Not sure what you mean; it was made in widescreen format.
Hmm. I’m confused. Imdb says it was 1-1.37. But my Scorsese’s Journey DVD shows it letterboxed. I was disappointed when the VHS I tracked down was not.
“Widescreen” format as we know it did not exist until the early 50s. LHTH was shot in standard Academy ratio (1.37).
Haven’t seen the Scorsese, but I would compare the VHS with the letterboxing on the DVD–the latter was probably cropped and you actually have more of the original information on the video.
What, no Maltese Falcon ?! Mary Astor’s character was as conniving as they come! I’ve actually just read the book and she’s even worse.
Ida Lupino was pretty nasty in “They Drive By Night” too, but probably more insane than evil.
Ever see “The Craft”? Fairuza Balk’s little witch was a real little - um - witch! (Apoligies to our Pagan Dopers)
Oh, and seconds on Mildred in “Of Human Bondage”.
Tony Soprano’s mother Livia, definately. What a hate-filled miserable excuse for a human being. And his sister Janice isn’t much better.
Sister Bridget from The Magdalene Sisters. Brr!
Shelley Winters as “Ma Barker.”
Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers in “Rebecca.”
Ann Sothern in an “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” She played a slattern who duped some ex-con[?] about money buried somewhere. He winds up at the bottom of a well, and she taunts him with what she’ll do with ALL the money. She gets her comeuppance, but good, by the end of the hour.
Myrna Loy, back, way back, when she was playing Oriental temptresses[The Daughter of Fu Manchu?]
Let me also join the chorus for Siobhan[Sian?] Philipps as Livia. These other names are but honorable mentions, and they should all bow down to kiss the hem of her garment. An action for which I’m sure they’d all be impaled by Livia, personally.
Saffron, from the “Our Mrs. Reynolds” episode of Firefly. Totally immoral and supremely self-centered. She never had the chance to get up to any really shocking evil, but knowing Joss Whedon, I’ll bet he was building her up to something pretty nasty.
The quadriplegic mother from The X-Files, the episode with the inbred mutant family. Gah.
Hands down, for me at least, was Nancy Culp’s portrayal of Eve’s mother in The Three Faces of Eve. That woman was FLAT OUT EVIL. What made it all the more chilling was that this was based on a true story.
Rita Hayworth as Gilda was pretty damn good, too.
Wow, I guess I’ve been missing out - I haven’t seen any of the movies mentioned here except The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and The Maltese Falcon.
However, I would like to nominate the “dead” girl in The Ring. Creating a video tape that kills people is one thing. Sparing people who pass it along to somebody else is another. She essentially forced the main character (whose name I can’t recall) to kill an innocent person by copying and passing along the tape, to save her son.
Side note: Is it just me, or was fear dot com a blatant ripoff of The Ring?
That was the episode entitled Enough Rope for Two. I saw the remade version back in the 80s. A wonderful exercise in situational irony and poetic justice.
The Hitchcock reference reminds me of a new Twilight Zone that starred Mare Winningham. She played a woman offered some fabulous sum if she’d just push a button. It would kill someone she didn’t even know…
Most of my nominee’s have already been listed. Here’s one that hasn’t:
Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction as a cold-hearted, conniving, manipulative, femme fatale uber-bitch in this excellent modern day noir. She was robbed of an academy award nomination despite winning critical raves for her performance because the movie was broadcast on cable TV before it had a brief theatrical run.
:coughcough:fiveprevious posters:coughcough
I’ve never seen Three Faces of Eve; was her mother comparable to Sybil’s?
Rachel, IIRC.
I don’t think the little girl in The Ring was evil. A monster, yes, but not evil. The movie gives the distinct impression that the parents resorted to occult methods in order for the mother to bring a child to term after several miscarriages, with disastrous results. In the hospital video, she says she’s sorry for hurting her mother (driving her insane). She doesn’t seem to have control over the damage she causes, whether it be driving people close to her insane, making weird images on X-ray film, causing horses to drown themselves, whatever. I don’t think the videotape was a deliberate creation, either. If it was, the intent was not to kill. Even in death, she was unable to sleep, and she seemed to be trying to find peace by sending whatever it was that was tormenting her away into the universe. The person seeing the tape can avoid death by copying it and showing it to someone else, who can avoid death by…, of course, most folks didn’t know that, and Rachel found it out by accident, but there’s still a fairly easy out. Just pass the tape along with the stern warning that the tape must be copied and shown to someone else, or you will die. And, since the human population is forever expanding, there would always be someone who hand’t seen the tape. What I wonder is, does the tape actually have to be copied, or can you escape death by just showing your copy to someone? And can you create sort of a daisy chain where a group of people watches the tape, makes a copy, then gives it to someone who has already seen it, thus technically fulfilling the requirements of passing the tape along but without endangering someone who might think “This is just damn silly” and shelve their copy without copying/showing it to anyone? And if someone decided to try to stop the cycle by rounding up all the copies of the tape and destroying them, would the little girl just make a new tape?
OK, hijack is over. I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
Queen Bavmorda from Willow
Paulina Novacek from Undercover Blues might fit the list.
Just thought of another - Patty McCormack in “The Bad Seed”.
As long as we’re beating up mothers, how about Bette Davis’ mother in Now, Voyager?
In looking back over the list, does anyone else notice a significant number of the women on it, while perhaps evil, weren’t really very good at it? Some of that may be a result of the Production Code which required that the evil get punished.