wrath of God is arguably their most iconic film. Though both are sometimes portrayed as madmen, it’s clear they needed each other and pushed each other to their most memorable work. In Aguirre, Kinski plays a Spanish conquistador, whose band of soldiers becomes hopelessly lost in the South American jungle quixotically pursuing gold and glory. The farther they go into the jungle, the more they lose their grip on sanity and reality. As Herzog said about the jungle, “(it’s) all about our dreams, our deepest emotions, our nightmares. It’s not just a location, it’s a state of mind.” Kinski is not so much a bastard as bat shit crazy. He thinks he can rule the jungle, declare war on Spain, make birds drop dead from the sky and found a dynasty with his daughter. Kinski plays Aguirre with a deranged look in his eye and a walk that is similar to a crab and it’s clear from the beginning that he’s well on his way to madness. Herzog and Kinski take the imperialist dream and turn it into a destructive and absurd nightmare, one that becomes increasingly bloody and hallucinogenic. By the end, Aguirre has become totally unhinged and more arrogant than ever, despite the death of all his party and his final command of a raft overrun by monkeys. - Lukas Sherman
1973: Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), Mean Streets, Bastard/Badass
Robert De Niro has brought an impressive number of great performances to the screen throughout his long and storied career, and a significant chunk of them were created in collaboration with Martin Scorsese. Their first time working together was Mean Streets, Scorsese’s 1973 emergence as a fully-formed, mature filmmaker. De Niro’s performance as Charlie’s (Harvey Keitel) insane best friend, Johnny Boy, practically explodes out of the screen. We’ve all known a Johnny Boy in our time, the lovable lunatic, but none quite like him – an anarchistic, self-destructive, volatile basket case of epic proportions.
He’s a pretty funny guy. When a Mafioso debtor he owes a couple hundred bucks to comes around the bar demanding his money, Johnny Boy tells him the only reason he borrows from him is that he’s the only jerkoff that will still lend to him even though he doesn’t pay. Johnny Boy’s self-satisfied amusement, his cocky smirking delivery, is contagious; you laugh with him for a while, despite his recklessness. The thing is, he’s a total nutcase and he stirs up whatever barely maintained civility was there, starting a fight that ends with him sticking a gun in the mobster’s face. Later, Charlie barely keeps him from trying to shoot the lights out of the Empire State Building. He’s not a person that’s capable of controlling himself, a forest fire raging in the middle of the city, and his stupidity isn’t malicious, it’s insane. Who knows where he’s coming from? We only know that, pretty soon, he’s going to come apart. - Andrei Alupului
1974: Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), The Godfather: Part II, Bastard
Ah, The Godfather trilogy. Let’s face it, infamy’s never looked so damn good. Director Francis Ford Coppola’s opus to organized crime delves into mob boss Don Michael Corleone’s (Al Pacino) dastardly dealings, yet we’re rooting for the family in record time. Of course, we know that they’re bad guys. It’s the second film in the series when youngest son Michael becomes a true bastard, ordering a hit on his older brother Fredo (John Cazale). Though he begins the series outside the family business, Michael becomes infinitely more interesting, empathetic and a hell of a lot sexier when vengeful passion and filial loyalty turn him over to the dark side. And I know that probably sounds creepy, but it is also the absolute truth. Evil as executed in a film like The Godfather is fascinating, and all the more dangerous, because it is intelligent; exact; coolly calculated and couched in a tradition of vigilante justice that, even when horribly twisted by the destructively cyclical maneuverings of the Mafia, is nevertheless difficult to condemn. And Michael Corleone – smarter than the rest of the family, is driven by a ruthlessness unseen in his predecessor’s business transactions – blossoms into a cold-blooded, murderous mastermind right before our eyes…without ever making us hate him. Not even a little bit. In fact, we kind of love him — for his dark brooding eyes, steel-trap mind and fierce affection for his father; and it’s not until the chillingly brutal baptism scene at the end of the film, when Michael’s vow to renounce Satan and his works warps into a deal with the devil, that we awaken to the depths of his depravity. Oh he’s a bastard, all right; but in spite of our better selves, we simply can’t wait to see what he’ll do next. - Lauren Westerfield
1975: Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bitch
It’s there in the name. The way Ratched is oh so close to wretched. And that’s precisely the word that comes to mind when recalling Louise Fletcher’s character in Milos Forman’s breakthrough film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. What separates Fletcher’s performance from the novel is that stoic expression she carries throughout, the epitome of the phrase stone cold bitch. With a gaze that could instigate an ice age, Fletcher is Ratched the authority figure as vampire: this is a nurse who doesn’t care for her patients so much as suck the life force out of them, leaving joyless husks behind. R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is her would-be Van Helsing, her polar opposite. Where Ratched is ice cold, frigid to the extreme, R.P. is all heat, a bundle of energy seeking to restore life to Ratched’s hospital and thus upsetting the natural order.
