Favorite villain?

two others: Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. The Franchot Tone character in Phantom Lady.

Mike Figlia yes and Harry Powell, in another way, Icey Spoon also in Night of the Hunter. Uncle Charley (Joseph Cotten) in Shadow of a Doubt. Vera (Ann Savage) in Detour, nasty!

I still haven’t seen “The Chase” (Arthur Ripley, 1946), so I cannot comment on it yet.

Beedeed’s choice of villains is a fine one.

Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark) in “The Kiss of Death” (Henry Hathaway, 1947) is definitely the most villainous.

However, there are so many great villains in film noir, because everyone is pretty much a villain, either by choice, by bad luck, or by fate.

I love characters with multiple layers.

Robert Ryan played many great villains for whom you can easily feel empathy and some who may not be villains after all, like in “Act of Violence” (Fred Zinnemann, 1946)

Some Ryan villains who stand out: Montgomery in “Crossfire” (Edward Dmytryk, 1947), Smith Ohlrig in “Caught” (Max Ophüls, 1949), Jim Wilson in “On Dangerous Ground” ( (Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino, 1951), Earl Pfeiffer in “Clash by Night” (Fritz Lang, 1952)*, Howard Wilton in “Beware My Lovely” (Harry Horner, 1952), Reno Smith in “Bad Day at Black Rock” (John Sturges, 1955), Sandy Dawson in “House of Bamboo” (Samuel Fuller, 1955) and Slater in “Odds Against Tomorrow” (Robert Wise, 1959).

But the first villain who came to mind when I read Mike’s question is Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) in “In a Lonely Place” (Nicholas Ray, 1950), arguably the most lovable/hatable villain in film noir history.

(*) I know Mike doesn’t list “Clash by Night” as noir, because the murder that is supposed to happen got censored.

Favorite villain? That’s easy: Dan Duryea in almost any film I will go with Criss Cross 1949 for that amazing final scene with DD, Lancaster and De Carlo. And of course Too Late for Tears 1949 with awesome villainy from DD and Lizabeth Scott who turned in a great performance but she said she did not like the viciousness of her character.

Tommy Udo