The First Person in Movies

It’s hard to believe the final movie in the Austin Powers trilogy came out almost 10 years ago.  Yikes, I’m feeling old now.

Austin Powers Goldmember is the final James Bond spoof for comedian Mike Myers and it opened in theaters in 2002.  The movie was stacked with an All-Star cast featuring the sexy Beyoncé Knowles as Foxxy Cleopatra and Michael Caine as Austin’s dad along with all the regulars like multiple roles by Myers, Seth Green as Dr. Evil’s kid and Mini Me!

So which of these box office stars gets the title as first actor seen in Goldmember?

Kinda tricky.  The movie opens with stunt doubles, a man and woman, in an action sequence that we later learn is a movie adaptation of Austin Powers himself.  The paradoxical movie-in-a-movie reveals big actors populating the fictitious world of Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.

So stunt guys and gals aside, the first actor we see is actually Tom Cruise. You can check out the opening scene here.

To shake it up a bit here’s a look not at a movie but rather a very influential television series.   AMC TV’s hit series Mad Men is a well made drama about one of New York’s most prestigious ad agencies at the beginning of the 1960s, focusing on one of the firm’s most mysterious but extremely talented ad executives, Donald Draper.

We open on a crowded bar and the camera pans across the crowd, not long enough to make out too many people but if you have watched the show and go back to rewatch this episode you’ll notice members of Don Draper’s ad team standing at the bar and mingling.

A bit too brief for me to count, really.  Instead the camera is more interested in the man sitting in a booth near the wall, away from the crowd.

And a quick cut to the front side of this guy and we get Don Draper, the man himself.

That’s our man Don Draper (Jon Hamm) sitting down and writing something that looks very important.

One of the best, if not THE best, movie made about ice hockey is Paul Newman’s 1977 ‘Slap Shot.’

The movie not only helped introduce the sport to lots of new fans, but it also introduced us to the insane Hanson brothers who are brought on to help the team get out of the gutter.  The goons made a fun habit of beating up opponents that many hockey fans still cherish to this day.

So try to guess which actor appears first in the Paul Newman sports comedy.  Turns out it’s two people and neither one is the maker of my favorite spaghetti sauce.

‘Slap Shot’ opens on studio set as Denis Lemieux (Yvon Barrette), a goalie for the Charlestown Chiefs, is doing an interview for the local TV station hosted by Jim Carr (Andrew Duncan).  The two share a great moment as Lemieux shares the finer points of hockey for the fans.

Great movies are based on Philip K. Dick stories and one of the best adaptations of Dick’s work is the 1981 sci-fi movie Blade Runner. 

Based on the story “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” Blade Runner focuses on Ford who is a police special officer hunting down genetically engineered organic robots called replicants.

Morgan Paull is the first person seen in Blade Runner, at least in the theatrical cut. Paull is the agent working for the Tyrell Corp interviewing Leon Kowalski (Brion James)a suspected replicant.

It does not end well of Paull as Kowalski ends up killing Holden to escape.

Although there is an early establishing shot of a human soldier running from the machines in the future, it’s not enough to tell who it is.  Instead, the credits roll and “da da da da da” music starts.

We then flashback to the present, which is actually California circa 1984 and the hair and fashion is a dead giveaway.

The low-budget sci-fi classic directed by James Cameron (Avatar) kick-started the careers of Cameron himself and helped make the bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name.

Also staring in the movie are Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton but none of those actors make the first appearance. 

The first person to appear in the Terminator happens while waiting for Arnold to time-travel back to 1984 and it’s not who you think.

Yep. That’s not Arnold.  That would be Chino ‘Fats’ Williams as the garbage man who is doing his rounds only to be surprised by a naked dude.

For my money, there is no cooler person than Bill Murray. Over the years some of the most iconic bits on and off the camera can be attributed to Murray.

The likable comedian hit big in the 70s with Saturday Night Live and a string of hits like Meatballs, Caddyshack, and Stripes. Directed by Ivan Reitman, the military comedy stared Murray along with Harold Ramis, John Larroquette, Sean Young, and John Candy.

The film opens up with John Winger (Murray) as a cab driver getting his shoes shinned. He is watching an ARMY ad on TV and the first people we actually see are soldiers promoting the armed services. 

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The Big Lebowski is a classic film by the Coen Bros about a dude who may or may not be a hero. Released in 1998 to limited fanfare, the movie has become like the original Woodstock concert in that everyone claims to have been there when it happened.

However, the Dude did very modest numbers and became a cult in the years following.  The movie opened up in 1998 in 6th place on its opening weekend and only grossed about $17 million in its short run.

Now it seems like everyone knows a few quotes from the movie and the movie has garnered enough attention that there are annual Lebowski Fests held to celebrate the world of the Dude.

The attention is well deserved as it is a fantastic movie and since the movie is about the Dude, a hero in Jellys, it is also well deserved that the first person you see (not hear) is none other than Jeffery Lebowski, A.K.A. The Dude.

The Hunt for Red October (1990) is based off of the 1984 novel by Tom Clancy.  This thriller features Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin on a race to save a Russian submarine.

Sean Connery received top billing in the movie and is also featured prominently on the poster and the new star actor, Alex Baldwin, was expected to stand in as Jack Ryan in a series of movies.  He would turn them down and Harrison Ford would end up picking up the role in later movies.

The first person seen in the movie is Sean Connery, as Marko Alexandrovich Ramius, a Lithuanian who has risen to high levels of trust in the Soviet Navy, intends to defect to the United States with his officers and the experimental nuclear submarine Red October.

The 1979 Mel Gibson apocalyptic thriller Mad Max features Mel in his first big role as a police officer in the Main Force Patrol (MFP) trying to keep what little justice there is in one piece.

Despite being one of Austrialia’s largest grossing films and making Mel Gibson into one of the biggest stars in the world, the movie does not open on him.  Instead. Steve Millichamp gets the nod as Officer Roop spying on a couple getting freaky in a field.

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