24 thoughts on “Malcolm McDowell Movies”

1. Malcolm McDowell, cult movie favorite, good choice. And thanks for the video share!

   72 movies on the UMR chart, more than double my video chart. I’m impressed.

   I’ve seen 23 films from the UMR chart and 16 from my video chart, that’s 39 altogether, woohoo! [Stop it Steve!]

   Favorites are – A Clockwork Orange, Time After Time, Star Trek Generations, Blue Thunder, The Book of Eli, Cat People, Bolt, Tank Girl, Doomsday and that much loved classic – Caligula.

   I haven’t seen ‘If…’ in ages, it’s no.2 on my video chart, Clockwork Orange no.1 of course, let me see what’s no.1 on your critics chart… hang on a mo… whaaaaat? The Artist? pfft

   The Player is another film I haven’t seen in a long time.

   Malcolm McDowell and Roddy McDowall, similar surnames except one has an ‘e’ and the other an ‘a’, when I was doing their videos I had to make sure they were spelt right, not that anyone would have noticed, well maybe Bob and Flora. 😉

   Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up!

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   1. p.s. I liked the trivia on Malcolm getting death threats for killing Captain Kirk in Generations. Well Trekkie’s can get really attached to those characters and Kirk was the greatest of them all.

      According to IMDB – When Bruce Dern shot John Wayne in the back in the movie The Cowboys he received death threats, 40 years later while making The Hateful Eight for Tarantino he was still receiving death threats for killing Wayne.

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      1. Hey Steve….I thought the exact same thing when reading about the Trekkie threats. Poor Bruce Dern…poor Malcolm McDowell…but when you kill John Wayne or Captain Kirk…you have to expect to have to deal with some consequences….lol.

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   2. HI STEVE:

      If I didn’t make the proper distinctions I regret that and I will let Flora speak for herself.

      However I CAN distinguish between TO and FROM and CHAIN and CHAINED – see my 8 Feb at 5.12am post to WH on Audie Murphy’s page and you’ll know what I mean.

      When I learn of a mistake I immediately try to rectify it and “When I’m wrong I SAY I’m wrong!” – Jake Houseman [Baby’s father] in 1987’s Dirty Dancing.

      PS I always practice what I preach and before submitting my posts and reading yOURS today I actually checked to see whether Mal was an ‘a’ or an ‘e’. It’s a minor matter but it’s such perfections that separate me from even some other guys who are supposed to be professioinal – take The Master for instance.

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      1. Bob, a common mistake I make is words like receive & deceive, where I nearly always put the i before the e, not sure why, maybe it looks better to me?

         A goof that a lot of people make is when to use ‘then’ or ‘than’ in a sentence, i.e. more than human, and then there were none.

         On my old movie forum there was a member who always wrote “would of” instead of “would have” I tried correcting him but it didn’t do any good.

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         1. HI STEVE:

            Good points.

            Another common mistake is to use “they” when only one person is meant as in “a boy or girl did this but they got away” I know the difference but if I have to keep using “he or she” endlessly in a communication I eventually say “the heck with it.!” and lapse incorrectly as it is into “they”

            I mean to say if Hirsch can still be idolized after using hyperbole like “nobody cared about Desiree or Brando” when in fact millions went to see the Great Mumbler as Nappy, I can allow myself a bit of poetic licence, can’t I?

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   3. Hey Steve….thanks for checking out my Malcolm McDowell page…I have seen 13 of the ones listed…with Gangster No. 1 being the 14th. For some reason that movie is refusing to show up on the table…though it showing up on my database. My database has been acting up a bit lately….and sadly time is so limited…we have not had the time to fix the issue. I have and enjoyed many of your favorites. His top 2 in my mind are Clockwork Orange and Time After Time…I just added the trailer for Time After Time.

      As for Clockwork Orange…my brother is the first one that got me to watch that one….we saw it at a midnight showing back in the 1980s….a strange movie that has grown on me. Sorry you do not like that The Artist got the top spot…it did win a Best Picture Oscar. I had to double check the a and the e myself….hopefully I got them all correct. Good stuff as always.

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   4. Hey Steve….thanks for the tally count and thoughts on Malcolm McDowell. I have seen 19 of these movies and 1 of the two missing movies…with Gangster #1 being the one that I have seen and it refusing to be seen on the table. I have seen and enjoyed all of your favorites with the exception of Doomsday which I have not seen. His part in The Player is a cameo…but it is one of the cameos that actually has him acting. His other Bruce Willis role is the horrible Sunset. Sunset is one of the few Bruce Willis movies that I really really dislike. Good stuff as always.

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2. So far this has been a week of minor [albeit passing] frustrations for me and when I see it currently topped by the fact that for now [being a rather early bird on this side of the pond when Yanks and Canucks are asleep in their beds and probably dreaming of people like Sir Maurice Micklewhite and Archibald Alexander Leach, or of being rescued from a burning building on Christmas Eve by John McClane] I stand alone in this comments section with just WH and Joel.

   I am therefore reminded of the final line of Joseph Wambaugh’s 1975 novel The Choirboys, on which the 1977 movie was based: “The Choirboys were in the s*** again!”

