Not to knock Langella's portrayal, but Bogart would have been unbeatable playing Nixon.
shareduring the court martial, he looked incredibly Nixon-esque
the dudebert abides
I, too, couldn't help but notice the parallels between Bogie's Capt. Queeg and Richard Nixon. Too bad Bogie had to go and die on us before he had the chance to portray him. BTW, how about Queeg's nervous habit of "fondling his balls" ;-)
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An appropriate comment from someone named "Lunatic".....
shareNixon was in the Navy during WWII. Maybe Bogie was keying on Nixon's mannerisms.
shareDuring the Watergate years I remember many political cartoonists and commentators making the Queeg/Nixon comparison. (Nixon in the Oval Office with a handful of ball bearings; the Democrats trying to wrest the wheel of the ship of state from the crazy Commander in Chief and so on.) The speech to the officers where Queeg says his wife, children and dog love him sounds a little like the "Checkers" speech -- that happened 2 years before Caine, so maybe Bogey drew on that. Guess we'll never know for sure.
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Totally agree, he was so very Nixonesque on the stand the second time, right down to his physical features and his raving and denials and his frantic nonsense and self-destructiveness.
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Ironic you should say that.
The comedian/impressionist Rich Little always wanted to do a production of "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial with himself as Captain Queeg using his Nixon impersonation. Not in a comiccal vein but totally serious. I don't know if he ever managed to do this but it would have been brilliant.
He did Queeg's breakdown on The Kopykats, but in the same character Bogey played.
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