# Most Evil Eyeglasses in the History of Cinema **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 31, 2019, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530 "2019-08-31T20:18:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/1 "2019-08-31T20:18:52Z")
I read online somewhere that Burt Lancaster, playing J.J. Hunsecker the monstrous Broadway newspaper columnist in 1957’s **The Sweet Smell of Success** , wore the “most evil glasses in movies.” They were a standard late-‘50s design with hornrims on the top half and underwire below. They are currently the most popular “hipster” glasses in Brooklyn, or were a few years back. They oddly magnified Hunsecker’s malevolence in the movie: Lancaster without glasses wouldn’t be the devil he is with them on his nose. > **[Sweet Smell of Success](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Smell_of_Success)** > > Sweet Smell of Success is a 1957 American film noir drama film directed by Alexander Mackendrick, starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, and Martin Milner, and written by Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman, and Mackendrick from the novelette by Lehman. The shadowy noir cinematography filmed on location in New York City was shot by James Wong Howe. The picture was produced by James Hill of Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists. The supporting cast features Sam... I kinda agree with this estimate, although I also lean toward Doctor Caligari’s specs. Just because…you know, it’s CALIGARI. > **[The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: The World's First Horror Movie](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-cabinet-of-dr-caligari-the-worlds-first-horror-movie/)** > > The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is almost a hundred years old, yet still casts a long shadow over all the genres it invented. Let’s see some more opinions, ‘kay? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/2 "2019-08-31T20:49:03Z")
I have worn [Ray-Ban Clubmaster frames](https://www.ray-ban.com/switzerland/en/mobile/eyeglasses/RX5154%20UNISEX%20004-clubmaster%20optics-black/805289270102) for ten years and have gotten several compliments from total strangers, so they not so evil as to be offputting. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/3 "2019-08-31T20:55:41Z")
I wouldn’t want to run into [Harry Palmer](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060437/mediaviewer/rm4224541440). (Sure, Caine generally has worn glasses of this ilk, but Palmer’s whole persona is scary and the glasses play a big role.) ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/4 "2019-08-31T21:25:03Z")
When I think of bespectacled evil, the first name that comes to mind is [Arnold Ernst Toht](https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Arnold_Ernst_Toht). ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/5 "2019-08-31T21:32:47Z")
Dr. Strangelove: > **[With Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick shot a brilliant satire like a straight thriller](https://www.avclub.com/with-dr-strangelove-kubrick-shot-a-brilliant-satire-l-1798188226)** > > For those who know Dr. Strangelove well, here’s a fun experiment: Watch it with the sound off, imagining that you’ve never seen it before, and try to determine at which point you’d realize that you’re supposed to be laughing. Stanley Kubrick,... > **[17 Facts About Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love...](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63436/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-dr-strangelove)** > > Stanley Kubrick’s bleak Cold War satire, which was released 55 years ago, belongs to a class and genre all its own. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/6 "2019-08-31T21:46:11Z")
Do sunglasses count as “eyeglasses?” If so, there are none more evil-looking than those adorning the cold, hard visage of…The Man with No Eyes. > **[Cool Hand Luke (1967)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061512/mediaviewer/rm3290313472)** > > Morgan Woodward in Cool Hand Luke (1967) Does TV count as “cinema”? If so, dare to stare into the face of one of Gotham’s most dastardly literary terrors…Bookworm! > **[9](http://thefwoosh.com/9-8/)** > > Your Home for Toy News and Action Figure Discussion! (IIRC, the lenses were so thick, Mr. McDowell could not see out of them and he is generally shown being helped by other cast members when he has to move around in the episode.) Mr. McDowell obviously had an affinity for striking e-ville poses with spectacles, as can be seen from this candid shot… [http://www.followingthenerd.com/site/wp-content/uploads/roddy-mcdowall.jpg](http://www.followingthenerd.com/site/wp-content/uploads/roddy-mcdowall.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/7 "2019-08-31T22:03:52Z")
If you want to open it up to literature as well as cinema, how about the dark glasses worn by the man who was Saturday in G. K. Chesterton’s _The Man Who Was Thursday_: > [@](#): > > Right at the end sat the man called Saturday, the simplest and the most baffling of all. He was a short, square man with a dark, square face clean-shaven, a medical practitioner going by the name of Bull. He had that combination of savoir-faire with a sort of well-groomed coarseness which is not uncommon in young doctors. He carried his fine clothes with confidence rather than ease, and he mostly wore a set smile. There was nothing whatever odd about him, except that he wore a pair of dark, almost opaque spectacles. It may have been merely a crescendo of nervous fancy that had gone before, but those black discs were dreadful to Syme; they reminded him of half-remembered ugly tales, of some story about pennies being put on the eyes of the dead. Syme’s eye always caught the black glasses and the blind grin. Had the dying Professor worn them, or even the pale Secretary, they would have been appropriate. But on the younger and grosser man they seemed only an enigma. They took away the key of the face. You could not tell what his smile or his gravity meant. Partly from this, and partly because he had a vulgar virility wanting in most of the others it seemed to Syme that he might be the wickedest of all those wicked men. Syme even had the thought that his eyes might be covered up because they were too frightful to see. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/8 "2019-08-31T22:19:32Z")
