Favorite Paul Newman Movie?

[Andrew Longman]

One of the cable movie channels was running PLN movies all weekend. I got sucked into Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Cool Hand Luke. Got me thinking what the favorites might be among the faithful here.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid probably is mine, mostly because it was the first I'd seen and the first M rated (remember that?) movie I saw as a kid.

Cool Hand Luke may be second because it I think defined/perfected his persona as a lovable rascle (as opposed to sympathetic ahole in movies like Hud and Tin Roof). That persona was still in place in Slapshot, another of my favorites but because it is fun, not because it is a great movie (though much better than it might have been if not for Hill's direction).

The Sting IS a great movie and masterpiece for George Roy Hill.

Tin Roof is a great story by Tennessee Williams and a great cast, but not something I can watch over and over.

Speedway is a good movie as racing movies go, and I love watching Newman and Woodward work together knowing how much they loved each other in real life, but it isn't his best stuff.

I could go on, but I'll want to hear from you.

[Don Quixote]

Two of his later movies that I liked were the Verdict and Absense of Malice. The Hustler is also an alltime classic costaring with the fatman.

[Elmo T]

Maybe not on the hit list, but I always liked Fort Apache the Bronx and Nobody's Fool.

[Don Quixote]

Fort Apache the BronxI remember that movie being shockingly violent and disturbing when it came out. By today's standards, it's mild.

[dando]

Cool. Hand. Luke. Hands down.

I also like Cars....despite seeing it 500 times :saywhat:....thanks to some fire guy in PA that got Katherine hooked on cars. :gomer: The only Pixar flick I never saw in a theater. Took me ~2 years to finally watch it all the way through (after PLN's passing, BTW).

I also like The Color of Money....it's not his best work, but his only Oscar. :saywhat:

I also second Nobody's Fool....and Empire Falls was a good watch as well.

-Kevin

[SteveH]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Sting

Both are some of my favorites.

One that hardly ever gets attention is a made for HBO movie, Empire Falls (http://www.hbo.com/movies/empire-falls/index.html).

Might be one of PLN's last roles. He was great in it.

[chop456]

Slapshot, you fools.

Road to Perdition, too.

[TKGAngel]

Slapshot. So vulgar yet so quotable.

Cars is in second place.

[dando]

What we got here is failure to communicate.

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:thumbup:

-Kevin

[Don Quixote]

No man can eat 50 eggs.

[G.]

Blaze was kinda nice.

[dando]

No man can eat 50 eggs.

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Easter was never the same after I saw Cool Hand. :saywhat: I first saw Cool Hand on channel 10 on Sunday AM when they ran old movies in the late 70s. Today they wouldn't put movies like this on free TV if you paid them. Well maybe... :saywhat:

-Kevin

[Gnam]

I liked his absence in Driven. ;)

[Andrew Longman]

I liked his absence in Driven. ;)
Classic case of less is more. :gomer:

[pchall]

I liked his absence in Driven. ;)

i went to see Driven the first showing the day it opened. There were just two of us in the house. The other guy in the auditorium came back to my row and said that we both knew this was going to suck, but came anyway.

[Indy]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Magic.

[Andrew Longman]

Magic.

"Think you used enough dynamite there Butch?" :rofl:

[oddlycalm]

As a lover of film noir Harper, Drowning Pool and Twilight are faves. Newman's filmography is so long and has such towering performances that the merely great like "Hud" and "Long Hot Summer" tend to get forgotten.

"Sometimes A Great Notion" isn't among the best but it's by Kesey and about logging down on the Orygun coast so it's a favorite as well.

oc

[Don Quixote]

"Think you used enough dynamite there Butch?" :rofl:"Rules? In a knife fight? No rules!"

[TravelGal]

"What do you mean you can't swim? H-ll, the fall will probably kill ya"

But besides that, and all the others mentioned, he was THE definitive Stage Manager in Our Town. It's the first and only performance of that play that made any sense to me. TV 2003.

[nrc]

What? No love for "The Towering Inferno?"

[cameraman]

One of his more forgettable gigs was The Secret War of Harry Frigg.

[emjaya]

What? No love for "The Towering Inferno?"

PLN makes McQueen look like a plank in the Towering Inferno.

[Andrew Longman]

"Sometimes A Great Notion" isn't among the best but it's by Kesey and about logging down on the Orygun coast so it's a favorite as well.

oc

I love that film but it is rarely on TV and not available on DVD by my search. Way part of my inspiration as a kid to create the Andy Longman Logging Company with some of my toy trucks one summer during a family vacation to Prince Edwards Island and Nova
Scotia. (serious:gomer:)

[sadams]

Fat Man and Little Boy as General Groves

[stroker]

PLN makes McQueen look like a plank in the Towering Inferno.

McQueen always looked like a plank, but he was a cool plank...

[oddlycalm]

I love that film but it is rarely on TV and not available on DVD by my search. Way part of my inspiration as a kid to create the Andy Longman Logging Company with some of my toy trucks one summer during a family vacation to Prince Edwards Island and Nova
Scotia. (serious:gomer:)
Glad you gave up on that dream of going into the logging business... :)

Both the book and the film are hard to forget. Makes no sense that it never came out on DVD considering the cast and the significance of the book. Cutting the union bosses desk in half with a new power saw was a great scene. I happened to see the film in a logging town and the woodchips went crazy cheering that scene as well as the final scene. :gomer:

oc

[Fio1]

His performances in Hud and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof were epic! Those two movies were absolute classics, and will forever stand the test of time! I would add The Sting and Towering Inferno to the above two as my favorite PL movies, just because they were fun movies. Cool Hand Luke would be 5th on my list, with Slap Shot at #6.

My list is as follows:
1. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
2. Hud
3. The Sting
4. Towering Inferno
5. Cool Hand Luke
6. Slap Shot

[Dvdb]

Road to Perdition.

Understated co-starring role, which proved to me the man was an actor.