What a powerful presence he had. One of the most forceful screen actors ever.
His glare! His rough but strong voice. He's scarier than Pazuzu.
Personally, I'd rather be possessed by the devil than have George C Scott glare and growl at me.
Scott was Scott, as always. Glad you liked his performance, but for me he was not the Kinderman Blatty established so well in The Exorcist novel, in the Exorcist screenplay, and even in Legion, on which Exorcist III is based. Gone is the semi-befuddled, razor-sharp but gentle and genteel Jewish detective, and here is the mean, abrasive, insulting, angry Kinderman clone. Not all of this is due to Scott's naturally gruff manner - it's due to unconscionable changes to the Legion book made by Blatty himself. His new Kinderman is self-serving and arrogant: "I was signaling beings on Mars - sometimes they answer"; "You're a racist, Ryan"; "It is NOT in the file! IT IS NOT!!!!l "Go home. Go home and make fun of Wops." Etc.
shareWho would you have cast as Kinderman, if Blatty had written the part closer to the original?
shareI don't recall which actors were alive and available, and of a suitable age, at the time of filming... maybe Jason Robards, who was good at being soft-spoken as well as acerbic, as the role demanded. Maybe Alan Arkin (with the right aging makeup), or Martin Balsam, Ron Moody (if working on his British accent), Herschel Bernardi, Nehemiah Persoff. Or maybe someone not generally known to the public, maybe from the stage more than films, whom Blatty would be familiar with through his business contacts.
Not that Scott couldn't turn in a gentle, restrained performance, as in The Changeling, but Ex III was too vitriolically scripted for Scott to bring out that kind of characterization... I just wish Blatty had stayed with the original Kinderman, who as I mentioned still existed in the Legion novel from which Blatty adapted his Ex III screenplay. The ultimate responsibility was Blatty's, of course.
Jason Robards is a fantastic choice, he was so good in Something Wicked This Way Comes.
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There ya go - Robards indeed would have worked very well!
shareI'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you, but here's the thing: I don't dislike George C. Scott at all. In fact, I've seen him in other films and I thought he was great. So I know he can act well. Which is why I was so perplexed to find out how bad his acting was in The Exorcist III. I just can't understand it or what went wrong. I don't know if it's the fault of poor direction or the changes that he made from the book to the screenplay. But whatever it is, Scott's acting in this film is dangerously close to being unintentionally funny, even when he's supposed to be upset or serious. I actually laughed out loud at the scene where he's yelling at the nurse because the information he wants isn't in the file. That's how bad he was. I don't mean any disrespect towards him because he had a string of successes before this film. I'm just saying that his acting wasn't exactly up to par in this particular movie.
But besides that, there's a lot to like about the film. I was able to still enjoy it because one other actor in the movie stood out to me in an amazing way: Brad Dourif. I'm somewhat convinced that the Academy misplaced his award for the film because he is absolutely amazing as the Gemini killer. I was so enchanted by his performance, the first thing I did when I finished the film was I went back and re-watched all of Dourif's scenes because they were so good. As much as I love George C. Scott in other roles, I have to say that Brad Dourif was superior to him in this one.
I just can't understand it or what went wrong.
Seems to me that two things went wrong:
1. Blatty thinking that Scott was the ideal Kinderman in the first place. When he wrote the book, he pictured Scott as Kinderman - how on earth he envisioned Scott in the role is beyond imagining. Lee J. Cobb made a perfect Kinderman, and he was sorely missed in Exorcist III.
2. Blatty got his wish and netted Scott for Exorcist III... and he gave Scott rude, embarrassing dialogue - dialogue that does not appear in Blatty's own Legion novel from which he developed the Exorcist III screenplay. Blatty seems to have weakened and debased his own novelistic (Legion) Kinderman to accommodate Scott's normally gruff delivery. What a shame.
Just throwing in here...
I actually liked Scott's performance in the film (quite a bit), regardless of the fact the character didn't match up with who we saw in the first film (or in the 'Legion' book).
In fact, I thought everyone delivered a great performance.
Now... that said... I thought Brad Dourif was ridiculously good.
Just my $0.02.
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Wait a minute... who am I here?
Yeah, I kind of figured that myself. I don't know why Blatty was so insistent on casting him because the actor who played Kinderman in the original film was so sweet and light-hearted by comparison. Whereas in the third film, he's almost a completely different person. Again, I'm not saying that George C. Scott is a bad actor, but I think he might have been miscast in the role. However, the film was good as a whole and thankfully his acting didn't ruin it for me, like I said before.
shareYears ago, upon seeing this film at the age of 11, not long after I had watched the original, I too noticed the differences in the Kinderman characters. But I figured something very important was going on.
I thought that, the Kinderman we see in this movie, was the same character from the original, after 15 more years of harsh on-the-job experience. 15 more years of murder, 15 more years of a modern Georgetown becoming even more modern, and a worn lieutenant taking on case after case, year after year, until more and more cynicism and crankiness from old age has set in and taken its toll on him.
