10 Best Harry Dean Stanton Appearances
5. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
This was early enough in Harry Dean Stanton’s career for him to be credited simply as “Dean Stanton”.
Here, he plays new prison inmate Edgar “Tramp” Potter, who is a minor character but arrives at the same time as Paul Newman’s titular protagonist and certainly stands out among the prisoners.
Too few movies made enough of Stanton’s musicality, but in a key moment after Luke has seen his infirm mother for likely the last time, Tramp promptly plays a sad hymn on his old beat-up guitar, and Stanton gets to show off his beautiful, warbling voice in extreme close-up. Later he leads the prisoners in a defiant musical accompaniment to witnessing Luke’s physical and psychological torture at the hands of the sadistic guards.
4. Pretty in Pink (1986)
A nice change from some of his usual, less cuddly roles, Harry Dean Stanton plays a single father living on the breadline and trying to be there for his teenage daughter after her mother walked out on them.
He couldn’t be more emotionally supportive, but his battle with depression and denial over the love of his life leaving him leaves him unable to find work and results in his daughter having to act like the parent more often than is healthy. An all-timer scene of vulnerability and familial affection sees him and Molly Ringwald’s Andie progress from a blazing row into sobbing and consoling in the blink of an eye, a real tribute to both actors’ emotional intelligence and natural chemistry.
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3. The Straight Story (1999)
Another one-scene appearance that could have so easily melted into the background sees Stanton re-team with David Lynch to absolutely destroy the viewer with a handful of lines and a stare full of pain that is aimed straight down the camera.
Lyle Straight is what drives the slight plot of The Straight Story despite largely being absent from the screen as his brother Alvin (Richard Farnsworth) travels across the county on his lawnmower just to see him following his stroke. A moving portrayal of an old-fashioned type of quiet masculinity, the two men are unable express their deep love for each other despite the enormity of Alvin’s bizarre journey, instead simply sitting together on Lyle’s porch in appreciative silence.
