Crime and mustache twirling never pay! Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for classic film antagonists who karma came back to bite. Spoilers are ahead.
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00:00 "I never loved you, Walter, not you or anybody else. I'm rotten to the heart, I used you just as you said."
00:05 Welcome to Miss Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for classic film antagonists who
00:11 karma came back to bite. For the purposes of this list, we're only considering movies made before
00:16 1970. Also, spoilers are ahead. "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!"
00:25 10. Hjalmar Poldsik - The Black Cat This 1934 universal horror classic
00:31 ran into so much trouble with the censors that it's a wonder it ever got seen.
00:36 Scenes like the one featuring Boris Karloff's occultist architect, Hjalmar Poldsik, walking
00:41 past his murdered wife's preserved bodies in display cases, were somehow allowed to stay
00:47 in the movie. "You see, Vetus, I have cared for her tenderly and well." Without them,
00:53 we might not understand just how much he deserves his comeuppance. And boy, does he get one.
00:59 "The phone is dead. Even the phone is dead."
01:04 Poldsik has betrayed a fellow soldier, played by Bela Lugosi, and stolen,
01:09 married, and murdered both his old friend's wife and his daughter.
01:14 "Did you ever see an animal skinned, Hjalmar? That's what I'm going to do to you now."
01:21 For his crimes, Lugosi's character actually skins Poldsik alive at the movie's climax.
01:27 Though it's all suggested and done in stylish silhouette,
01:30 it's still one of classic movies' most brutal scenes.
01:34 9. The Queen - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs "Who is the fairest one of all?"
01:40 Having disguised herself as an old, warty woman, the evil Queen, who is also both a witch and
01:46 Snow White's stepmother, poisons Disney's first princess with a deadly apple.
01:51 "A perfect disguise."
01:54 The dwarfs pursue her through the woods and to a cliff, where she falls.
02:00 For good measure, a stray boulder falls down and crushes her.
02:04 Seeing that she spent the entire movie trying to kill her daughter, because she's pretty,
02:08 it's probably fitting that not only is she killed herself, but she also dies looking like an old hag.
02:15 "Ahhhhhh!"
02:19 Knowing her, the latter point would probably bother her more.
02:23 8. Tom Powers - The Public Enemy
02:27 It's safe to say that most gangster movies owe a debt to this William A. Wellman classic.
02:32 While entertaining audiences with all sorts of immoral and illicit behaviour,
02:36 it also stresses the dangers and inevitable consequences of such a life.
02:41 "It'll hold six. Oh, this'll be enough. Stick 'em up."
02:47 The Public Enemy refers to Tom Powers, an Irish-American,
02:51 who rises through the ranks to become a top bootlegger in Chicago.
02:55 After numerous crimes, betrayals, and violent acts, Powers is shot by enemies,
03:08 and delivered to his own loving mother's doorstep, apparently recovered from his wounds.
03:13 That is, until it's revealed his corpse has been propped against the door,
03:18 and he falls to the floor dead. It's a finger-wagging but haunting reminder
03:22 to Depression-era audiences that crime may bring fortune, but it doesn't pay.
03:28 7. Lena Lamont - Singing in the Rain
03:32 With her grating voice and gracelessness, Lena Lamont is the kind of villain you love to hate.
03:38 "Well, I can't make love to a bush!"
03:41 She seems to delight in being a petulant child, screeching and stamping her feet.
03:46 The silent movie star is, unfortunately, better in pantomime.
03:50 The advent of sound films jeopardises her career,
03:53 and the studio employs Debbie Reynolds' character, Cathy Seldon, to dub her.
03:57 "What are you going to sing, Miss Lamont?"
03:59 "Singing in the Rain."
04:04 "Singing in the Rain!"
04:06 When the characters she's terrorised throughout the movie reveal the
04:09 ruse in front of a live audience, her humiliation is pretty well earned.
04:14 Needless to say, her career as a shimmering,
04:17 glowing star in the cinema firmament is kaput.
04:21 We may hate Lena Lamont, but actress Jean Hagen gave us one of the great villains of classic film.
04:27 6. Senator and Mrs. Eislen - The Manchurian Candidate
04:32 This paranoid Red Scare thriller finds a power-hungry senator's wife,
04:36 played by Angela Lansbury, manoeuvring to have her husband's rival assassinated.
04:41 "To sweep us up into the White House with powers that will make martial law seem like anarchy."
04:47 The assassin turns out to be her son, a prisoner of war, brainwashed by the enemy.
04:52 This cat-and-mouse game is thrilling and deeply disturbing.
04:56 Lansbury's character is probably the most villainous one she's ever played.
04:59 "I told them to build me an assassin. I wanted a killer."
05:03 What she's willing to sacrifice for political clout makes her karmic payback so satisfying.
05:09 In the film's climax, her son breaks from his brainwashing, and instead of completing the job
05:14 and sniping the intended target, trains his gun on his corrupt mother and her husband.
05:20 5. The Wicked Witch of the West - The Wizard of Oz
05:25 Children all over the world never knew hatred until they saw The Wicked Witch of the West.
