Does anyone know how tall Bent was in the movie? No offense to the talented Casnoff, he looks kinda slightly below average height and the overly-teased coiff he was sporting kinda looked obvious.
shareI don't remember Bent's height in the book, but I don't think he was short. He was fat in the book, with skin that burned in the sun. His obsession with Napolean had to do with thinking Napolean was an amazing military leader, and Bent in the book is obsessed with being an amazing military leader.
Keep in mind that movie Bent is a cross between book Bent, and a character from book 2, Lamar Powell.
Characteristics of book Bent that are in movie Bent:
-Obsession with being a military leader
-Obsession with being the next Napolean
-West Point career and hating George and Orry over thinking they ruined it
-Thinking he's a senator's son (book 3 reveals that he was not)
-Finding the painting of Madeline's mother and conspiring with Ashton to use it to ruin Madeline
-Fighting with Orry in book 2 and being presumed dead although it's in a different manner. I think he falls over a cliff into water, like he does for a moment in the 3rd movie.
-The kidnapping of Gus and most of everything in the 3rd movie is all Bent's story (Powell dies near the end of the 2nd book, after going out west with James when his assassination plot is uncovered. Out there he kills James and then is killed by Apaches in the area. This was why Ashton was in Santa Fe, they were planning to meet there after James was murdered and after Powell got the gold he owned which he had obtained by having the owner of the gold, his brother, killed).
Characteristics of Lamar Powell that are in movie Bent:
-Being handsome
-Having romantic relationships with Burdetta and Ashton
-Being from Georgia (Bent was from Ohio in the book)
-Hating Jefferson Davis and wanting to assassinate him so he could take over the Confederacy
-Having a weapons arsenal as part of his scheme to destroy Davis
-Owning stock in the blockade running ship Water Witch
Powell was supposed to be very tall though, unlike Philip Casnoff, who I would assume is about 5' 11". I don't think he's much shorter than that because I read Swayze was 5' 10" and Casnoff is about the same. I've seen him in other stuff and he looks taller sometimes than other actors, but he's not a broad-shouldered, large man, and he's very slim, with a small face, so I can see where he doesn't look big. I read the movie producers thought he wasn't tall enough for what they wanted but they were so impressed with his performance that they hired him.
I always thought he did a great job of combining those two personalities into one, because while they are both villains in the story, they are different in that one is confident and the other is not and uses bullying tactics to instill a confidence in himself that isn't there naturally.
Napoleon being short is a myth. He was actually fairly tall for the time, but French units of measurement were different than our modern feet and inches and led to that misconception.
I'm genuinely convinced that every movie would be better with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it.