ru happy with the acting of blofeld?
blofeld#1
Posts: 118MI6 Agent
State your case who u think acted blofeld better. and ru happy with ones performance and not with others. Post your top 3.
1 . Telly Savalas
2 . Donald Pleasence
3 . Charles Gray
1 . Telly Savalas
2 . Donald Pleasence
3 . Charles Gray
Comments
I thought Telly gave it a lot more depth and did a very good job and above all I have always like him in OHMSS.
I always loved Gray although I can now look back and see it was a change of direction compared to his predecessors and see that he was a very controversial choice to many fans. He did however suit the film and I think he did a brilliant job so yes I still rate him.
I can't put them in order in isolation because they are relevant to the film and so many other factors but however I did rate them all, Pleasence would be at the bottom every time!
Blofeld of literature incarnation was brilliant.
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2. Telly Savalas - the best of the Blofelds who are seen, Savalas has an oily sort of charm, charisma and genuine menace.
3. Donald Pleasence - makes the list by default, because Charles Grey's Blofeld is horrible. Pleasence looks great as Blofeld, but the way he played the character was a bit off. As mentioned before, his intro is good though.
During those breif moments in From Russia With Love and Thunderball, what I admired about Dawson/Pohlmann Blofeld was his great intellect. Listen to his conversation in From Russia With Love, he is forever questioning and skeptical of the plan to get the Lektor. Then in Thunderball, one his own underlings try to outsmart him by embezzling money from a recent criminal enterprise . As I recall, I think it was drug dealing and the henchman said that prices were down. Blofeld anticipated that factor and he knew which one was guilty of embezzlement, the henchman had a partner. Blofeld killed his partner because he knew him, he is aware of the people he employed. These illustrations show that Blofeld is the leader of SPECTRE because he is smart and can't be out-smarted.
The only one I'm uneasy with is Savalas, because he is Kojak to most of us and sounds a bit like Phil Silvers as Sgt Bilko. Pleasance worked for me - a 'scarred asexual monster' as one critic put it, but of course Savalas is charming and a skirt chaser... in a way I suppose having him played by different types helped keep the movies fresh and made Blofeld into an even more diabolical, unpredictable nemesis, a sort of Keyser Soze.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
In YOLT, all that was gone, and we were left with a spoiled child who made everyone kowtow because he yelled really loudly. I liked the OHMSS portrayal because I felt we were back to the diabolical genius -- after all, that was pretty sophisticated stuff he was cooking up in that lab. Gray's DAF portrayal is perfect for the film but can't really be compared to anything else because, like the film itself, it's a complete one-off.
Actually Pohlmann is credited as Blofeld in both films on IMDB. I know it's a dubious source but they do sound simular in both films.
James Bond- Licence To Kill
I liked Savalas as Blofeld all right, thought at times I feel like OHMSS would have worked better if a European actor was cast in the part rather than an American. Also I were in Cubby's shoes back in the day I would have had the writers of YOLT develop Blofled more and I would have DAF get rid of the campy humor, like putting him drag.
2) Telly Savalas
3) Max Von Sydow
That's my top three, though, to me Pleasance IS Blofeld and should've been brought back in the part.
1. Savalas
2. Pleasance
The "unseen" Blofeld's had quite low, urband tones (slightly distorted in TB if I ecall) which gave them an air of menace.
In YOLT although at times Pleasance is effective, when he's required to do more than speak (i.e shout, order, scream) he sounds like an annoying schoolgirl / boy who isn't getting his way; the script isn't at fault because the lines are ok, it's just Pleasance can't deliver them.
Telly Savalas, with his deep voice, comes across much better in this respect. He is also a very active Blofeld. One can't imagine Connery and Pleasance engaging in fisticuffs like Lazenby and Savalas. As for the Kojak thing, well, that was after OHMSS, Savalas had made a good name for himslef playing villains (Birdman of Alcatraz, The Dirty Dozen, The Greatest Story Ever Told, McKennas Gold) so this was great casting in 1969. If OHMSS had been made post-Kojak I think I might feel differently. I've seen a few repeats on UK Gold and Kojak's a pretty good cop show. Savalas is excellent in it, didn't he win an Emmy?
As for Charles Gray... hmmmhmmm he's tooooo urbane, rather like the cat he strokes in almost every scene. He's got the best lines of any Blofeld but they are all sophisticated jokes and the doubles & voice thingumajiggy is just silly.
Max Von Sydow (who was also in The Greatest Story Ever Told) is a good Blofeld, sadly not really given enough to do in NSNA, I alwasy wished he'd committed suicide at the end, just to kill off SPECTRE at the end of that movie.
Incidently, given that TSWLM was originally supposed to feature SPECTRE (they are mentioned in the book) Curt Jurgens makes a pretty good fist of it as Stromberg, and would have done no worse as Blofeld in place of Pleasance or Gray.
For me it's Telly Savalas all the way.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Oh, and to answer the original question, combining the talents of Pohlman and Dawson like a Prowse and Earl Jones, make for more shadows and lights then a venetian blind. Telly would be second.
ru hapee?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
"Sir Hilary Bray! So kind of you to drop in at this hour!"
- OHMSS, the uncut version.
Roger Moore 1927-2017