Ernest Borgnine was born on 24 January 1917.
The man won a Best Actor Academy Award for Marty. How can he be psychotronic?! Well, he worked a lot! He has 210 acting credits on IMDb — and one of those credits is 138 episodes of McHale’s Navy! He was in a number of psychotronic films.
Let me present one in particular: Willard. Borgnine plays the evil Al Martin. I cheer every time he dies! But Roger Ebert wrote something about this that I think is rather good. Ebert was a terrible film “critic.” But he was often an amusing writer:
“What is it in this film that touches some deep-buried nerve in the public psyche? Why does wholesome family entertainment fade away, while rats make millions? I’ve thought long and deeply on this subject, believe me, and I’ve reached a conclusion at last. People have waited a long time to see Ernest Borgnine eaten alive by rats, and now that they have their chance they aren’t going to blow it.”
This is, of course, a pretty standard catty comment by a film “critic.” I don’t think Ebert had a problem with Borgnine. It was just something funny to say. But it is clear that what Ebert wanted to see him in is not what I did. For example, I’m really not that fond of Marty. It’s fine. But it’s hard for me to understand what the big deal was.
Obviously, all psychotronic fans should watch Willard. But there are others. You have to see him as a Satanic cult leader in The Devil’s Rain. And he’s great as Dutch in The Wild Bunch. He plays a different religious leader in Wes Craven’s Deadly Blessing. And, of course, he was the best thing in John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. He was also in a few international films including two Italian ones: Super Fuzz (1980) and Code Name: Wild Geese (1984).
I started this figuring I would highlight Willard. But I’m just not in the mood for watching Ernest Borgnine eaten by rats. So let’s watch The Wild Bunch instead!
Ernest Borgnine via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.
