Jack Palance died today. He was really in far too many films to list, but Shane and City Slickers - for which he won as Oscar- are two. You might remember the one-armed push-ups he did when accepting his Oscar.

Palance worked overseas a lot and also made many B-movies, but he could be impressive often. The performance that really stands out for me, besides the two above, is his turn as a superevil racist in The McMasters. That portrayal is over-the-top and scarily-realistic at the same time. R.I.P., Big Guy.

Yeah, Palance was terrific and underrated (and underused) in films.

I'll give a plug to two relatively unknown Palance films, both directed by Robert Aldrich. ATTACK is one of the better WWII films. And there was another film where Aldrich & Palance hooked up. Off the top of my head I can't remember the name, but it involved defusing bombs.

Another film, it might have been made for tv, was REQUIEUM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. I can never remember which one was which, but there was a tv version and a film version. I think Palance was in the tv version and he was paired with the Wynns, Keenan and Ed. The other version had Anthony Quinn in the role Palance played as the pugilist with Mickey Rooney & Jackie Gleason in the role played by the Wynns.

I enjoyed Palance's roles in Barabbas and Monte Walsh. I remember when he sang a Kris Kristofferson song ("Sunday Morning Comin' Down") on the Johnny Carson show. That was bizarre. Great actor, always a welcome sight in films. RIP Jack