TV Cream

Hall of Fame

BADEL, Alan

badelThe ex-French Resistance fighter was only in films for the money, he reckoned, but if that’s the case he picked his cash cows better than most ‘serious’ film actors in quality terms. Starting as he meant to go on with his unforgettable role as an eccentric, childlike arrival in Windsor with a sinister motive in The Stranger Left No Card, Badel always seemed to command the screen at one inscrutable remove from the rest of the cast, and two from the audience. Hence his rugby team owner in This Sporting Life, his villainous oil magnate in Arabesque, his corrupt South American president in The Adventurers. A man for all jobs, except perhaps babysitting.

FINEST HOUR:
Chilling folk witless in all three segments of priceless portmanteau horror Three Cases of Murder, but especially as the sinister artist of In the Picture.

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