05:30 The woman did nothing but terrorise a nice little girl in gingham print and her dog
05:35 over a pair of shoes. "I'll get you, my pretty. And your little dog, too."
05:39 Sure, they did kill her sister, but that was an accident.
05:44 And for such a sweet little girl, Dorothy Girl really has killed more people than the average
05:49 person. Granted, they were all accidents. At least, that's what she told the judge.
05:53 "How about a little fire, scarecrow?"
05:56 Still, a bucket of water to the face was never more deserved.
06:01 Who knew this one would prove deadly? You'd think if you were that allergic to water,
06:06 you wouldn't keep random buckets of it around your castle.
06:08 "Look what you've done! I'm melting! Melting!"
06:12 4. Captain Quinlan - Touch of Evil
06:16 Director Orson Welles also plays the villain in this masterful film noir about corruption,
06:21 murder, and bigotry on the US-Mexico border. Hank Quinlan is a boozy and brutish police captain
06:28 with a profound hatred for Mexican people. Fighting accusations of misconduct,
06:33 he is finally brought to justice in a stakeout. "Come on, read my future for me."
06:38 "You haven't got any." In the climactic scene,
06:44 Quinlan and his once good friend and colleague on the police force shoot each other down.
06:49 "You're a killer, Hank." "Far less. I'm a cop."
06:53 Quinlan dies clumsily, and with his entire storied career in disgrace,
06:57 it's a harsh, painful, and pitiful end for a man who truly deserved it.
07:02 3. Vida Pierce - Mildred Pierce
07:06 Throughout this 1945 classic, Mildred Pierce takes any job she can to provide for her spoiled
07:12 and pretentious daughter, Vida. But this doesn't endear her to her daughter. If anything,
07:17 it makes Vida resent her even more. "He never loved you, it's always been me."
07:21 The audience has had more than enough by the time Vida manipulates her mother
07:26 into taking the fall for a murder she committed. "You've got to help me.
07:29 Give me money to get away, and time." After two entertaining but frustrating hours of watching
07:35 Mildred sacrifice her own happiness for a daughter who doesn't deserve it, we finally get a break.
07:41 Vida is found out and dragged away by cops to live a less than luxurious life in a prison cell.
07:48 "Darling, I'm sorry. I did the best I could." "Don't worry about me, Mother, I'll get by."
07:55 2. Phyllis Dietrichson - Double Indemnity
07:59 Barbara Stanwyck's deceptive blonde became the very image of the film noir femme fatale.
08:05 Seductive, smouldering, and deadly, Phyllis Dietrichson is never on the up and up.
08:10 "We're both rotten." "Only you're a little more rotten.
08:13 You got me to take care of your husband for you."
08:15 She manipulates men into doing her bidding, like she's winding up mechanical soldiers.
08:20 When her deceit captures up to her in her lover's arms, it's hard to tell if even her
08:24 last words are believable. It's the only time in the movie you can see any trace of sincerity in
08:30 her eyes, but it's too late. "No, I never loved you, Walter,
08:33 not you or anybody else. I'm rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said."
08:38 Walter Neff, the gullible insurance agent she got to kill her husband, doesn't care.
08:43 She's just shot him, and despite saying she loves him, she'd undoubtedly have tried again
08:49 if Neff hadn't shot her. "Goodbye, baby."
08:51 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honourable mentions.
08:58 Dr. Pretorius - The Bride of Frankenstein
09:01 The cruel and manipulative scientist is blown to bits by the monster.
09:06 "Ahhhhhh!"
09:13 Rhoda Penmark - The Bad Seed
09:15 The sociopath gets struck by lightning and spanked.
09:18 Auric Goldfinger - Goldfinger
09:26 This Bond villain learned a very important lesson about cabin pressure.
09:30 "Ahhhhhh!"
09:37 Bob Ewell - To Kill a Mockingbird
09:39 After attacking Atticus Finch's children in the woods, a bigot gets his due.
09:44 "Bob Ewell's lying on the ground under that tree down yonder with a kitchen knife
09:48 stuck up under his ribs. He's dead."
09:54 Count Dracula - Dracula
09:56 The undead Transylvanian Count gets a stake through his heart.
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10:19 Gregory Anton - Gaslight
10:25 The villain from the story that gave us the term "gaslighting", Anton is a thief,
10:30 conman, and murderer attempting to manipulate his wife into insanity.
10:35 "You know anything about anything you do."
10:36 His aim is to take control of her estate and recover some priceless jewels.
10:41 Once discovered, his wife Paula gives him a taste of his own medicine.
10:45 "If I ever meant anything to you, and I believe I did, then help me, Paula."
10:52 Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for her role, and this scene is a big reason why.
10:56 Anton, tied to a chair, becomes her prey as she taunts him with a knife.
11:01 Is she insane, or is he?
11:03 "Because I am mad, I hate you."
11:05 It is sweet, sweet retribution for the cruelty he's visited on her throughout the movie.
11:11 Did your favourite classic movie villain make an appearance? Sound off in the comments.
11:17 "Give me another chance. It's your fault as much as mine."
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11:29 Outro