25. “The Raven” (1963) Rexford Bedlo
Nicholson doesn’t have much to do in Roger Corman’s imaginative adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, but it’s fun to see him share the screen with such veteran creeps as Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff.
26. “Goin’ South” (1978) Henry Lloyd Moon
As a director, Nicholson is credited in this western with giving Mary Steenburgen and John Belushi their first film roles. As a star, Nicholson does his director no favors. The character, an outlaw saved from the gallows via a marriage of convenience, is just another in the actor’s gallery of rogues and eccentrics.
27. “The Last Tycoon” (1976) Brimmer
Director Elia Kazan’s last movie, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last novel, featuring a cast of movie royals playing dress-up for a tale set in golden-age Hollywood, should have been a bigger deal, but it turned out to be little more than a footnote for everyone involved. That includes Nicholson, who acquits himself as an ambitious union boss — sort of a precursor to his role in “Hoffa” 16 years later.
