Hamiltons: sweaty, large men of cinema

Writers and filmmakers have long discussed the advances in film technology from the days of the Lumière brothers to the modern RED HD cameras with six gajillion-by-six-gamillion resolution capabilities.  Most of these discussions focus on things like color saturation, lighting, resolution, depth of focus, and asepct ratio.  However, we at Running Downhill, always striving to offer new insights into cinema history, would like to take the discussion in a different direction, and focus on technological improvements allowing for a more important artistic insight, namely, the sheen on sweaty heavy men.  Thus, Running Downhill presents below ten of the most sweaty, fat performances in cinema history.  Enjoy.

See also Touch of Evil

Will Varner (The Long, Hot Summer, 1958) – It’s Faulkner, and it’s the South, and it’s got summer in the title, so it’s bound to be sweaty.  That’s not a problem, of course, when it’s Paul Newman doing the sweating, but then on comes Will Varner, played by Orson Welles.  At this point in his career, he’s in full large mode, and even sitting down, he seems winded.  It’s 110 degrees at night, he’s drinking a ton of liquor and smoking huge cheap cigars, and he owns the town.  None of that stops Martin Ritt from ordering a lot of close-ups, and you can almost hear the sweat pouring down Welles’ plump cheeks as he quietly, menacingly admonishes his daughter Clara (Joanne Woodward). (TH)

Signor Ferrari (Casablanca, 1942) – Sydney Greenstreet’s second feature came at age 62 (his first was The Maltese Falcon a year earlier), and thus we cannot be sure if he was always this large, or if he had a Wellesian expansion at some point in his life.  No matter, because there he sits, and sits, and sits, in Rick’s (Humphrey Bogart’s) Café in WW2 French holdout Casablanca, a broker of deals both shady and legit.  It’s difficult to say whether his aristrocratic Kentish accent makes him somehow seem larger, or if it slims him down.  All we know is that if you are using a whip as a fly-swatter on your own body, you’re probably overweight. (TH)

"Ah, ah, ah! Say the magic word!"

Dennis Nedry (Jurassic Park, 1993) – Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) was a computer programmer for Jurassic Park.  He enjoyed snacks both salty and sweet, making deals with rival dino enthusiasts to steal embryos, and concocting computer failures to cut power and mask his escape with the goods.  He also loved to get squirted in the face with blinding dilophosaurus venom and fall over a lot in mud.  These were his favorite things to do, besides sitting in chairs and sweating. (TH)

You ain't got no horns, boy

Private Leonard Lawrence/Gomer Pyle (Full Metal Jacket, 1987) – Vincent D’Onofrio, normally a slimmer large guy (but always, always, always completely scary insane), gained a ton of weight and a ton of sweat to portray the kind (for a while, anyway) and hard-working husky lad Pvt. Pyle (né Lawrence), who initially sucked at the rope climb, but then ruled at killing a lot of people and himself.  Basic training is hard, though, and thus the sweat is bountiful, and Kubrick, well, he’s not the type of director to shy away from a little sweat.  Or blood.  Or buckets of blood.  Or buckets of sweat. (TH)

Bet the Lions wish they had him right now

Mongo (Blazing Saddles, 1974) – Mel Brooks’ satire of the American West features a lot of sweat, which is about what you’d expect from life on the high plains when people still “bathed” by splashing water on themselves from a horse trough.  Alex Karras uses up more than his fair share in portraying Mongo, a simpleton mercenary who announces his presence in the film by punching out a horse.  Karras, a former All-Pro lineman for the Detroit Lions, knows a thing or two about sweating, and this skill is apparent in his lone close-up for the immortal line, “Mongo…only pawn…in game of life.” (TH)

Pagliacci (Shock Corridor, 1963) – The film’s storyline centers on an awards hungry journalist (Peter Breck) who gets himself committed to a mental institution in order to solve a murder, but Shock Corridor is mostly (and deservedly) memorable for its supporting cast of loonies, including but not limited to an African-American who thinks he’s a Grand Wizard in the KKK, a nuclear physicist who acts like he’s 6 years old, a bunch of sexy nymphomaniacs who “rape” our hero, and last but not least, Pagliacci (Larry Tucker), an extraordinarily obese man who’s fond of opera. An absolute monster of the largest order, Pagliacci and his sweaty, imposing frame provide a bizarre counterpoint (moral compass?) and centering device for Breck’s journalist gone mad. In a film full of bizarre, memorable scenes and lines (like Pagliacci’s “I like the rain” line before it starts raining inside the mental asylum), one of the most enduring images in my mind has always been the two-shot of Breck and Tucker, in which Pagliacci literally takes up half of a film frame, while there’s an extra foot (at least!) of space on the far side of Breck. (EM)

Charlie Meadows (Barton Fink, 1991) – If there’s one thing a fat, sweaty man doesn’t need, it’s most certainly a 1940s hotel w/o air conditioning and running through hallways that also happen to be on fire. And screaming while doing so. Oh my god, the screaming. Goodman has always been fat, but as the Coen’s mass-murdering psychopath Charlie Meadows (a la “Mad Man” Munt) in Barton Fink, everything about the film, from the sets to the time period, seem to add a great deal of sweat and fatness. Not only that, but the in the film’s climax Munt blames his homicidal nature almost entirely on his big fat sweaty, warmth: “Jesus it’s hot. Sometimes it gets so hot I want to just crawl right out of my skin.” (EM)

Jabba The Hutt (Star Wars, 1977, Return of the Jedi, 1983) - Nothing says “fat and sweaty and cinema” like a giant, slimy, insect-ridden, blob of flesh who also happens to be a notorious and vile gangster with a knack for torture. He also tells people to their face that he’s going to enjoy watching them die. Also, he owns slaves. This is Jabba the Hutt. He’s fat. He’s sweaty. This is Jabba the Hutt. Say it with with me now. (EM)

Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Apocalypse Now, 1979) - It should have come to no one’s surprise that Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) had truly gone crazy out in the jungle, considering he spent all his time in a dark and painfully warm temple in Cambodia. By the time Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) catches up with him, he must have sweat out at least a couple hundred pounds already, and still, amidst the shadows, Kurtz remained a large presence (physically or metaphorically, you choose). But seriously, guy just sits in a dark room all day that’s got to be at minimum 100 degrees. Sweating. Sweating. Sweating. Like when Willard says “it smelled like slow death in there,” I mean, no shit. When looking back upon madmen in cinema, one must question if maybe all of this (this, as in, the horror) could have been avoided with a window unit, an iced tea, some sunshine, and a smile. (EM)

Note: the slight forehead glaze and shine

John “Bluto” Blutarsky (Animal House, 1978) – John Belushi’s performance as Bluto is problematic to this list for a number of reasons, but just hear me out. First, I know that Belushi, while a pudgy fellow, is not really fat. That is, definitely not as fat as most guys on this list. Second, while he sweats quite a bit in this movie, so do a lot of people, I feel like. Poor college living conditions, ya know? I’ve had apartments w/o air conditioning too. It sucks. But what it is, I think, is that Bluto has a kind of permanent sweat glaze going on. It’s not like it’s dripping down his face or streaming out of his pores as much as, he’s just, well, constantly sweaty and/or on the verge of completely sweating. It’s this kind of subtle, perpetual sweat, in addition to all his classic hi-jinx that make being “fat, drunk and stupid” a completely worthwhile way to go through life, nah mean? (EM)