I was trying to come up with a trivia question. What do the following movie characters have in common:
Arch Stanton
Bernie Lomax
Then I couldn’t think of any more, and you can’t have a “what do they have in common” question with only two people in it.
They are, of course, dead. Arch Stanton is the grave that Tuco digs up at the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly expecting to find $400,000 and instead finds the body of Arch Stanton. Bernie Lomax is the dead body that gets carted all over the place in Weekend at Bernie’s.
Now, there are plenty of dead characters who, nonetheless, are active participants in the events of their respective films. Joe Gillis is dead at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard, and then the movie is a flashback of how he got dead. I’m looking for characters who are properly dead; corpses, with names, who are somehow involved in the plot.
I turn to my fellow dopers to help flesh out (sorry) the list.
I can’t remember if I’ve ever even seen most of Weekend at Bernie’s. Is he dead from the get go, or does he die partway through the picture?
Also good. I haven’t seen the movie, but just read the plot outline on Wikipedia. It describes some of the events leading to Harry’s death; are those shown in flashbacks, or merely described by the characters?
Only seen that once, and it was ages ago. I don’t remember if his name is given in the film, either.
Not a spoiler box, but you might have read the OP.
My understanding is that the OP meant to exclude such cases. As I understand it, “really and truly dead” characters are those who are never shown alive in the movie, even in flashbacks. They include only corpses.
I haven’t seen the movie for a long time but I don’t think he appeared alive. Philip Truex, who played the corpse, was uncredited in the movie. I assume he would have been credited if he actually appeared alive.
Old Sam is the defunct Indian who Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen deliver to Boot Hill against the town’s objections in the opening of The Magnificent Seven.
Ideally, yes, I’m thinking of characters that are never seen as anything other than decomposing flesh, but might still be recognized from their respective films. Partly that’s because I think adding names like Joe Gillis makes the question too easy. (On the other hand, it often seems like my trivia questions are way too difficult.)
Now, one of the things I like about these boards is the way discussions can go beyond the OP in interesting ways. So any and all dead characters are welcome, really, but if I can come up with a list of properly dead ones that would be nice, too.
That’s just not the question I was trying to ask in the OP. For most of Sunset Boulevard we see Joe during his lifetime, taking part in events and interacting with people; he is not an ex-screenwriter. He’s the example I gave in the OP of what I’m not looking for. It’s an interesting topic, and we could probably come up with dozens, just not the sort of thing I’m after.
I was wondering how many characters we could come up with who are never seen alive at all. A sort of (formerly) human MacGuffin, as it were; they don’t do anything but are still somehow essential to the events of the film, a reason for friends to get together to mourn, a grave that conceals buried treasure, that sort of thing.
There’s a whole series about the life of Norman and Norma (when she was alive), called Bates Motel. It’s on Netflix streaming. Worth checking out.
Interestingly, the setting is unapologetically modern with characters using cell phones and the Internet, even though Norman is a teenager in it (though his mom still seems to dress like it’s the '40s). And the actress who plays her (Vera Farmiga) is adorable.
