Best Film Ensembles of All Time Part II: 21-30

This is the second part of a series that was done in collaboration with Adam Spector of Adam's Rib in which we both ranked our top 50 films in terms of best ensemble. The first edition where we went over our picks from 31-50 are here and the 11-20 can be found here and here:


Orrin's Picks 21-30:

21. Airport (1970) 22. Charade (1963) 23. Royal Tenenbaums (2001) 24. A Face in the Crowd (1957) 25. All About Eve (1950) 26. Inherit the Wind (1960) 27. Stagecoach (1939) 28. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) 29. American Hustle (2013) 30. Love and Mercy (2015)

Adam's Response:
I need to admit I have not seen Airport, and mostly know it for inspiring Airplane.   Impressive cast, with Helen Hayes winning an Oscar, although it was generally considered to be more of a lifetime achievement one.  It’s hard to think of anyone besides Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade, but Walter Matthau showed his range playing the villain.   By the same logic, while Bette Davis fills up the screen in what became her signature role All About Eve, the work of her supporting cast is very underrated, including Anne Baxter, Gary Merrill, Celeste Holm and an up-and-coming Marilyn Monroe.  But the two who really add spice to the movie are George Sanders and the great Thelma Ritter.  Both could deliver a snarky one-liner like few else.  Ritter in particular somehow was always the one who would say what the audience was thinking. 

You will see The Royal Tenenbaums later on my list, and I am glad you included it.  You mentioned great chemistry and the way certain stars bounce off each other.  Tenenbaums may be the perfect example.  As Gene Hackman, in his last iconic performance, goes through the movie, his rakish charm and scheming play off the other more straight laced actors to both comedic and dramatic effect.  His character of Royal Tenenbaum has done horrible things, but Hackman’s charisma, and his showing the love underneath, lets you forgive Royal and accept when the other characters do the same. 

Photo Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Numbers 27 and 28 on your list both feature one of the most unsung character actors from the studio era, Thomas Mitchell.  He never had the looks to become a star in the 30s, 40s and 50s, but always worked well playing off stars including John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Gary Cooper.  Like Ritter, he was someone audiences could identify with.  He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Stagecoach and could have just as easily been nominated for many other films.  Just look at his filmography.  Mitchell is the perfect example of the actor you need to have a stellar ensemble, a versatile performer who could create memorable characters while allowing those around him to shine.

Thomas Mitchell - IMDb www.imdb.com Thomas Mitchell, Actor: Gone with the Wind. Thomas Mitchell was one of the great American character actors, whose credits read like a list of the greatest films of ...

American Hustle shows how far David O. Russell has come.  His early career was filled with [editorial note: if you want to trust the rumors] stories of him being a terror on the set, getting into fights with his actors.   Now he has become one of the most accomplished ensemble directors, with The Fighter, Joy, and Silver Linings Playbook.  Actors such as Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper work with him multiple times.  Both Lawrence and Cooper go against type in Hustle and seem to have much fun doing so.  Cooper goes under the surface of his scheming, sleazy FBI agent, showing the insecurity and desperation that really drive him.  Christian Bale again displays his extraordinary range, while Jeremy Renner makes his doomed mayor a tragic figure.   Robert De Niro and Michael Pena make a lasting impact despite limited screen time.  Terrific choice.  

Orrin's Response:

What’s funny about Helen Hayes's Oscar nomination (and apparently, she eventually won) is that it’s eerily similar to Melissa McCarthy’s nomination 41 years later in Bridesmaids and equally baffling. Both played comic characters who broke the tension by tearing through every norm and social custom of airline etiquette and each traded on a physical trait for shock value (the former being old, the latter being fat).

To think of Airport solely as “the film where Helen Hayes won an Oscar” is a gross disservice to the variety and caliber of performances in this  great disaster film. I remember having a discussion on a message board over which of the four leading ladies of this film—Jacqueline Bisset as a pregnant stewardess in peril, Maureen Stapleton, as a worried housewife, Jean Seberg as a level-headed executive assistant or Hayes—deserved Oscar nominations and everyone had different answers. Personally, I think Seberg was the stand-out. Her sly face-off against Hayes’ character showed a quiet don’t-mess-with-me demeanor and her undefined thing for hard-nosed superior Burt Lancaster reminds me of the Betty Hutton-Charlton Heston romance in Greatest Show on Earth. Throw in Dean Martin as a dashing pilot, George Kennedy as a blue collar fix-it- man, and Oscar-winning actor Van Heflin as an especially unhinged passenger, and this is a great cast.

