100 Greatest Movie Characters: 55

"Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. However, I would like to address your attitude of hopeless negativism--consider the lilies of the goddamn field...or hell, look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope!"

55. Ulysses Everett McGill
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

You guys have no idea how long I've been waiting to do this one.

A wise-ass fugitive in Depression-era Mississippi, Everett is the dashingly smooth, fast-talking shyster type. Basically, he's an old-timey southern George Clooney in prison stripes.

Along with the brutish Pete and good-natured Delmar, Everett escapes from a chain gang claiming to be chasing the treasure he buried before his arrest. In reality, he's chasing his family to prevent his wife from remarrying because he's the damn paterfamilias.

On the way, the boys get sold out by Pete's cousin, meet blues musician Tommy Johnson and become (without their knowledge) music superstars, get caught up in abetting criminal George "Babyface" Nelson, and even secure the election of incumbent gubernatorial candidate Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniels.

Like an Odysseus in pomade (Dapper Dan brand is preferred), Everett is a prideful sumbitch destined to prevent his wife from marrying her suitor. His journey forces him to face a blind seer, viciously beautiful sirens, and even a cyclops (John Goodman in an eyepatch). While these are obvious references to the Homer's epic story of the Odyssey (even the name Ulysses is the Latin language form of Odysseus), the Coens had no idea at first. There was a similar story and they decided to toss a couple dozen allusions to the novel into the film.

Despite his pride and sharp tounge, Everett is a still a likable fella. Why, hell, he's not too bad for a guy with a rough and rowdy past.

Defining moment: His first words and the very first lines of the whole film. Fleeing with Pete and Delmar, still all chained together, Everett hops onto a moving traincar where he asks the hobos dwelling it a simple question:

"Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?"

Then he's pulled away because while he was busy asking something so ridiculous to a group of bums, he forgot that two other guys were running alongside the train and trying to catch up.

The runner-up to this scene would be anything else in the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," with or without Everett.