The Ghost Ship (1943)
An incredible film about a psycho sea captain which I can't recommend enough. This is a film way ahead of its time, containing all the elements of films made forty and fifty years later and it is made all the more striking in that it was practically a lost film for that entire time. I can only thank God that it was finally made available again.
Wise Blood (1979)
I think people forget Brad Dourif is a really good actor or that he had a career outside of Chucky. This film while perhaps not a conventional thriller or even a conventional film for that matter is as an extremely disturbing look at a deranged American mind as has ever been made.
Cry Terror! (1958)
Rod Steiger makes his first well deserved appearance on this list in this film. Now quite simply, Rod Steiger is one of the greatest bad guys in the history of cinema, here he plays an utterly ruthless mad bomber holding a family hostage and seeking to extort money in exchange for not blowing up airlines. It is pretty rough, especially considering the time it was made and if like me, you're a "low brow audience member that relies on cliches and cheap thrills because you don't like to use your head" as Bosley Crowther put it, you will love it.
No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)
There are two reasons to see this and they are Rod Steiger and his accents/characters he plays. The story concerns an almost Woody Allen-esque nebbish jew New York City cop played by George Segal on the trail of an elusive thespian serial killer with a mommy complex playing a cat and mouse game with him. The film around him is fairly bland, but when Rod Steiger shows up and once again proves he was one of the greatest bad guys in the history of film, it is simply unforgettable as he slips in and out of various characters and displays moments of absolute unhinged apoplexy.
Experiment in Terror (1962)
Blake Edwards crafted one of the greatest and most unsettling thrillers ever made, bar none. In San Francisco, a sadistic asthmatic killer sets his sights on a woman played by Lee Remick with plans to terrorize her into robbing the bank she works at by threatening her and her younger sister. While it too is an excellent film, let us also not forget that knowingly or not, Don Siegel ripped this film off in several respects for Dirty Harry (1971).
Loving all these recommendations, uncle lancifer. Some I've seen, some I've heard of but I love reading about the ones that have slipped my attention. The Ghost Ship and Wise Blood are moving to the top of my 'to watch' list.
Thanks for these great suggestions Ghastly1! I really need to check out Cry Terror!
Thanks for the recommendations!
The film that really sold me on Rod Steiger's acting chops was as the very unconventional-yet-ultimate-in-creepiness "Dr. JoyBoy" in the 1965 cult classic, "The Loved One," the It's a Mad Mad Made World-meets-Dr. Strangelove black comedy (with a menacing Jonathan Winters to boot!) about the weirdness of California extremism, including its treatment of death. If you haven't seen it, it is definitely worth a watch, and one of my favorites.
Thanks for posting these Unk, I hope it wasn't too torturous to get through that giant list I sent you, but you have to realize that's the abridged version, lol. There were so many I left off.
Deke and Joe, I hope you like them.
Dr. Future, I haven't seen that one but it sounds good, I will have to check it out. He also did another two I really like; Wolf Lake which is little seen but really good and The Neighbor which is another very good one. All in all, yeah Rod Steiger was a great actor and could really play the hell out of a villain role.
Steiger's "Dr. JoyBoy" and his mother must have been an inspiration for John Waters, Divine and Edith Massey!
Dr. Joyboy sounds very John Waters-esque. That got me thinking; if you haven't seen it, Eat the Rich (1987) is the best John Waters movie he never made, check it out.
One of my favorite Rod Steiger performances is in, of all movies, Oklahoma!. Steiger's New York City, method-influenced performance is completely at odds with the traditional Hollywood studio acting of the rest of the cast. But it works, because Jud is supposed to be dangerous and apart from the rest of the community.
Horror-wise, Steiger is great in American Gothic.
Agreed on Ghost Ship! All of the suspense films Val Lewton produced for RKO are terrific. I especially love The Seventh Victim. The recent Warner Archive blu-ray of Ghost Ship looks astonishingly good. The reason is that the film was kept out of circulation for decades due to a legal conflict, so the prints were not worn out from overuse, and the movie didn't need much remastering.