10 Reasons Why Donald Pleasence Is the Reason for the Season
What’s the most wonderful thing about this time of year? Is it putting Brach’s Pic-a-Mix at the top of the Halloween candy bowl to save the Kit-Kats at the bottom for one’s self? Is it dressing up as Big Bird with a binder full of bayonets (so I’m guessing will be the Beltway costume of choice this year)? Is it enjoying one last fun holiday before the Holidays With Pressure arrive?
It’s the TV, of course. It’s several straight nights or even a whole month (thanks, AMC) of getting to watch Donald Pleasence face off with Michael Myers.
The one. The only. The Donald.
Pleasence, of course, played Dr. Sam Loomis, archenemy to evil-brat-all-grown-up Michael Myers, in John Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978), 1981′s Halloween 2, 1988′s Halloween 4, 1989′s Halloween 5, and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995).
I give you 10 reasons why Donald Pleasence is that awesome — besides, obviously, being a great actor bringing a touch of class to a low-budget enterprise.
- The person in a horror movie who always knows what’s afoot while other don’t believe him always deserves a modicum of respect.
- He knows bullets can’t take down Michael Myers, and advises others of the same, but still keeps trying. Determination.
- How many other shrinks in trenchcoats do we have as movie action heroes?
- The best lines. Sheriff: “I have a feeling that you’re way off on this.” Dr. Loomis: “You have the wrong feeling.”
- The delivery. “We are talking about evil on two legs” sounds more awesome coming from Donald Pleasence than anyone else.
- His indestructibleness rivals Myers’, who can’t seem to kill his childhood psychiatrist with explosions, window tosses, etc.
- He never descends into weepy hysterics at the sight of Myers, but confronts and even challenges him: “Now you’ll come, won’t you, Michael?”
- You really root for Donald Pleasence. (And Jamie Lee Curtis, as well.) Whiny camp counselors being stalked by Jason in the Friday the 13th series? Not so much.
- He’s a man about it. “Michael? Why now? You waited ten years. I knew this day would come. Don’t go to Haddonfield. If you want another victim, take me. But leave those people in peace. Please, Michael?” Before he curses at Myers and pops .50 caliber slugs at him.
- He was the inspiration for Dr. Evil yet is the best fighting force against “evil on two legs” Myers.
Bridget? Bridget? Hon, are you alright? What’s the matter? Tell us, please. We want to help.
I dunno, I think the Tom Atkins would have been better. Donal Pleasance is a fine actor, but he seemed out of place – why would an elderly English doctor be practicing medicine in a small town in Illinois? And why does he have an accent 15 years later?
He was brilliant in Pumaman, though.
“And why does he have an accent 15 years later?”
People lose their accents at different rates. In my experience, people who learn a new language as an adult almost never lose all of their accent even over very long periods. My mother is a case in point. She came to this country almost 60 years ago as an adult and still has some of her European accent, even though her English is excellent.
That’s “Pyoooomaman!”
“And why does he have an accent 15 years later?”
I’ve lived in California for sixteen years. Most Americans still spot me straight away as English by birth and say I have little or no American accent. On the other hand, when I go to England, my family and other English people say I sound totally American.
I have always been a big Donald Pleasence fan. Charles Grey’s Blofeld sounds like a friendly uncle by comparison. His “The Great Escape” part was, as usualy, played to perfection and showed a different side.
I liked him in You Only Live Twice (1967) as Bond arch-enemyBlofeld. I just love his classic one-liner in that film “This Organization does not tolerate failure”.
A movie tip, he plays a German Wehrmacht General who plots against Hitler in the movie “Night of the Generals” where he plays against Charles Gray and Peter O` Toole.
Charles Gray played the ill-fated Henderson in You Only Live Twice and Blofeld himself in Diamonds Are forever (1971) .
But, on the whole i am not to fond of these slasher movies, just because of my unfortunate over-sensitivity.
