Movie sidekicks?

[Blackthorn]

Love, love, love Walter Brennan! He also played a great sidekick to Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe. And his role as Stumpy is one of my favorites!

you have great taste, Gal!

 

[Stanley Doble]

Speaking of straight man vs comic there is an interview or chat show on Youtube in which Groucho Marx compliments Dan Rowan's talent as a straight man. Groucho explains that the role of straight man is often overlooked and underestimated by those who are not involved in comedy.

To me Jack Benny is as much a straight man as comedian. Maybe more.

 

[Edward]

But the weird thing about that interpretation is that Stan Laurel was actually the creative guy on the team. He was the one laboring over gag and story ideas, and frequently sitting in the cutting room with the film editor and director. Oliver Hardy generally hit the golf course when they were done with a day's filming, and rarely contributed beyond his performance. (Not to imply he wasn't a comic genius too! Just less driven/dedicated.)

Fascinating comedy factoid that can't be repeated enough: Stan Laurel was Charlie Chaplin's understudy during their pre-movie career in music hall/vaudeville with the Fred Karno Company!

What I'll always love Laurel for is that he was offered megabucks to ditch Ollie and go solo, and had the integrity to refuse.

 

[DesertDan]

One of my faves is Kurt Russell as Jack Burton in "Big Trouble In Little China"
Everything about that movie is brilliant, but the fact that it's actually a movie about the sidekick just takes the cake!

 

[AmateisGal]

you have great taste, Gal!

Why thank you!

 

[Blackthorn]

Why thank you!

 

[emigran]

OK What about Edward Everret Horton to Fred Astaire...
OR even Victor Moore to Astaire...
and certainly Eric Blore was sidekick to a number of stars in different movies of the Era inclucing the famous sleuth Arsenne Lupon...

And +1 for James Gleason

And I must include the great Eve Arden whose snappy quips stole many a scene...

 

[LizzieMaine]

To me Jack Benny is as much a straight man as comedian. Maybe more.

Very much so. He always, for example, lets Rochester get the laughs. And the laughs he himself gets are most often because the joke's *on* him.

 

[Haversack]

Two sidekicks from the same movie: The Great Race (1965)

Keenan Wynn's Hezekiah Sturdy to Tony Curtis's The Great Leslie.

Peter Falk's Maximilian Meen to Jack Lemmon's Professor Fate.

And for slightly darker tastes,

Peter Lorre's Doctor Einstein to Raymond Massey's Jonathan Brewster.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Edward Everett Horton was a great supporting actor. You should see him with Douglas Fairbanks in Reaching For The Moon. This movie is one of my favorites, I was used to thinking of Fairbanks as an action hero but he gives an outstanding performance in this romantic comedy.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

George 'Gabby' Hayes was always one of my favorite sidekicks..

[video=youtube;7koigiUq7GE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7koigiUq7GE[/video]

 

[Fading Fast]

Edward Everett Horton was a great supporting actor. You should see him with Douglas Fairbanks in Reaching For The Moon. This movie is one of my favorites, I was used to thinking of Fairbanks as an action hero but he gives an outstanding performance in this romantic comedy.

+1. I also love him in "Holiday" and too many others to name. As you noted, had some sidekick roles, but I think of him as more of a supporting actor.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As far as silent pictures go, there's always Snitz Edwards. Watch any dozen movies made between 1920 and 1928, and you'll see little Snitzie in at least half of them, always playing the hero's valet/butler/manservant/stooge. Or, in a word, sidekick.

Here he is with Buster Keaton in 1926. Buster was only five foot six, so you can see that Snitz wasn't exactly a larger than life figure.

 

[AdeeC]

Snitz Edwards was quite memorable in the THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD as Douglas Fairbanks partner in crime. Creighton Hale was also in great demand during the silent era for light comic relief playing foppish roles.

 

[Denton]

Great thread! How about Ned Sparks?

[video=youtube;L8nJ8YjhMaA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8nJ8YjhMaA[/video]

He always plays pretty much the same character. In Lady for a Day, as Happy, "the boy with the sore foot," he is the Dude's sidekick, and in Imitation of Life Claudette Colbert more or less adopts him. In some of the above clips, he plays a more avuncular or authoritarian role.

 

[LizzieMaine]

He's priceless in "Wake Up and Live" as Walter Winchell's sidekick -- in love with Patsy Kelly, another great sidekick, no less.

 

[skydog757]

Jackie Gleason would have been lost without Art Carney.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Alan Hale to Erroll Flynn. Flynn later said that Hale would invariably steal a scene by doing something goofy when he was out of Flynn's sightline.

 

[skydog757]

Chief Dan George stole pretty much every scene he had in The Outlaw Josey Wales from Clint Eastwood. Since Eastwood was the director, I'm sure he knew a good thing when he saw it.

 

[2jakes]

"You think anyone remembers us, Keemo Sabe ?”

Mr. Jay Silverheels (Tonto) 4th from the left:

​Hi-Yo Silver, Away ! :whip: