Top 10 Memorable Movie Characters Pre 70s
Some of the following date back to the beginning of modern cinema, but they've sensationally stood the test of time! Join http://www.watchmojo.com as we count down our picks for the top 10 memorable movie characters of the pre-1970s! For this list, we've looked at films and film characters appearing up to and including 1969, ranking the most memorable regardless of the genre in which they appear.
Special thanks to our user Tyreece Need for submitting the idea at WatchMojo.comsuggest
#10: Rick Blaine “Casablanca” (1942)
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Humphrey Bogart’s first real stab at a romantic leading role is really one to savor! Rick Blaine is the proprietor of Moroccan wartime melting pot, Rick’s Café Américain, based in the eponymous city of Casablanca. He’s also a hard man to read in terms of his political persuasions, and an even harder one to read in terms of intimate emotions. At least, initially! But Blaine’s tough exterior encases a softer side, which selflessly shines through in the end!
#9: Dorothy Gale “The Wizard of Oz” (1939)
The main protagonist in “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy Gale is the innocence of youth incarnate! Initially, she’s a distracted young girl who dreams of a more exciting existence than her own, ‘somewhere over the rainbow’. When that wish comes true, however, she’d sooner follow the yellow brick road right back to where she started, than spend her whole life in Oz, a land of fantasy! The pigtailed, blue-frocked, red-slippered look is an icon in itself! ‘There’s no place like home’, but there’s nobody like Dorothy!
#8: HAL 9000 “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)
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Created by legendary science fiction author and inventor enthusiast, Arthur C. Clarke... Directed onto film by a fast emerging Stanley Kubrick... HAL 9000 has quite the heritage! The first antagonist to make our countdown, HAL (which stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is the robotic controller of the Discovery One spacecraft. Voiced by Douglas Rain and visually represented by an imposing red-eyed camera lens, HAL’s an example of the inherent dangers with artificial intelligence... And an icon for all time and space!
#7: Count Dracula “Dracula” (1958)
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In the 20th century, vampires were an altogether different breed to the Edward Cullen archetypes we enjoy in the 21st century! And more than one actor’s portrayal set a scarily high standard! Whether portrayed by Bela Lugosi as one of Universal’s most iconic monsters, or Christopher Lee in the Hammer Horror films, Dracula is one deadly dude. Biting his way into horror movie history, the Count is an undisputedly classicvillain! He sleeps in a coffin, he hunts his prey at night, he harbors a quite literal blood lust... As nightmarish as they come, we couldn’t forget that face, even if we wanted to!
#6: Norman Bates “Psycho” (1960)
Continuing in the villainous vein, Alfred Hitchcock’s eponymous “Psycho”, Norman Bates, as a bad guy, is hard to beat! The keeper of the keys at the Bates Motel, he runs the place with his mentally ill ‘mother’.... When Marion Crane stops by, however, the Bates cover story begins to unravel, and Bates himself becomes more and more blatantly unhinged! ‘She’ wouldn’t harm a fly, but he definitely would! In classic Hitchcock fashion, Norman Bates sends a literal shiver down your spine!
#5: The Man with No Name “Dollars Trilogy” (1964-66)
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You might think it’d be difficult to remember a man with no name. But who could forget this classic Clint Eastwood role?! A quiet, stoic character, but seriously vengeful, there’s an incomparable mysteriousness to him, which was only heightened by Eastwood’s insistence that some of his original lines be cut from the final scripts! In the first of Sergio Leone’s ‘Dollars Trilogy’, he’s referred to as Joe; for the second, it’s ‘manco’; and in the third, he occasionally goes by ‘Blondie’. No matter what you call him, badasses just don’t get any better!
#4: The Tramp “The Tramp” franchise (1914-36)
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An absolute icon of the silent film era, the Tramp has higher aspirations than his social class affords him, and that’s what makes him hilarious! Almost always depicted as being somehow ‘out of place’, he’s as loveable as he is laughable. One of the most impressive things about the Tramp surrounds his conception: while working on the 1914 film, “Mabel’s Strange Predicament”, Chaplin was speedily told to don some silly make-up. He cobbled together this most memorable of looks in a matter of minutes. The man was a genius!
#3: Mary Poppins “Mary Poppins” (1964)
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A character that very nearly never made it to the big screen at all, Mary Poppins was made internationally famous by Disney, but was initially created by British writer, P. L. Travers. Travers was extremely reluctant to allow her nanny a cinematic adaptation, but aren’t we glad she relented in the end! Poppins is pure family fun, and an expert umbrella-ist! There ain’t no amount of made up words that can ever really do this character justice, though! She’s supercalifragilisticexpialidociously amazing!
#2: Kong “King Kong” (1933)
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Our runner-up’s the central character to a groundbreaking epic, a movie that was way, way ahead of its time! An impossibly giant ape with a legendary status within the story’s own narrative, he has since become a film industry icon in general! Captured and taken from his home on ‘Skull Island’, the giant gorilla is eventually showcased as the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’ to Broadway audiences, before the famous NYC rampage scene... Beauty kills the beast, but we’ll remember it for generations to come! Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions: - Maria von Trapp “The Sound of Music” (1965) - Frankenstein’s Monster “Frankenstein” (1931) - George Bailey “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) - Mrs. Robinson “The Graduate” (1967) - Tarzan “Tarzan the Ape Man” (1932) - Inspector Jacques Clouseau “The Pink Panther” (1963)
#1: James Bond “James Bond” franchise (1962-)
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The subject of the longest continually running film series to date, James Bond is never likely to be forgotten, not least because of his iconic intro line! The MI6 super-spy was first played by Sean Connery in “Dr. No”, and since 1962 he’s been busy shaking, not stirring, but generallystunning cinema audiences on an impressively regular basis, with another five Bond films coming before 1970 alone. He talks the talk andwalks the walk... He gets the best gadgets, the guns, and he always gets the girl! The guy’s colossally cool with theme music to match, and an immeasurably memorable movie character! Do you agree with our list? Which character did we forget? For more top 10s that you’ll also remember in fifty years’ time published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
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