Friday, November 4, 2011

The Craig Justice file: immortal roles on the silver screen

Administrator noir
     There's just no getting around it. Throughout his career, current Irvine Valley College VPI Craig Justice has been a distinctly "noir" kinda guy....
     ...Think "Craig Justice" and, right away, you think "hard boiled" and "cynical" and "dark." Golly.
     Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics … who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war, such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), Murder, My Sweet (1944), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Laura (1944)…. Fear, mistrust, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia are readily evident in noir…. (Tim Dirks)
Here's Craig in what is arguably his most familiar role—as the natty giggling psychopath in Kiss me, Death!  God, he was wonderful in that. The part when he shoves that old woman down the stairs still gives me chills.

And who could ever forget him as Herman "Finger" Cain's duplicitous consigliere in The Godfather? The man is plainly born to play these parts.
Here he is as Spiv Eddy in the otherwise forgettable Night Bastards 'n Shades.  
That one was a real stinker. They can't all be good, I guess.
Craig as the immortal "Weepy-Boy Santos" in They Drive at Night. (He's the one driving and weeping.)
Next week: Craig & Kumar's Novato Adventure

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you got all those old films rolling around in your head? It's true: Craig was good in all of 'em.

Anonymous said...

Why Novato? Why not Vallejo? I heard they've got a streetwalker problem there...

Anonymous said...

He's got a new one coming out, and it looks like a goody. Here's what the poster says:

Nothing is sacred when
2500 pounds of angry pot roast
descend on a sleepy little community college

S. Craig Justice in…

BULL IN THE IVC CHINA SHOP!

25 years of college shattered in minutes!
Nothing left behind! (but b.s.)
“Shared governance” just makes him see red!
Don’t bother screaming…he doesn’t listen!

“Animal House turned nightmare”—NY Times
“Justice IS the know-it-all bull, outdoing even himself and Roquemore in ‘IVC Pearls Before Swine.’”—San Jose Mercury News

It sounds pretty scary. I'm sure glad it's only a movie!

Anonymous said...

10:21, Novato is the home of the ACCJC

Anonymous said...

Those images are priceless. Now that the accreditation team has left assured that everything is just peachy at IVC, he'll really feel free to seek and destroy. Thirty plus years of struggling to have a voice, to sit at the table, and he comes along and sh#&ts in the nest.

Watch your back, you never know when Craigzilla will attack!

Anonymous said...

The Plague of the Zombies, starring CJ and GR.

"This horror gem of mid-'60s British cinema is set in the Irvine countryside, where a mysterious alien is killing off a small college's populace."

Anonymous said...

No, no, his finest role was in Dead Snow, the best Nazi zombie flick ever made. Check it out. He can really goosestep. bvt, post the pic pls.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't there a cameo in "Detour"?

Anonymous said...

Catch him in Trail of the Screaming Forehead, sheer genius frontal lobage.

Can't wait for Novato. Do tell?

Anonymous said...

Looks like he's been to Novato.

Check out the top stories:

I. Community Development Office Closure

II.Downtown Novato Civic Center Open House

III. Sand and Sand Bags Available

IV. Keep it Green

Anonymous said...

Right on, immortal roles indeed.

But, nothing tops his Oscar performance in front of the accreditation committee. He's cunning, clever, and knows how to work a room.

Anonymous said...

Yes, he is a fine actor. He has some folks at IVC snowed.

Anonymous said...

Didn't he play the role of Big Bully in Dial D for Demons? Great horror film.

Anonymous said...

Check out Schenectady Pennsylvania School District's version of Craig Justice on "This American Life."

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=419&podcast=1

Talk about eerie similarities...

Anonymous said...

What about his leading lady?

Anonymous said...

Which leading lady? (The current one, or the one before that?)

Anonymous said...

Craig pushed a woman down the stairs? Schopenhauer might be proud! ;)

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...