None of this is anything new, per se, nor is it even necessarily that bitchy. Those who particularly enjoy playing devil’s advocate could claim Ratched is a necessary force; even if her tactics are unflinchingly remorseless, at least they keep the crazies in their place. But even the fiercest devil’s advocate would have a hard time defending Ratched’s eventual triumph over R.P.: if Ratched just wanted order, she’d merely exile the rambunctious R.P., instead she takes sick pleasure in reducing him to the type of vacant automaton he was rebelling against. Is there anything colder? - Morgan Davis
1976: Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), Network, Bitch
Three decades later, Network is still tying in strangely with current television news. Take the famous Roger Ebert quote about the film’s longevity in which the similarly long enduring critic asks whether screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky could “have imagined Jerry Springer, Howard Stern and the World Wrestling Federation” when he created anti-hero Howard Beale. And although that quote could be turned around to ask whether Chayefsky imagined Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly or any of the other right-wing demagogues who completely miss the point when comparing themselves to Beale, there’s an even more current example I have in mind. Yes, I am indeed comparing the new incarnation of the Late Night Wars to Network, and to Diana Christensen.
It really isn’t that much of a stretch. Beale of course is Conan O’Brien, whose now infamous “People of Earth” open letter is on its way to being the “I’m mad as hell” of our generation. Which would make Christensen a female Dick Ebersol: a conniving, fast-climbing bitch who’d sacrifice anyone or anything in the name of ratings and power. Sure, Ebersol may not have assassinated O’Brien on air or anything (at least not yet), but he’s been assassinating his character in the media, portraying the upstart late night rookie as a “spineless” hack and attempting to spin him into the villain of the story all because of the same low ratings that brought Beale to his end. But what really makes creatures like Christensen and Ebersol outright bitches is their unwillingness to view television as anything but commerce. Christensen may feign political inclination but it’s only because the terrorist actions of the most extreme political groups are ratings gold. When NBC unveils “The Osama Bin-Laden Hour” after Jay Leno tanks once again, the circle will be complete. - Morgan Davis
1977: Darth Vader (James Earl Jones, David Prowse, et al), Star Wars, Bastard
It takes a certain level of villainy to be the biggest bastard in the world, but what about the galaxy? If there’s anyone that qualifies for the title, it’s certainly Darth Vader (née Anakin Skywalker). As the primary antagonist (and sometime protagonist) of the George Lucas’ Star Wars saga, Vader is the very personification of malevolent authority- merciless, expressionless and as willing to destroy an entire planet as to strangle a man for disagreeing with him. But what’s most awful (and tragic) about his evil is that he was made to be that way. Once the foremost Jedi Knight of his day, he was a shining hope for the galaxy, a fearless hero and champion of a democratic system of alien races. But since turning on his own compatriots and friends, helping to hunt down and exterminate Jedi across the cosmos, his reputation was ruined.
Even barring his abhorrent actions in the overarching story of Star Wars, Vader’s shadow has become part of pop culture, an archetype of villainy. No less an authority than Joseph Campbell upheld the saga as modern exemplar of monomyth, with Vader a representation of the destructive, controlling father figure. Of course, it’s not difficult to see that aspect of the character when he’s willing to cut his own son’s hand off to render him helpless. That takes quite a bastard. - Nathan Kamal
1978: John “Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi), National Lampoon’s Animal House, Bastard
Animal House is a film that defined a generation, and perhaps no character was more influential than John Belushi’s slovenly and seemingly indestructible Bluto. The film centers around two freshmen trying to join a fraternity, only to be turned away by all except the notorious Delta Tau Omega. The Delts, with their lack of respect for the administration, are enemies of the scheming Dean Wormer, who is hellbent on expelling Delta Tau from campus. Not surprisingly, most of his quarrel with them can be traced back to Bluto’s outlandish antics. Belushi makes Bluto a human landfill, having him constantly eating, drinking and partying. His most famous bastardly moment comes at the iconic toga party, where he smashes a student’s guitar on the wall, only to continue on his quest for more booze and broads. Bluto also has a despicable moment in the lunchroom. After basically stealing one of everything on the menu, he sits at the rich fraternity’s table and smashes an egg in his mouth, spitting up all over them and then taking a bite out of one of their sandwiches.
Bluto is as regarded by the Deltas every bit as Dean Wormer and the other fraternities revile him, but it is Belushi that really stamps the bastard label on. Viewed though the other characters, he is boorish, uncivilized and vulgar… which is why he’s so beloved by the boorish, the uncivilized and the vulgar the world over. Since the film, Bluto has become a patron saint of colleges, embodying the spirit of “Party til You Puke.” Many a hangover and many an emergency room visit can be attributed to him. He is a bad influence, a total bastard and one of cinema’s most beloved characters. Not bad for a human landfill. - Rafael Gaitan