To me, that is what was the cause of the changes between Kinderman versions here. Is there a chance that the Cobb version of the character we see in the original could still retain the same homely personality and sunny outlook after 15 more years of grisly homicides and morbid reality setting in? I suppose so. But what would that have done for the characterization of the lieutenant literarily, if there were no changes from one era of the man's life to another? Think timid victimized Sarah Conner in The Terminator versus violent initiative Sarah Conner in Terminator 2, or think sharp heroic John McClane in Die Hard versus the hungover lowlife McClane in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
I guess in the case of the two aforementioned examples, we have the original actors reprising their roles as their respective characters, whereas in the case of this film, we have a new actor taking on a new version of a character. I suppose if Cobb had been around to act out this new, further aged, not-always-pleasant version of Kinderman, some of us might respect it more.
Also keep in mind that Legion occurs twelve years after The Exorcist. The same is not the case with The Exorcist III. After taking a moment to reflect on the character once it was clear to Blatty that the film would be set fifteen years after the original as opposed to just twelve, maybe it was time to depict a version of the lieutenant that Blatty figured would be more downed and stressed as a natural reaction to the oncoming harshness of the 90s (the film is set in 1990 afterall, where the murder rate in Washington DC alone has become colossal, and the crack cocaine epidemic is in full swing, a very different time from the one humans knew in the 70s; in real life, many oldtimers around Kinderman's age back then viewed this era very pessimistically). I feel this shockingly morbid version of the man is far more realistic than retaining his classic charm and homely demeanor from the original would have been.
I'm not a control freak, I just like things my way
I liked Scott in an entertaining scenery-chewing kind of way, but he was a complete mismatch to the character who we saw in the original film and the Kinderman of the novel.
With Lee J. Cobb long dead, Scott did seem like a good replacement, since they're played many of the same roles on Broadway and even had similar "relief map" facial features. The problem seems to be that Friedkin is much better at controlling actors and getting the performances that he wants than Blatty, who, let's face it, was an amateur as a director with only two interesting but flawed films on his resume. Friedkin probably could have given us the subtle Kinderman out of Scott while Blatty could not.
Friedkin probably could have given us the subtle Kinderman out of Scott while Blatty could not.
However, I doubt that Blatty even wanted the subtle Kinderman in Scott's performance. He completely rewrote Kinderman's lines in the novel Legion, turning the gentle speech into the caustic, arrogant and obscure stuff that the Scott character spews. The novel's Kinderman has no thumping on desks/"It is NOT in the file! It is NOT!", no "Are you an ANIMAL??", no "You're a racist, Ryan...go home and talk about Wops", no "SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!". Legion's Kinderman is basically the original novel's Kinderman - steel-trap mind combined with schmaltzy-avuncular schtick. The Exorcist III Kinderman is a completely different creature, and the fault lies chiefly in Blatty's own writing.
"It is NOT in the file! It is NOT!"
That's in the novel.
it sure is a dog of a night
It may be in the novel, but all of the other ugly, nasty, baiting, over-the-top, abrasive Scott-Patton nonsense isn't. Legion's Kinderman is still the Kinderman of the original book, as played so flawlessly by Lee J. Cobb. The Exorcist III Kinderman is a far different character from the one in both The Exorcist and Legion. One line shared by the Legion Kinderman and the Exorcist III Kinderman does not an identical character make.
shareAgreed he is great in this. I love his "it is not in the file!" rant.
Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .
I find George C Scott to be the same type of character in all his movies. He seems to be temperamental, and always has a ranting scene.
shareCheck him out in 'Malice'.
It's a brief scene, but very effective, and not your typical George C. Scott performance.
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Wait a minute... who am I here?
I find George C Scott to be the same type of character in all his movies. He seems to be temperamental, and always has a ranting scene
he obviously wasn't trying very hard for subtle in this movie
True enough, although to be fair, Blatty wrote Kinderman as a jerk, at least in the finished script. In the novel Legion, Kinderman is still largely the same, befuddled-but-sharp, aging Jewish detective from The Exorcist. He's still "our Kinderman". But Blatty wrote the screenplay with a completely changed Kinderman in mind. I mean, just try to imagine Lee J. Cobb mouthing the nasty dialogue spoken by Scott in the film. Can't be done. The ExIII Kinderman is a different, and a lesser, character, which is really sad and disappointing.
I mean, just try to imagine Lee J. Cobb mouthing the nasty dialogue spoken by Scott in the film.
Yes, that's the Cobb that I meant - the gentler Cobb as he portrayed the gentler Kinderman. I know LJC could be menacing, but I think we are agreed that the gentler Kinderman is the real Kinderman and that the re-written Scott-Kinderman is an aberration who is in a perpetual rage.
shareIt really threw me off when this film first came out, because the characters were entirely different. But there wasn't much alternative, since E. 3 required an aggressive lead.
shareAnd what a great dialog of lines he has in this film. Great writing, but too bad the ending stunk.
shareGreat writing, but too bad the ending stunk.