Due to the fact that the genre is linked with generally unpopular directors today-- Roland Emmerich, Michael Bay—the disaster film doesn’t get a lot of respect, but back in 1970, a film like Airport could be appreciated (as evidenced by its Best Picture nomination) as a way to tell a rich tapestry of stories with a sense of impending urgency and it was largely because of the power of its cast being taken seriously.

I’m surprised you praise the supporting work of Charade without mentioning the best part: George Kennedy, James Coburn, and Ned Glass as the deliciously mismatched trio of ex-GIs trying to extort Audrey Hepburn out of her late husband’s war loot. One’s bulky and physically imposing; one’s wiry and slick; one’s nebbishy and prone to sneezing fits: Those three are like the living embodiment of those Interpol cops (editorial note: it was extremely hard to find an online image of the three cops from that 1986 DOS game but take my word, they looked like the three guys in Charade) that used to run across the screen chasing Carmen Sandiego in my old 8-bit computer game.  But yes, it’s also tempting to mark the pairing of the king and queen of the romantic comedy (even though their self-referenced age difference on screen is indicative that they were of two different eras) with an inclusion on my list.

Yes, Thomas Mitchell was a great character actors but Stagecoach was essentially all character actors.  In 1939, John Wayne was pretty much a B-list actor who got the part in Stagecoach because he was director John Ford’s golfing body. John Carradine, Andy Devine, future Oscar winner Claire Trevor, Louise Platt, and Donald Meek were all part of the cast and it’s very much a group effort. Thanks to DoctorMacro, you can see a great picture of them below with John Ford's fine framing. 

Photo Source: DoctorMacro.com

I included  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington mostly because of its supporting cast. Jimmy Stewart is great, but why should we be surprised that he would be anything but for the part of a naïve junior senator going against the system. It’s like being surprised that Clint Eastwood did a good job in a film titled “the man who delivered soliloquies while squinting and shooting a gun.” In particular, Claude Rains is pretty extraordinary as a man who goes from ally to villain onto the side of good yet again. I also wanted to throw a bone to Jean Arthur (pictured below on the left) who stepped in the shoes of Barbara Stanwyck (this is really a pseudo-sequel to Meet John Doe) which is a shadow that’s not particularly easy to escape from.

Adam: Orrin, I was in no way trying to shortchange the all-around work of the Mr. Smith or Stagecoach casts.  Rather I was using them being next to each other in your list to illustrate how ensemble films need the type of character work that Thomas Mitchell did so well.  Other examples are Only Angels Have Wings, It’s a Wonderful Life, and High Noon.  He played key characters in a way that did not draw attention to himself but served the story – the true definition of “supporting.”

Adam's List

21. Spotlight (2015) 22. The Dirty Dozen (1967) 23. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) 24. Tombstone (1993) 25. This is Spinal Tap (1984) 26. Eve's Bayou (1997) 27. United 93 (2006) 28. Goodfellas (1990) 29. True Romance (1993) 30. Best in Show (2000)

Orrin's turn at bat: Goodfellas is a solid choice. Ray Liotta is the audience surrogate, Pesci is the stand-out performance, and DeNiro is the glue. Loretta Brasci is understated here. I noticed as I was writing this that when comparing a simple film like Goodfellas to Scorsese’s 21^st century films that his later casts are often bloated by a number of superfluous characters. In The Departed, doesn’t Mark Wahlberg make Alec Baldwin’s character obsolete? Did Wolf of Wall Street require a banker character that has one scene to be played by Jean DuJardin and was Jon Favreau really necessary? Does anyone remember what Patricia Clarkson or Emily Mortimer did in Shutter Island (the screen credits certainly don’t)? What was all the hype about for Jude Law as Errol Flynn in Aviator if he was on screen for 10 seconds? Perhaps as Scorsese has become such a bona fide legend and his releases have been more hyped, he (or his producers) have responded by thinking that more marquee names in the cast is better.

You often talk about how ensembles are about the hidden gems that support the talent. I think the work done by Lawrence Harvey, Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury are all tremendous in Manchurian Candidate and I especially enjoy the chemistry in the Harvey-Sinatra and Harvey-Lansbury pairings, but I don’t really have any memory of any other performance sin the movie. Perhaps you can fill me in?

Spotlight was one of my two favorite films of 2015 and I think there were some great acting performances, but in thinking about how the performances bounce off each other if or if the performers are more than the sum of their parts, I’m not sure if it fits that criteria well. I kind of think if you substituted those actors for other great actors, you would get the same result.

The Christopher Guest films you mentioned are entirely different however in that it’s hard to imagine those films being made with different people. I disagree with Christopher Guest’s generous assertion that no one can do what his actors can do (the improv troupes that gave us Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara have produced many more alumni) but the way those guys approach characters is very unique and produces an entirely different brand of comedy. I know that for the Christopher Guest films, they generally write an outline of their characters, an outline of the storyline and leave it entirely up to improv when the camera starts rolling. Since This is Spinal Tap was directed by Rob Reiner, I wonder if the prep work was significantly different.

