Better than Psycho if you ask me.

I don't think he becomes a villian. At least I don't think that that was Hitchcock's intent. That's a 21st century, revisionist take, IMO. He was a victim of a murder scheme in which he tragically fell for the wrong woman.

@@lynnturman8157 In a toxic relationship both people tend to be the villain. Madeline was no innocent, but Scottie's reaction was to become more and more obsessive/controlling. Something that is one of the key features of domestic abuse. She was gaslighting him, but he was emotionally abusive to her to the point that it contributed to her death.

I think you're right on all points, Jerry! But as usual, I gots options... My one problem with _Vertigo_ _is_ Jimmy Stewart--Stewart already had that avuncular thing going for years, and maybe he was already a shade too old to be convincing (I can't remember how old Stewart was when he played Charles Lindbergh in '57, but I think he was pushing it then), and so it was hard for me to quite buy that disturbing heel turn. Not that this kind of thing doesn't happen in real life--I know people in certain fields and I've heard horrifying stories--but this is the movies, and and the movies are not quite our universe; we learn over time to identify the Stewart from other universes as being a "Jimmy Stewart" character with all those "Jimmy Stewart" attributes. A character actor might be a sorta good guy in one movie and a sorta bad guy in another; and maybe Henry Fonda can be the American West's greatest bastard in _Once Upon a Time in the West,_ but when it comes to a movie star like Stewart, acting too far from type is not something that I think works too often. In fact, I can think of two actors who might have worked better in the Scottie role, and they're both former Doctor Whos, and both men played extremely mercurial versions of the Doctor; you were never quite sure which way they were gonna jump. Further, they (at the time they played the Doctor) were relatively young, and very attractive men, and I think this would make the romance angle work better. If Hitch had worked today, he wouldn't have simply needed to suggest sexual tension-- _Vertigo_ is a pretty sick and kinky movie! The actors I'm thinking of are Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant... And now, I'll shut up; methinks I've blathered too much again...

He didnt become the villain. He forced that woman to confront her sinful deeds which made his life tragic and that is not villainy

I agree. He should have guest-starred on Columbo.

I love the Thin Man films, and I knew they mention it.

@@wellesradio that would have been amazing!!

I haven't even started the video yet, and I know *After the Thin Man* will be talked about. When we watched that movie, my husband (who isn't one to spot stars in early roles or identify popular character actors) mused, "You know who would be good in that role? Jimmy Stewart. Stewart would have been good." "Uhhh, sweetie," sez I....

Rope is my all time favourite movie and cemented Stewart as my favourite actor ever. Everything about that film is brilliant.

What about Montgomery Clift?

@@SirBlackReeds Amazing actor but Stewart’s resume is pretty hard to beat.

I think it was during the AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards for Stewart that Dustin Hoffman said that "It's a Wonderful Life" was, all by itself, an object course on how film acting should be done (my paraphrase, it's been years since I watched it).

Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Cary Grant, James Cagney, James Stewart, Laurence Olivier..some of the greatest male actors ever..

Let's not go nuts.

Huh? His performance in Vertigo is considered to be one of the best in all of cinema

Stewart's performance in Vertigo was initially underappreciated by Hitchcock himself because he blamed Stewart's age for the film being not well received. After Vertigo Hitchcock discontinued further collaboration with Stewart. For me Stewart's performance in Vertigo seems exceptionally great regardless the age difference between him and Kim Novak.

when it was released it was underrated but now its seen as one of the best by pretty much everyone

Dude, you neeeeed to see the Ladykillers remake. Tom Hanks is BEST when he is cast as a villain and allowed to run it wild and flamboyant.

You should watch some more hanks movies he's actually a good villian

Tom Hanks tried to be the Jimmy Stewart of HIS era, and only partly succeeded.

Stewart had subtlety and art whereas Hanks is a sock puppet. Nothing about them is comparable.

Look at the shit eating grin he does in "The Bonfire of the Vanities" As soon as I saw that I knew he would do a great job at playing a villian

He killed the real hangman too.Although we never get to see it.He's just as bad as his brother in the movie

100%. I honestly expected him to bookend it, going back to IAWL and pointing out how George Bailey going nuts at the end predicts all of Stewart's darker roles. The once-good man who was too self-repressed and self-sacrificing, being pushed too far, and just *snapping.* If Bailey had actually jumped, but survived, he'd become a Stewart Western character.

