Leslie Nielsen...an amazing actor when played serious roles!!!

You are totally right...he was an amazing actor when played serious roles!

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My parents remembered Mr. Nielsen in Walt Disney's Swamp Fox programs, but that series ended when I was a child. I first read of him as appearing in Bracken's World, but I knew of that show only from TV Guide and cared only about who finally played Bracken. I never actually watched an episode.

I loved him in Police Squad, the series that spawned Naked Gun. Far from being "cheap" (if you mean "tasteless"), this show did to police dramas what Get Smart did to spy dramas.

His career was well past it's prime when he revived it by doing comedy.

He was great in this, Forbidden Planet and others, but also in Airplane and the other comedies.

ITA. I've only seen him in his 80's and 90's satire films, and thought he was the greatest as it was. Then I finally got to see this gem a few weeks ago and was blown away at not only how handsome he was as a young man, but also really great in a subtle yet serious dramatic role.

I need to see more Nielsen movies from the 50's!! He is up there on my list now with sexiest actors that include Rudolph Valentino!

You have to realize that his leading man period was well over when he was incredibly able to start a whole second career in those later comedies. Some of them, like Airplane! were top notch and showed his versatility as an actor. I'm sure that many people know him only as the white haired actor who made comedies and are probably really surprised by his earlier career. A wonderfully talented man.

oh god i really hope you're not serious. The kind of comedy acting that Nielsen became famous for is much more difficult than anything he was asked to do in this tepid teenybopper flic. It takes a much bigger man to make a fool of himself and make the audience roar with laughter! Who would you rather be, Charlie Chaplin or John Gilbert? Who do you think audiences remember?

In this film, Leslie Nielsen was basically standing around looking handsome. I imagine that most of his direction was like, "ok now please straighten up your back and walk in front of the camera." The director seemed more interested in Nielsen's body than in his personality. In fact the character he plays here has no personality at all, he's just a sort of idealized male for all the young girls in the audience to swoon over.

In "Forbidden Planet" he was given a little bit more to work with.... he plays the scenes where he's commanding his crew in the very stiff chin-up way similar to how he plays this character, but then the director Wilcox allows him to relax when he plays the romantic scenes with Anne Francis, allowing him to show another side of the character. But he's basically male eye-candy in that movie too. The real acting is done by Walter Pidgeon. Even Pidgeon wasn't allowed to act with much restraint or subtlety in that movie.

Considering that you mention Poseidon Adventure as a "great legendary serious film", I'm just going to hope that you were being satirical.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

It's been so long since I've seen The Poseidon Adventure that I didn't realize Nielsen was in it.

Poorly Lived and Poorly Died, Poorly Buried and No One Cried