What no one seems to understand about the career of Leslie Nielsen, a man who was never funny.
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- StarsNorman RoseJames BenderGordon B. ClarkeThe story of an Ohio State penitentiary guard who has to cope with one of the biggest riots in prison history.Having studied at the Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto, Leslie Nielsen started his career as a serious dramatic actor. Paying his dues, he played bit parts in many TV shows of the 1950s.
- DirectorFred M. WilcoxStarsWalter PidgeonAnne FrancisLeslie NielsenA starship crew in the 23rd century goes to investigate the silence of a distant planet's colony, only to find just two survivors, a powerful robot, and the deadly secret of a lost civilization.I'm not saying his career was any great success, but in that career he was at all times a serious dramatic actor.
Forbidden Planet is the only memorable non-comedy Hollywood film in which he plays the lead. - DirectorGeorge SeatonHenry HathawayStarsBurt LancasterDean MartinGeorge KennedyA bomber on board an airplane, an airport almost closed by snow, and various personal problems of the people involved.In 1970, Airport mixed ensemble cast melodrama with big budget suspense and created the 1970s Disaster film fad.
- DirectorRonald NeameStarsGene HackmanErnest BorgnineShelley WintersA group of passengers must embark on a harrowing struggle for survival after a rogue wave capsizes their cruise ship at sea.One staple of the disaster film is seeing an old man, usually played by a gravelly character actor, giving dire warnings and grim situation assessments to the main characters.
In the Poseidon Adventure, Nielsen plays the ships captain who warns the owner about pushing the engines too far and piloting the ship at unsafe speeds, he wants to slow down and take on ballast and gives dire warnings about what can happen if they don't. His warnings are ignored and (spoiler alert) his character is killed twenty minutes into the movie. - DirectorJim AbrahamsDavid ZuckerJerry ZuckerStarsRobert HaysJulie HagertyLeslie NielsenAfter the crew becomes sick with food poisoning, a neurotic ex-fighter pilot must safely land a commercial airplane full of passengers.After ten years and myriad disaster movies of varying quality, Writer/Directors Abrahams, Zucker, and Abrahams, set out to poke fun at the fad.
In their script they created a silly world of visual gags and puns lampooning the silly plot twists and over-the-top histrionics of the disaster film. But when the time came to cast their film, they hired not one single comedian or comedic actor. They wanted their characters to give serious line reads in the midst of silliness (except of course for Johnny). This is a staple of all their work in the 1980s when they were at their best.
With the two romantic leads played by unknowns, they went about casting several gravelly character actors to support them.
Lloyd Bridges - Serious dramatic actor
Robert Stack - Serious dramatic actor
Peter Graves - Serious dramatic actor
Leslie Nielsen - Serious dramatic actor
When Nielsen's character Dr. Rumack said 'Don't call me Shirley' he wasn't being silly or telling a joke, he really did not want anyone to call him Shirley, and he thought nothing of repeatedly poping into the cockpit to wish Ted luck during the dramatic climax. He kept a straight face and did his job because, in his mind, he was a serious person. Nielsen wasn't a comedian, he was an actor acting.The first actors we looked at kept cracking up during the screen tests. Leslie was the only one who didn't get any of the jokes and played it completely straight, which is what we wanted. -David Zucker
- CreatorJim AbrahamsDavid ZuckerJerry ZuckerStarsLeslie NielsenAlan NorthEd WilliamsSight gags, puns and non-sequiturs ensue as bumbling Sgt. Det. Lt. Frank Drebin and his colleagues at Police Squad solve various puzzling cases.When the team set their sites on police procedural TV shows (and their serious, no-nonsense leading men) they looked to Nielsen, who had actually done bit parts in police procedurals early in his career, to play their main character.
This early Frank Drebin was at no point silly or bumbling, he was a joyless Joe Friday type who didn't seem to notice that he inhabited a silly world of sight gags and non-sequiturs. At no point did he deliver an intentional joke or make a silly face. In fact, except for the wonderful Decaf Coffee scene and his undercover nightclub act in the final episode, his facial expression never veered far from blank and businesslike. Here again Nielsen wasn't a comedian, he was an actor acting.
This is what made the show so special; if the main character reacted to his silly surroundings, made wacky faces, or cracked jokes, the humor (and the mockery of cop shows) wouldn't have worked nearly as well.
Supporting Nielsen in his stoicism is Alan North, a character actor who played cops before and after Police Squad. And Peter Lupus, who had played Hercules in several movies and a secret agent in Mission Impossible. No comedians or comedic actors. - DirectorDavid ZuckerStarsLeslie NielsenPriscilla PresleyO.J. SimpsonIncompetent police Detective Frank Drebin must foil an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II.In transitioning to film, a bit more slapstick was mixed into the puns and sight gags, but for the most part Frank Drebin was the same. He didn't see anything at all funny about putting on a tux for dinner at home or stoping for a bite to eat after making a dramatic vow to avenge a colleague.
While he made a few mistakes for comedy sake (obliviously trailing a luggage rack or a bathroom mic), he was not bumbling or incompetent in his job.
Supporting Nielsen in his stoicism here are Academy Award Winner George Kennedy, Emmy winner Ricardo Montalban, and soap star Prescilla Presley. No comedians or comedic actors.
This formula was repeated (with slightly less success) in part 2, and again (with less success) in part 3. - DirectorBob LoganStarsLeslie NielsenLinda BlairNed BeattyParody of The Exorcist (1973), with Linda Blair once again possessed by Satan, and Leslie Nielsen as the exorcist.This is where things start to go wrong. I think that much of the movie-going public didn't understand why Airplane, Police Squad, and Naked Gun were good, and why Nielsen was good in them. They just thought 'Oh, it's that Leslie Nielsen guy, he's funny.' Even Mel Brooks seems to have missed the point in his old age.
Always up for catering to the lowest common denominator and re-hashing successful ideas, Hollywood started building terrible comedies around him, in which he played to a crowd who expected him to be an incompetent bumbler who makes silly faces. And by this point in his career he'd probably given up on being taken seriously and decided to take whatever project was offered to him.
Here he plays a bumbling priest, but he has also played a bumbling Spy (Spy Hard), Vampire (Dracula : Dead and Loving It), Superhero (Zero Man), Fugitive (Wrongfully Accused), Space Detective (2001: A Space Travesty), President (Scary Movie 37) etc.
Looking at his IMDb page and knowing how he spent his final years is simply depressing.
Make no mistake, I love Leslie Nielsen in Airplane, Police Squad, and Naked Gun. And I'm not suggesting that just anyone could've played those rolls. I am saying that the man should've been appreciated for his actual talents not cast against type as what we thought he should be. I'm also saying those movies should be fully understood and appreciated for what they did right; if we understand good comedy and demand more of it, maybe the Hollywood suits (who cater to us) will make more comedy films that are actually funny.