I mean no offense to Ned Beatty at all when I say this, but I’m not sure we would remember his performance as Otis in Superman and Superman II if it weren’t for John Williams’s iconic ‘March of the Villains’ music, which most people I know just think of as Otis’s theme.
The melody played on the tuba is a perfect audio representation of how Otis was portrayed on screen. He’s a bad guy, but it seems like he is only because he got conned by smarter bad guys into joining them. He’s a bumbling henchman, the perfect Silver Age sidekick to an evil, maniacal genius, played for the ages by Gene Hackman. Hackamn’s Lex Luthor is shown to be smart, diabolical, and ambitious through his various schemes, but through his interactions with Otis, we see his cruelty. And that cruelty is an important piece of the Luthor puzzle, as it shows how diametrically opposed he is to Superman. And if the victim of his cruelty deserved it, it wouldn’t exactly be cruel, then would it?
Beatty’s performance in the Superman films is so innocent and full of a desire to please that it is hard to remember that he’s supposed to be the secondary villain!
This is a comics site, so that’s the performance that stands out in this context from Beatty’s career – and no offense to his performance as Sam Kolawetz in the 1990 Captain America. But the man’s career is full of classics from All the President’s Men to Network to Toy Story 3. He had almost instant stardom, with his first film role being in Deliverance, and he worked consistently until his retirement in 2013.
Rest in peace, Ned.
