How many significant movie characters can you think of who don’t speak? Silent movies don’t count. I’m thinking of things like…
- Jane Wyman in “Johnny Belinda”
- Holly Hunter in “The Piano”
- Harpo Marx in almost everything
Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie wasn’t technically a silent movie since it did have a piece of dialogue. So Brooks, Delauise, Newman, Reynolds, and Baxter, to name just a few in that movie.
Burt Lancaster’s sidekick in all of his swashbucklers played a mute.
Unfortunately, Silent Bob doesn’t count for the purposes of this, I guess.
Teller, in “Penn and Teller Get Killed.”
Gort, in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
King Kong.
Buster Keaton frequently made silent cameos in talking pictures, IIRC.
Jackie Gleason played a mute in Gigot and in my mind did it masterfully.
Alan Arkin played a deaf/mute man in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. He did a masterful job also. I was dating a girl at the time who worked with the hearing impaired and she said he nailed the character.
Samantha Morton’s character in Sweet and Lowdown.
Actually, Teller did speak at the end of the film.
How about Richard (Jaws) Kiel in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker? Also, Oddjob had no lines in Goldfinger.
It’s been awhile, but didn’t Liv Ullman remain mute throughout Persona? I’m also pretty sure there were mute actors in Bergman’s The Silence
And there’s also Louis Malle’s Black Moon. I don’t believe there was any dialog in the film.