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Originally Posted by idoneus1957
I don't think it applies to The Dead Zone, but have you ever noticed that usually in American movies, the bad guy has much better manners than the good guy? Especially if the bad guy is European. I guess American men think it's not manly to be polite.
Let's shed a tear for the late Herbert Lom *sniff*, who died in 2017. I thought his performance as the doctor in Dead Zone was one of the best things in the movie. Lately, for some reason, my cable has been repeatedly showing the Herbert Lom version of Phantom of the Opera.
If you want to see a delightful Lom performance, watch "The Ladykillers." (the original one.)
I hope Herbert Lom's last days were lightened by residuals from all those Pink Panther movies, the way Alec Guinness's was from the money from Star Wars.
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What country are you from, idoneus? Yes, there are a lot prim and proper villains in US films, especially European villains. The Americas were the frontier from the "Old World". Escaping Kings and legal nobility is part of the fabric of the US, so the European villains may have the nobility etiquette, which may include 'good manners' as you say, but not necessarily ultimate morality. There's a subplot of stripping off the 'good mask', but also perhaps just makes a more charismatic character.