I remember DeForest Kelly once said that sometime around 1964 Gene Roddenberry told him he was developing two shows. One was a “High Noon” type western. The other was a space story that has this interesting role for an alien with green skin and pointed ears and----. Kelly cut him off by saying that when you get High Noon sold, give him a call.
EdTV might not, itself, be a great movie but Landau makes it well worth watching (going back to the OP).
Back when Star Trek: The Motion Picture had just started production and Nimoy was playing hard to get and resisting signing on, I remember thinking how cool it would be if Roddenberry replaced him with Martin Landau. Of course that wasn’t going to happen (Spock was going to be written out of the film entirely if Nimoy couldn’t be persuaded to join the cast) but it was fun to think about.
I’m sure it’s just me, but back in the day, I confused Landau for John Cassavetes.
Wait – David Brinkley is dead!?
Martin Landau was also in the televised “radio program” * Merry Christmas, George Bailey, * in which he had the part of Mr. Potter.
No one’s mentioned yet that before he went into acting, Landau worked as a cartoonistfor the New York Daily News.
Does anyone else wonder if he ever drove a car with a landau roof? And smirked every mile in it? “Yeah, buddy… but mine’s real!”
It would have been bewitching if they’d switched actors mid-film.
Okay, I’ll quit now.
Just to piggy-back on this rotten, shambling carcass; the post above made me shudder. She single-handedly almost spoils Buffy for me - hammy, tiresome, atrocious ‘cockney’ accent, etc.
Which is what made her appearances so wonderful…like Shatner made Star Trek TOS the best sci fi series
Uhhhh … you know, of course, that they did? :dubious:
One of the things that sticks in my mind about Landau was at the grand opening of Tom Cruise’s first Mission Impossible, he was on the red carpet and one of the MTV bimbos who was covering the event asked him what right did he have to appear on the carpet for such a movie. He tore her a new one commenting on her lack of knowledge of her media, her lack of research, and her lack of class…It was neat.
I always had a soft spot in my heart for Landau’s intimate performance in Rounders, one of my favorite movies of all time.
Let’s Talk about Martin Landau
Agreed on both counts.
No one has mentioned his Academy Award yet? He played Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. He also won Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award for the part.
If you are a fan of Plan 9 From Outer Space, you need to see Ed Wood.
The highlight of my entire movie-going life was Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi coming over the hill to the stream to wrestle with a rubber octopus and yelling, “All right, let’s shoot this fucker!”
Yes, Martin as Bela is fine work. And the fucker line is a classic 
If you watch Ed Wood you really need to watch Ed Wood’s movie classic Glen or Glenda shortly after.
In the Man From Uncle episode, “The Bat Cave Affair,” Landau played a vampire-like character in very broad, flamboyant style. As a kid it made melaugh and permanently put Landau on my list of “Cool Actors.”
Searching for it just now to see how it still holds up, it seems that Man From Uncle isn’t available for free on the Web/Hulu/NetFlix. Although there is a still here.