Harry Dean Stanton Alien (1979)
Harry Dean Stanton (1926–2017) played Engineering Technician Samuel Brett in Alien (1979). He plays a man whose primary contribution to every conversation is the word "right," and he makes the choice work as character rather than gimmick.
Stanton was already a quarter-century into the career he would eventually be famous for
By 1979 Stanton had been working in films since the 1950s, building a reputation as one of the great American character actors — instantly recognizable, almost never the lead, always lifting the scenes around him. He had appeared in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), and The Godfather Part II (1974). His face was familiar to every studio in town. Casting him as Brett was a way of guaranteeing that the engine room would feel lived-in. (wikipedia, imdb)
Stanton did not like sci-fi but trusted the director
"[Alien's] a really classic movie now. I never liked science-fiction movies or monster movies, but that one was very believable. I told Ridley Scott during my interview with him that I didn't like those sorts of films and he said, 'Well I don't either, actually, but I think I can make something of this one.' And he did." — Harry Dean Stanton, Venice Magazine (1997) (magazine, not available online)
The exchange is characteristic. Stanton came to projects on faith — director by director, role by role. Alien worked because Scott assured him it would not be the kind of film he disliked, and Scott kept his word.
Brett is the bass note to Parker's lead
Brett agrees with everything Parker says, in part because the script tells him to and in part because Stanton plays the agreement as a long-running joke between two men who have worked together for years. The "right" responses are not vacuous — they are the shorthand of a partnership. When Brett wanders off after Jones the cat and is killed alone in the cargo hold, the loss is doubled because Parker has lost his echo.
His death scene is one of the film's first horror set pieces
Brett enters the cargo hold to find Jones. The space is cathedral-sized, lit in shafts of green and amber, with chains hanging from the ceiling. Water drips from above. He calls for the cat, holds out his hand, and looks up — and the alien drops on him. Scott shoots the kill in fragments: the inner jaw, Brett's stricken face, blood spilling from his open mouth. The sequence is more striking than Kane's chestburster because it is the audience's first full look at the adult creature, and Stanton's reaction sells the proportions. He is not a small man, and the alien towers over him.
The improvised banter with Kotto built the engine room
Stanton and Yaphet Kotto worked out the rhythm of their scenes together off-camera. Many of the film's loose, naturalistic moments below decks — the bickering about half-shares, the running gags, the unscripted exchanges — emerged from their rehearsals. Scott incorporated what he liked and let the texture stand.
The career around Alien
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Cool Hand Luke | Tramp |
| 1973 | Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid | Luke |
| 1974 | The Godfather Part II | FBI Agent |
| 1979 | Alien | Brett |
| 1981 | Escape from New York | Brain |
| 1984 | Paris, Texas | Travis Henderson — title role, Cannes Palme d'Or |
| 1984 | Repo Man | Bud |
| 1986 | Pretty in Pink | Jack Walsh |
| 1990 | Wild at Heart | Johnnie Farragut |
| 2017 | Lucky | Title role; final film, completed shortly before his death |
Paris, Texas (1984), Wim Wenders's road film, gave Stanton the leading role he had been quietly waiting for. He was fifty-eight. The performance is now considered one of the great American screen leads. Lucky (2017), released the year of his death, played as an unofficial farewell — a portrait of an old man making peace with the end. He was ninety-one when he died.