# Movie bookends: who had the best first/ last movie combination?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-bookends-who-had-the-best-first-last-movie-combination/818381>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 22, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-bookends-who-had-the-best-first-last-movie-combination/818381 "2018-07-22T17:12:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-bookends-who-had-the-best-first-last-movie-combination/818381/1 "2018-07-22T17:12:29Z")

</div>

Finding the actor, writer, composer or director with the perfect bookends is harder than you think. You can find some strong starts with weak finishes, the other way around or nothing good at all. But let’s see some candidates:

**John Huston** : The Maltese Falcon (1941) - The Dead (1987)

A classic of noir film and a celebrated adaptation of a James Joyce short story. This one should be hard to top.

**Sidney Lumet** : 12 Angry Men (1957) - Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)

One of the greatest movies of all time and a Phillip Seymour Hoffman starring film that had decent reviews.  
Actors are trickier… but I’m going to cheat and pick an actor who died young:

**James Dean** : East of Eden (1955) - Giant (1956)

He had some uncredited stuff before Eden I’m not counting, and Giant may not be as revered as his other two, but he did get a nomination for his work on it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-bookends-who-had-the-best-first-last-movie-combination/818381/2 "2018-07-22T17:42:15Z")

</div>

How about **Christopher Lee**? From Corridor of Mirrors to The Hobbit.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [July 22, 2018, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-bookends-who-had-the-best-first-last-movie-combination/818381/3 "2018-07-22T18:16:10Z")

</div>

John Cazale wins any thread concerning quality of film appearances, first, last, in between.

First: _The Godfather_  
Last: _The Deer Hunter_

In between: _The Conversation, Godfather: Part II, Dog Day Afternoon._

Any actor would give their right arm to be in films 5 films like that. Never mind being their only five.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-bookends-who-had-the-best-first-last-movie-combination/818381/4 "2018-07-23T00:45:14Z")

</div>

Before getting nominated for Oscar after Oscar after Oscar for Best Cinematography, Douglas Slocombe’s first behind-the-camera credit was for _Lights Out In Europe_, in the course of which he shot documentary footage while [“covering a Goebbels rally and the burning of a synagogue, for which he was briefly arrested.”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Slocombe)

And his final behind-the-camera credit, the biggest movie of its year, got audiences to cheer for a guy who worked against Nazis: _Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade_.

As bookends go, that’s actually kind of awesome.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-bookends-who-had-the-best-first-last-movie-combination/818381/5 "2018-07-23T08:34:28Z")

</div>

Yup, that’s totally awesome.

Going back to actors, how about Ernest Borgnine, with _From Here to Eternity_ to his cameo in _Red_?