My proposal? [Gary Oldman’s glasses](https://www.syfy.com/sites/syfy/files/styles/1200x680/public/2017/10/bram_stokers_dracula.jpg)from the 1992 Dracula, AKA the shades that launched a million 1990s vampire cosplays. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/9 "2019-08-31T22:46:45Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > When I think of bespectacled evil, the first name that comes to mind is [Arnold Ernst Toht](https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Arnold_Ernst_Toht). This was my vote when I saw the thread title. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/10 "2019-09-01T00:02:53Z")
Robert Prosky as The Judge in _The Natural_ (1984). He’s clearly supposed to be The Devil, and in most scenes you can’t see his eyes because of his glasses. But unlike other cases of glasses obscuring the eyes, his glasses aren’t dark or mirrored – they are always simply angled to reflect whatever light is in the room. Couldn’t find any still images in a quick search ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/11 "2019-09-01T00:03:40Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > When I think of bespectacled evil, the first name that comes to mind is [Arnold Ernst Toht](https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Arnold_Ernst_Toht). Another vote for this character. Even if he stole the look from [real life evil](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/57a1a1682a00002d004f8042.jpeg?cache=hxqopxiqsl&ops=scalefit_720_noupscale). ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/12 "2019-09-01T00:34:38Z")
Gave this more thought and came up with some obvious ones: Vin Price in _Tomb of Ligeia:_ [![](https://shebloggedbynight.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ligeia5.jpg) ](https://shebloggedbynight.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ligeia5.jpg) The evil robots from _Wild, Wild Planet:_ [![](https://www.badmovies.org/movies/wildplanet/wildplanet3.jpg) ](https://www.badmovies.org/movies/wildplanet/wildplanet3.jpg) Controller of Planet X in _Destroy All Monsters:_ [![](https://i2.wp.com/deluxevideoonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Controller_of_Planet_X.jpg?ssl=1) ](https://i2.wp.com/deluxevideoonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Controller_of_Planet_X.jpg?ssl=1) And how could I forget not only one of the most iconic evil eyeglasses of all time, but a movie which hinges on them, _Dr. Cyclops_: > **[Dr. Cyclops (1940)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032412/mediaviewer/rm1976841728)** > > Albert Dekker and Charles Halton in Dr. Cyclops (1940) Nevertheless, my vote for the Most Evil Eyeglasses in the History of Cinema goes to… Peter Lorre in _Mad Love:_ [![](https://crackedrearviewer.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/madlove4.jpg) ](https://crackedrearviewer.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/madlove4.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/13 "2019-09-01T01:13:50Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If you want to open it up to literature as well as cinema, how about the dark glasses worn by the man who was Saturday in G. K. Chesterton’s _The Man Who Was Thursday_: Oh, good call! When Dr. Bull took off his dreadful smoked glasses, he was revealed as a perfectly normal, healthy, robust young man. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/14 "2019-09-01T01:22:07Z")
**Dropo: Peter Lorre in Mad Love** Another excellent choice. Only two minutes long but one of the great moments in horror film history. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/b4vmMm6E8I0/maxresdefault.jpg "Rollo Returns | Mad Love | Warner Archive") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4vmMm6E8I0) ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/15 "2019-09-01T01:26:34Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I have worn [Ray-Ban Clubmaster frames](https://www.ray-ban.com/switzerland/en/mobile/eyeglasses/RX5154%20UNISEX%20004-clubmaster%20optics-black/805289270102) for ten years and have gotten several compliments from total strangers, so they not so evil as to be offputting. Well, you’d scare the hell out of ME. “I’m a schoolboy, Sidney. Teach me, teach me.” “Match me, Sidney.” ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/16 "2019-09-01T01:54:36Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > When I think of bespectacled evil, the first name that comes to mind is [Arnold Ernst Toht](https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Arnold_Ernst_Toht). Even seeing that pic gives me the willies. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/17 "2019-09-01T02:56:41Z")
Judge Doom. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/18 "2019-09-01T03:16:16Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Robert Prosky as The Judge in _The Natural_ (1984). He’s clearly supposed to be The Devil, and in most scenes you can’t see his eyes because of his glasses. But unlike other cases of glasses obscuring the eyes, his glasses aren’t dark or mirrored – they are always simply angled to reflect whatever light is in the room. > > Couldn’t find any still images in a quick search Will [this](https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/6177355/722full-the-natural-%281984%29-screenshot.jpg) do? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/19 "2019-09-01T04:40:00Z")
[Sheriff Cooley](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Sheriff_Cooley). “He’s white, as white as you folks, with empty eyes and a big hollow voice.” ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530/20 "2019-09-01T19:14:04Z")
Not fiction at all, but I don’t think any fictitious character can ever beat [Augusto Pinochet](https://iconicphotos.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/pinochetjunta.jpg?w=398&h=595) for evil/shades combo. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-eyeglasses-in-the-history-of-cinema/839530.md?page=2)