Him yelling at his kids is so intense that I get frightened. So intense, so dark.

Such a great one!

Very well said.

I am always amused when he bites his finger -- today it reads to me as a stock gesture.

He is in Billy Wilder's The Spirit of St. Louis

@@sillypenta ok, I need to watch that film.

@@medardbitangimana4580 Not only is The Spirit of St Louis an excellent movie but Stewart did a bunch of the flying in it, there's a scene where the airplane lands and taxi's up to the camera and Stewart climbs out, it's definitely him who landed the plane because there's no cut shot in the scene.

@@dukecraig2402 Well the man was a pilot in the US Army during WW2, I believe.

Fantastic movie

Or him in the Boston Strangler

Consider the kind of company John Oliver tries to attract, is it any wonder he said something so stupid?

I mean he said it in segment about how filibusters were misunderstood and used Mr. Smith as an example, I wouldn't take it too seriously.

Who's John Oliver?

@@irish66 Host of HBO's political satire show Last Week Tonight.

@@Bigfrank88 I actually agree with his points about the filibuster. Even so his actual statement about classic film actors "they were all had back then, but he (James Stewart) was particularly bad" really annoyed me.

Same with Harrison Ford. He has only played the villian once. What Lies Beneath.

@@anubusx - Well, that's only the surprise ending that you've now spoiled. The whole point in casting him is because you don't expect him to be guilty. There's also Presumed Innocent, which leaves us wondering through most of the movie. I could also make a case for The Mosquito Coast, where he may not be an outright villain, but he goes down a dark path and is far from sympathetic. David Tennant has of course played outright villains at least twice, as Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter, and Kilgrave in Jessica Jones.

I agree, although I think using Jimmy Steward to play Forest Gump would be like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Hanks kept getting great scripts which seemed to cast him in Stewart-like roles (in the absence of other actors to take them) - Philadelphia, Castaway, The Road To Perdition, Saving Private Ryan, etc. - but one can only reflect on how much better those movies would have been if starring Jimmy Stewart.

Yess, finally someone mentioned the (Seventh Heaven).. yes it is so great and James Stewart acting in it so poetic, purely romantic and charming with no equal, hard to believe this movie was one of his very earliest roles,, his talent is so immence and always fresh. The one and only James Stewart ❤.

That must have been a really shitty weak

how did he play a villain in anatomy of a murder?

His roles as Leo Bloom in “The Producers” and Harold Hill in “The Music Man” spring to mind. In both of them he played a con man. Also, his character in “Election” displayed some morally questionable behavior.

I was curious if Liberty Valance would show up in this video, but I’m not sure his character is particularly a villain in that movie (I tend to think it depends on how you view the character, or how much of a moral bad act you consider lying to be.) In Liberty Valance, he is given credit for killing an outlaw and becomes a sort of celebrity because of it. Most of the movie revolves around him telling his story to someone looking to write a biography about him and celebrate his heroic action taking down the dangerous criminal. Except in course of telling his story, he reveals that he was not the man who shot Liberty Valance, and that he went along with lie largely because it benefited him to do so. So the question of whether or not his character is a villain in this depends on how egregious you think his lying is. The twist becomes that upon learning the truth, the biographer decides not to retell it in his book, including one of my favorite lines in cinema “when the myth becomes legend, print the legend.” In other words, the writer decides the story is best with Jimmy Stewart cast as the man who shot Liberty Valance, even if it wasn’t him and in spite of his desire to have the truth finally be known. In this way, Jimmy’s punishment for his bad deed is being forced to live the lie even after he no longer wants to. I personally don’t see him as a villain exactly in this movie, but rather as a sort of victim of a very human characteristic (a desire to be loved and celebrated by those around him) whose moral failing (lying) ends up becoming the vehicle of his own comeuppance.

@@chloemchll3774 I guess you are right that he isn’t the villain per se, but he is depicted negatively, and I guess for Jimmy Stewart that is pretty close!