OT: Charles Grodin RIP

Fair enough.

In 1975 and '76, I lived in Los Angeles, and from the San Diego Freeway --lit up at night-- you could see in the distance, outside near a fence at the old MGM lot -- Kong himself, a giant model (50 feet tall maybe?) that, we were told, would "star" in the movie.

When the movie came out, that model -- built for the NYC show sequence --- looked just like a MODEL to me. It barely moved, wasnt' used much on screen, seemed a "failed gimmick." And Kong was a guy in a suit. The original had been a great adventure in stop motion photography.

Still, the 1976 Kong WAS well cast and DID set up the superior CGI 2005 version by having the blonde and the ape "bond" so that it was plenty sad when he died.

I think I was most disappointed by the paltry "Kong vs snake" fight that replaced all sorts of action on Skull Island in 1933 and 2005.

turned out to be a rapist-killer and...he got away with it.

Grodin is terrifically creepy in C-22 (1970). By way of contrast, the same role in C-22 (2019) has very little impact, and Grodin is missed. (We also miss Voight's Milo but the difference in that case is driven by very substantial changes in the story - in C-22 (2019) Milo never trades away pilots' parachutes and never transitions to being a fully-blown quasi-fascist.)

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I read Catch-22 decades ago around the time the movie came out, but I can't recall exactly what was in the book or not in the book. It sounds like the Clooney series is very different from the Nichols movie...but which one is more faithful to the book?(Rhetorical question.)

In the movie, Voight's Milo Minderbinder(what a name!) is possibly the most distinctive and disturbing character in the film.
Milo gradually escalates his perfidy until he has cut a deal (with Balsam's rotten Cathcart financially cut in) to let the Germans bomb the American base! Its nothing personal, only business, and Milo and Cathcart DO try to clear the area of men(but alas, one can't get out in time and dies.)

Clooney's C-22 sounds like it obtained only the benefit of more time to tell the story; if neither the Grodin character nor(especially) Milo have the same impact...well, Nichols movie (with its much more identifiable and historic group of actors) looks that much better.

Could you have seen Grodin in the William Devane "Family Plot" role, perhaps?

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Possibly..but leaning "no," and its an interesting question.

My first thought was though he was "dramatic" in Rosemary's Baby and (within a cartoonish performance) Catch-22, The Heartbreak Kid stamped him with a "comedy guy" persona...and Devane's role, while comic in the third act, is rather serious too(also in the third act..in which he traps the sweet and daffy Madame Blanche, slaps her around, injects her with knock-out drugs, and attempts to kill her.)

The comedy in the third act -- and a GREAT way for Hitchcock to go out -- has villains Devane and Black confronted with Madame Blanche just as they are trying to deliver their latest kidnapping victim to the cops. Its one damn thing after another(Blanche rings a doorbell; Blanche appears through the peephole at the door; Blanche ends up standing right in front of Adamson's car as the automatic garage door goes up) -- and Devane's frustration is palpable and funny ("I can't BELIEVE this is happening!!") The comedy turns to suspense as Blanche enters the garage and meets Adamson face to face for the very first time -- you keep wanting her to TELL him -- and fast -- that she's not after a kidnapper, she's come with news of millions of inheritance.

I expect that Grodin could play the comedy of the scene -- but NOT the part where he slaps Blanche around and becomes coldly, murderously villainous.

Interestingly, Grodin was the villain in King Kong, released the same year as Family Plot...but even there, Grodin's villainy had a comedy edge.

No, I think that Adamson/Shoebridge required a dramatic actor who could play the comedy edges while remaining believably menacing. Grodin doesn't fit that bill, to me.

CONT