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3. 4/On top of Mal’s massive film career of which, above, The Work Horse as usual gives us a comprehensive treatment Mal (1) appeared in 76 TV productions between 1967 and 2018 (2) made a relatively enormous quantity of video games : 17 between 1994 and 2018; participated in a 2009 musical video; and developed a reputation as somewhat of a voice specialist in productions like the animated television series Justice League Unlimited [2004-2006]. He was in one episode in 2005.

   5/’Work Horse’ Mal has The Big Ugly [ a crime drama about “The Mob” – actually I hate that label] lined up for 2020 Big Screen release and has an enormous 10 other projects at pre or post-production stages, beyond which 3 further presentations have been announced for him, making 14 projects in all in the Mc Dowell pipeline – wow!

   6/Mal is therefore sure to add to the $70 million net worth that he is already credited with. In the 1950s lead Brit film critic, Margaret Hinxman of Photoplay magazine, gave the best movies around at that time 4 stars, and very exceptional ones she awarded 4 stars and a special “Photoplay Seal of Merit”. As WH is a convinced ‘starman’ I will take it upon myself to give this new page 4 stars and a new creation of mine a ‘Hirschhorn Seal of Merit’ – in short “Voted [high] Up!” and a great selection for a new page.

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4. 1/Malcolm has probably never been able to equal let alone top his tour de force in A Clockwork Orange and indeed many of the movies that he has made since then are rather obscure, at least to me and I am a great fan of him as a character actor.

   2/I enjoyed him particularly in the lead and title role in 1979’s Caligula and recently in Bombshell, in which his effectiveness in a small role was no doubt helped by his somewhat facial resemblance to the newspaper magnet Rupert Murdoch.

   3/I particularly like the scene where the disgraced Roger Ailes ask Malcolm’s Rupert to stand beside him when he announces his own sacking by Murdoch from Fox News for sexual scandals, and Malcolm’s Rupert glances quickly at his sons and then quietly says “No,” without further embellishment, proving again Francis Ford Coppola’s Axium, when referring to his normally soft-spoken Godpop, that “Men of great power don’t have to shout.”

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   1. Hey Bob….I agree it has all been downhill since A Clockwork Orange….though movies like Time After Time certainly had a good view as he was going downhill. I have not seen Bombshell…but I will in the near future…I will keep an eye out for that scene when I watch it. As for Caligula…not a huge fan of it….but he was probably the best part of the movie. Good stuff as always.

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5. “Malcolm McDowell is a cross between a thug and a pixie. Not handsome by conventional standards, he nevertheless has a wonderful expressive face, a hint of rebellion in his voice and manner, and an offbeat charisma.” – Rating The Movie Stars (1983)

   4 Star Malcolm McDowell Performances
   1968’s If……
   1971’s A Clockwork Orange
   1973’s O Lucky Man
   1976’s Voyage Of The Damned
   1976’s Aces High
   1979’s Time After Time
   1980’s Look Back In Anger
   1983’s Get Crazy

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   1. Down to 93 Joel subjects that need an UMR page……not sure what Look Back In Anger is…..according to IMDb he did not appear in a television or movie that went by that title. Guessing this is a 4 star “stage” performance.

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      1. Malcolm’s Look Back in Anger is a 1980 British film starring Malcolm McDowell, Lisa Banes and Fran Brill, and directed by Lindsay Anderson and David Hugh Jones. Top marks to Hirsch for tracking it down; we can see why one guy’s The Master and the other The Pupil! However The Pupil was half-right: Mal’s version was a stage play that was taped for cinematic release.

         WIKIPEDIA
         Look Back in Anger [1980] is about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man Jimmy Porter (Malcolm McDowell), his upper-middle-class, impassive wife Alison Porter (Lisa Banes), and her snooty best friend Helena Charles (Fran Brill). Cliff (Raymond Hardie), an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace

         Lindsay Anderson, who had previously worked with Malcolm McDowell on if…. and O Lucky Man!, translated Ted Craig’s Roundabout Theatre Company production (in which McDowell was starring) to the screen, for 1980 and taped results in three days.

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         1. Hey Bob…thanks for the information on Look Back In Anger…..not thinking many people saw that one in theaters..but it might be interesting. It was made during his peak time frame of Malcolm’s career. Now he is stuck in straight to dvdd pergatory. I wonder if he and Danny Trejo are in a competition on who can produce the most movie junk a year…lol.

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            1. HI BRUCE: Thanks for the detailked feedback.

               It’s good to see that, instead of going our separate ways, The Big 3 have joined forces to sing from the same hymn sheet: The Master led the way; you guessed that the film was somehow linked to the stage; and I was able to confirm that both of you were correct.

               So “This time I know we’ve got it right,” if I may paraphrase Paul Henreid in the closing scenes of Casablanca when he says he knows that his side is going to win because Bogie has joined The Resistance.

               Of course Paul would have known that much sooner had Laddie been around in the movie; whereas I don’t think Statham would have been much use in stopping Hitler in his tracks.

               Anyway we musn’t all agree too often or this site will maybe start to lose some of its present great fun!!!

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