Hey ya’ll. I’ve been watching some reruns of Just Shoot Me lately, and the show has reminded me how funny George Segal can be. I’d like to watch some of the many movies he has been in, but I have no idea where to start. He’s been in so many films. Can anyone recommend me some of his movies that are really good?
My favorite George Segal movie is Where’s Poppa?, but this is one of those love-it-or-hate it movies that isn’t to everyone’s taste. It’s crass, offensive, and absolutely hilarious (in my opinion).
My two favorite comedic films of his are The Hot Rock and Flirting with Disaster. Though the latter is funnier, his role is significantly smaller.
He received his only Oscar nomination for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, so while it’s not a comedy, it is a film worth checking out.
Looking at his IMDB bio,
Fun with Dick and Jane (1977)
The Longest Day (1962)
but my favorite, The Terminal Man (1974)
CMC +fnord!
What’s the George Segal movie that has the line, “Don’t blame me, you shot the projectionist.” I may be remembering this totally wrong, but it’s an old memory I have and I think it was a George Segal movie and I remember the moment as being very funny.
FWIW, his performance in Just Shoot Me is kind of odd; the main reason I didn’t like the show. George Segal is a good actor, and has done some brilliant dramatic work. And comic work as well. But in Just Shoot Me, it’s like he decided that sitcom acting required a bizarrely exaggerated style, that was unlike anything he’d ever done before. His acting style in that show was so offputtingly muggy and clownish that it came off–to me–as insulting; patronizing; condescending. As if he’d decided that the entire TV audience is, mentally speaking, children. His TV style would be perfectly appropriate to an episode of The Wiggles, but in an “adult” show I found it cringeingly unwatchable.
That said, *The Terminal Man *is probably my favorite film adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel, largely because of Segal’s performance.
Awesome, thanks for the tips. I’ve actually seen The Longest Day, but it has been a while. I’ll have to watch it again someday. I will probably check out all of the above movies eventually. I’ve read quite a few Crichton books, but not Terminal Man.
The Hot Rock looks particularly good.
I’d like to see “The Terminal Man” again. It’s not out on official DVD yet. I may look around for an unofficial release.
Looking over the list at just his novels made into films, no contest IMHO.
I really love it a double feature with CHAЯLY.
CMC +fnord!
Answering my own question. I remembered that Susan Anspach was in the film along with Segal, which would make it “Blume in Love.”
For a look at what a fine dramatic actor George Segal can be, check out King Rat.
Perhaps a bit hard to find, but I always thought he was brilliant opposite Elliot Gould in Robert Altman’s California Split.
my favorite is The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox with Goldie Hawn
Everything’s available in Hong Kong . . .
George Segal strikes me as one of those actors who is convinced he is funny, and carries some people along with it via the depth of his conviction, but in fact he does not have a funny bone in his body.
Alan Arkin of course is the worst of the lot. Segal and Arkin have stunk up a lot of comedies.
I have been a George Segal fan ever since I saw The Young Doctors. I think in '62. He was something of an add on in a relatively minor part as a doctor who washes out of med school because he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He still sticks in my mind as the only part in that film (a film that was created to highlight a bunch of other actors).
I loved him opposite Rod Stieger in No Way to Treat a Lady. He brought a delightful charm to the part of a cop trying to go against a criminal genius serial killer (Stieger).
In my opinion his best, however, was a made-for-television version of Of Mice and Men where he played George and the then soon to be knighted Nicol Williamson played Lenny. It was spot on. It was brilliant. Segal captured the Steinbeck character like no one else has in my opinion. He capured the frustration, the attempt at being in charge, the caring, the borderline (but not quite) conman.
I also loved his turn as a machine-gun loving, girlfriend bashing mobster in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacure; not many lines, but very memorable.
As far as bad movies of his go, make sure to avoid The Last Married Couple in America. My parents dragged me and my sister off to see it in the theatres in 1980, had to be the worst movie I’ve ever seen in which I had little choice in seeing it.
I always liked him in Who Is Killing The Great Chefs Of Europe?.
Regardless of whether you’re a fan or not (and I’m rather neutral on him), he’s had an interesting career. During the the 70’s he was the go-to guy for romantic comedies but those roles suddenly dried up for him in the early 80’s. His career was in limbo for years (he become best known for his banjo-playing appearances on “The Tonight Show”) until he got cast in “Just Shoot Me.”
Incidentally, Segal was originally cast as the composer having a mid-life crisis in 10 but dropped due to supposed “creative differences” with director Bake Edwards and was replaced by Dudley Moore.
*A Touch of Class * with Glenda Jackson. Pretty dated now, but excellent performances.