Have to feed those fish.
Love both those Bond flicks.
His best role IMO was with Charlton Heston in “Will Penny”! But Halloween? Wasted talent, I say.
Believe he was passed over for Vincent Price’s role in The Witchfinder General. Probably a mistake, though Price was great.
Did you know Christopher Lee turned the part down? Regretted it for the rest of his life. Although Lee would have towered over Michael Meyers.
Also, Donald Pleasance only worked about 4 days on the original HALLOWEEN(!)
The first movie I saw Donald Pleasence in was when he played the wimpy, near blind forger who though tea without milk was uncivilized in “The Great Escape”. Who was helped to escape by James Garner but got killed because he couldn’t see what was going on. So seeing him as a hero, or an arch-villain either one just seems weird.
He rocked that role as the polite englishman with a “stiff upper lip”.
I, too, liked Donald Pleasence’s role in “The Great Escape.” His participation in that movie was unique, because he had actually been a Brit PoW, captured by the Germans after his plane was shot down. DP in the movie was reliving a period of his own life.
A welcome tribute to a fine character actor who also knew himself well enough to send himself up– check out an obscure 1981 movie called Alone in the Dark in which he does a very funny exaggeration of his Halloween psychiatrist character, responding to the latest bunch of killings by saying “Excellent, he’s working through his issues!”
His performance in “The Great Escape” was masterful and heartbreaking. His character was not a fighter, but a clerk. Nevertheless, he gave everything he had just like everyone else and paid the ultimate price just like everyone else. For me, his character was the one that provided some sense of “belief” to the movie.
Also, Himmler! Dracula! Pilate! The Priest in Prince of Darkness!
He rocked in Puma Man!
What? No love for ‘Fantastic Voyage’?
Glad I’m not the only one to remember FV. That may have been the first sci-fi film I ever saw in a theatre. Pleasence gave an excellent portrayal of the undercover villain — the spy/saboteur who manages to worm his way to the very top, while simultaneously casting aspersions on everyone else to draw suspicion away from himself.
As others have noted, Pleasence was also great in You Only Live Twice, but I was a little disappointed to see SPECTRE No. 1′s identity revealed. It was more fun when he was the faceless mastermind of evil who loved shaggy white cats. In the closing credits of From Russia With Love he was listed as “Ernst Blofeld — ?”
I’m lost here. I thought this was about The Donald. I just skimmed the article, but I don’t see a single thing about Trump in it. That instapundit link was a liar!
Don’t forget, POTUS in Escape From New York!
“The price of failure, Mr. Bond…”
Donald Pleasance was great in “The Great Escape.” It’s impossible to think of a film like that being made today – where would you find so many actors with as much gravitas as Pleasance, Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, James Garner, James Donald etc…. It should also be remembered that Donald Pleasance starred on Broadway in the title role in “The Man in the Glass Booth,” and he was supposed to have been brilliant. I am sorry I was too young to have seen it.
I too enjoyed his portrayal of the blind guy in “The Great Escape” where he played, if I remember right, a forger who was very nearsighted. He earned the right to be part of the escape crew by forging all the documents they’d need.
He also played a villain (as he often did) in the Charles Bronson spy thriller “Telefon”, where he was a Soviet rogue spy with a list of Soviet deep-cover “Manchurian Candidates” whom he could activate with a code phrase uttered over a telephone (hence the title). Bronson was the Soviet assassin sent to kill him, to keep him from starting World War III.
Pleasance was an odd, round little man, bald and almost always meek and harmless looking, but he often played the “still-waters-run-deep” psycho who killed people, or otherwise was unalterably evil and very cunning. When he stepped out of character (as in “The Great Escape”) he was brilliant.
Slasher films? Kid stuff. The single scariest thing I ever saw in a movie was Donald Pleasence as Heinrich Himmler. “Eagle has Landed”; crap movie, but casually and monumentally evil villain.