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Separated at birth? — 10 Comments

  1. That’s Robert Newton in the top two, and Milo O’Shea in the bottom two.

    Never noted the resemblance before, but it’s there, at least in still photos. The two men left very different impressions, though. Newton came across as menacing, while O’Shea had something of a teddy-bear quality about him.

    “shiver me timbers” — good one. Long John Silver. Hated that TV show when I was a kid, and I think largely because of Newton.

    Maybe also add Russell Brand?

    They’ve all got that intense dark-eyed, hairy thing going for them. Or against them.

  2. rickl:

    Ann is correct.

    Newton was absolutely wonderful as Bill Sykes in the old black-and-white Oliver Twist. Chilling.

    O’Shea was Friar Lawrence in Zeferelli’s Romeo and Juliet.

    If you haven’t seen the David Lean Oliver Twist, please do so:

  3. I’d forgotten Newton played Bill Sykes in that version of Oliver Twist; you’re right, Neo, his performance was terrific and very chilling.

    Good movie, but… I first saw it when I was very young and didn’t realize how Alec Guinness’s Fagin played up all the most vile anti-semitic stereotypes of Jews. What were he and David Lean thinking? It was made in 1948, after all.

    So bad was it that I believe Israel even banned the film.

  4. Robert Newton: the man whose Long John Silver and Blackbeard the Pirate gave us “Talk Like A Pirate Day.” Oddly enough, the movie LONG JOHN SILVER, a sequel to TRASURE ISLAND, was aired the Oldie Goldie tv network just a couple of days after this year’s “Talk Like A Pirate Day.” (Sept. 19, I think.) In it, Newton reprises his role as LJS, and in one scene gives a mock-pious eulogy to a dead pirate. He concludes the euloguy with an “Amen” that he pronounces “Arrrgghh-men!” No kidding. I laughed out loud hearing it.

  5. I think it was that version of Oliver Twist that had one of the most horrifying movie scenes I ever saw: when Sykes discovered that Nancy had taken Oliver to safety, he burst into her room, slung her faithful little dog outside the door, slammed it, and proceeded to beat her to death.

    All we heard were the sounds of the savage killing behind the door; all we saw was the frantic little dog, barking and scrabbling desperately at the door to try to save his mistress.

    Man, just the memory of it makes tears come to my eyes.

  6. I’ve long harbored a fondness of Milo O’Shea on account of his portrayal of Leopold Bloom in Ulysses back in the mid to late 60s, but that fondness today rests on an exceedingly faint memory of the performance. Still, he gave it a go, and got me then.

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