Photo Source: Do512family.com

I think United 93 shows you’re drawn to films that can do a lot with no star power like Slackers and Salt of the Earth. I can see that logic.

You’ll have to fill me in on Eve’s Bayou, True Romance, and Tombstone. Perhaps as people are generally hesitant to explore the 70’s disaster genre as I previously mentioned, I don’t think Westerns in the 90’s (outside of Unforgiven) were treated as more than blockbuster genre fare. If I remember correctly (and I was a child when these films were airing on TV), there was Wyatt Earp, Broken Arrow, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and Young Guns and I don’t think any of them really have that great of a reputation.  Is that perhaps why Tombstone gets lost?

Adam:  You make an interesting point about Scorsese.  Some of his more recent films tend to have all-star casts, which are not always needed.  I think big-name actors want to work with him, so from his perspective, Why not?  Goodfellas certainly had its share of stars, such as De Niro and Pesci.  But Ray Liotta was still an up and coming actor, as was Bracco.  To steal your question, could you imagine any other actors in those parts?   Scorsese also had a knack with the smaller parts.  In Tommy (Pesci’s) famous “What’s so funny about me?” speech, it works in part because Pesci plays off the restaurant owner, beautifully played by Tony Darrow, who combines just the right amount of annoyance and hesitancy.  Same too with Frank Vincent as Billy Batts, who gives the gangster a playful antagonism in taunting Pesci.  You believe how the man is pushing Tommy’s buttons, which we know will not end well.   

With The Manchurian Candidate, it can be hard to look past Lansbury’s perfect embodiment of motherly evil.  But look deeper and you will see James Gregory as Sen. Iselin, the pompous send-up of Joe McCarthy.   Gregory works well with Lansbury, as Ms. Iselin lets the Senator think he is in charge when it’s her plan all along.  You will also find Henry Silva as Chunjin, who opposite Frank Sinatra, had one of the more underrated fight scenes.  Finally, there’s Khigh Dhiegh as the head brainwasher, who has such fun with the role that you almost don’t mind all of the horrible acts his character does.

We disagree about Spotlight.  Michael Keaton’s performance is so low-key compared to his other work, but it fits his role as a veteran reporter, always observing and building the story in his head.  He feigns detachment, but slowly lets you see the determination underneath.  His cool helps further emphasizes the fire that Mark Ruffalo brings.   Re-watch the scene where Ruffalo’s character argues for running the story immediately, while Keaton calmly explains that the paper will run it when it’s ready.  Also, think about the actors playing the abuse victims.  Those roles can easily come off as forced or melodramatic, but they never do. 

Eve’s Bayou is so stunning visually that you can almost overlook the fine performances.  Samuel J. Jackson is the headliner as the patriarch of a wealthy Louisiana family, but he is used sparingly.  In the title role Jurnee Smolett who, at 10 years old, had more talent and depth than most older actors.   The chemistry between her and other actors, in particular Meagan Good as Eve’s sister and Debbi Morgan as her aunt, make the film work.  Lynn Whitfield, Diahann Carroll, and Vondie Curtis-Hall also distinguish themselves.

If all True Romance had was the pantheon scene of Christopher Walken squaring off against Dennis Hopper that would have been enough.   The intensity each actor brings to their scene builds off each other. It’s not just when their characters are speaking, but when they are listening, learning about each other.  But the movie boasts so much more.   You can see a little of Tony Soprano in one of James Gandolfini’s first breakout roles.  Gary Oldman is virtually unrecognizable as a white rasta gangster.  Saul Rubinek shines as a Joel Silver-type producer.  Pre-stardom Brad Pitt steals every scene he is in as the ultimate stoner.  And I haven’t even mentioned the fine work of Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as the two leads.  An embarrassment of riches.

Tombstone was supposed to be “the other Wyatt Earp movie” ahead of the more prestigious Wyatt Earp.  Even though it switched directors midstream, Tombstone vastly outshone its counterpart.  Kurt Russell gives his typical, steady work as Wyatt Earp, but it’s Val Kilmer who makes the most impact as the dying gunslinger Doc Holliday.  Kilmer plays Holliday as a wounded animal, dangerous until the moment he dies.   The chemistry between him and Russell form the crux of the second half of the story.  Sam Elliot fits perfectly in any Western, while the late, great Bill Paxton makes the most of his limited screen time.  Michael Biehn and Powers Boothe (another actor who passed too soon), personify sociopathic greed as the villains.