Six Best and Six Worst - Burt Lancaster Performances

Best Performances:
01.  Prince Selina - The Leopard (Italian dub)
02.  Elmer Gantry - Elmer Gantry
03.  Joe Erin - Vera Cruz
04.  Captain Vallo - Crimson Pirate
05.  Lt. Bledsoe - Run Silent, Run Deep
06.  J.J. Hunsecker - Sweet Smell of Success

Basically, Burt was a Movie Star - not a great film actor. He was a smart, athletic, good-looking, charismatic, fellow with a charming grin. His best performances came in movies where the role fit his talents. In Elmer Gantry he's the charismatic, larger-then-life conman. In  Vera Cruz, the smiling damned villain.  In Crimson Pirate,  the charming hunk flying through the air, In Run Silent, Run Deep, the tough, smart, naval officer.  In Sweet Smell of Success, the cold arrogant authority figure. And in the Leopard,  he's *physically* every inch the Sicilian Aristocrat.  With a dubbed Italian voice he's great.

Worst Performances:
01.  Mangiacavallo - The Rose Tattoo
02.  Bob Valdez  - Valdez is Coming
03.  Wyatt Earp - Gunfight at the OK Corral
04.  Mel Bakerfeld - Airport 
05.  Major Falconer - Castle Keep
06.  John Malcom - Separate Tables 

In his worst performances, Lancaster was robotic and bland.  Lancaster could be surprisingly dull in generic leading man roles, and I think they're some of his worst.  Unlike say Jimmy Stewart or  William Holden, he needed to play a complex character. He's robotic in Gunfight, boring in Airport, and hides behind an eye-patch and helmet in Castle Keep.  And he was terrible with accents, and unable *vocally* to play ethnics or foreigners - which makes Valdez and the Rose tattoo so embarrassing. Both movies are also, outside his range.  He's no Charles Bronson action hero, and Anna Magnani blows him off the screen in Rose Tattoo. Which lead us to Separate Tables, where he's completely out of his depth as a writer with "issues".   Lancaster can only portray anger, all the other character's emotions are beyond him.