The performance Jack Nicholson called his worst ever: “Embarrasses me as much as anything”
It’s rare that an actor will begin their career by starring in movies they are actually proud of, typically taking on roles in small or insignificant projects as a way to get a foot in the door. While this isn’t the case for everyone – you only have to look at the star-studded filmography of John Cazale, for example, which began with The Godfather – it certainly was for Jack Nicholson.
The actor might have gone on to star in everything from acclaimed movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to The Shining, but Nicholson started his career in many low-budget movies. Before he found Oscar-winning success, Nicholson could be seen in many Roger Corman films, even writing his movie The Trip in 1967.
Corman made many low-budget movies that proved to be vehicles for future filmmakers and actors, whom he often employed before their careers took off, and Nicholson was one of his most iconic collaborators. The director and producer specialised in various exploitation and horror titles, and he had a special penchant for Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, rising to cult status with these cheap yet entertaining takes on classic scary stories.
Nicholson starred in various titles directed by the indie cinema titan throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, beginning with The Cry Baby Killer in 1958. However, there is one film from this era of his career that he finds himself embarrassed by, even though you can hardly chastise the movie icon for starring in some questionable, low-budget horror movies while attempting to get his career off the ground.
The Terror, a Poe-inspired Corman movie released in 1963, is one of Nicholson’s most shameful performances, at least to him. He might have worked alongside horror icon Boris Karloff in the film, but Nicholson was not happy with how the film turned out. The actor starred as a French officer named André Duvalier who meets a mysterious woman, played by Sandra Knight, who happens to be harbouring a dark and devilish secret about her identity.
The movie was quite a mess behind the scenes, with the storyline lacking any real concrete direction, while various filmmakers were brought in to record additional scenes, including a young Francis Ford Coppola and exploitation cinema icon Jack Hill, who would later go on to make Coffy and Foxy Brown.
Even Nicholson had an uncredited role as one of the film’s many directors, and he reportedly had fun making the movie, according to interviews from the time, but looking back, it seems as though his opinion has changed. He once claimed (via Jack Nicholson: The Early Years): “The Terror embarrasses me as much as anything. The television stuff I did was all shit. You know, I don’t think I was ever worse than the basic material of the film. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me.”
“I’ve been involved in some of the most horrendously insane projects of anybody who ever survived them,” he continued. “A lot of people do these movies, but they’re so bad that they can’t get work anywhere else usually”.
Luckily for Nicholson, this period of working on low-budget films worked in his favour, and as he built up experience alongside other up-and-coming stars and immersed himself in counter-culture, he eventually landed a role in Easy Rider that would earn him an Oscar nomination and truly kickstart his career.
