Patching it up

Tom Cruise stars as Claus von Stauffenberg in ''Valkyrie.'' The eye patch has a long history in Hollywood, mostly helping to portray evil ... but not always. (Frank connor/ united artists entertainment)

It's one of the great putdowns in movie history: "Bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!"

That's what Robert Duvall says to John Wayne's eye-patch-wearing Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit," when Wayne says he's going to arrest Duvall and his gang.

The lesson, though, is never laugh at someone wearing an eye patch in a movie. Not only does Wayne handily dispatch Duvall and crew. He won a best actor Oscar for the performance and got a sequel out of it ("Rooster Cogburn").

No one's saying Tom Cruise is about to get nominated for his performance as Claus von Stauffenberg in "Valkyrie," and actual events would seem to preclude a sequel. Even so, that bit of black cloth next to Cruise's nose reminds us how striking a performer can look onscreen sporting the one-eyed look.

Is it just a coincidence that no fewer than three classic directors sported an eye patch: John Ford, Raoul Walsh, and Nicholas Ray?

Danny Glover's character in "Blindness" takes the truth-in-advertising award for character names. He's the Man with the Black Eye Patch.

Sometimes the character can be the Woman with the Black Eye Patch. Think of Daryl Hannah's Elle Driver in the two "Kill Bill" movies or Angelina Jolie's daredevil aviatrix in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow."

Usually, though, the wearer is a male and that male a villain: Adolfo Celi's H-bomb-hijacking Largo in "Thunderball"; Robert Wagner's character, Number Two, in the "Austin Powers" movies; John Goodman's Cyclopean Big Dan Teague in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

It's rare that you'll find a hero with an eye patch, like Cruise's von Stauffenberg or Laurence Olivier's Lord Nelson in "That Hamilton Woman." More often, the character is decidedly mixed: Wayne's Cogburn, Brendan Gleeson's Mad-Eye Moody in the "Harry Potter" films, John Heard'sVietnam vet Alex Cutter in "Cutter's Way," Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken in "Escape From New York" and "Escape From LA."

Then there are the movies whose characters could have benefited from that bit of black. If only Robin Williams had ditched the red nose! "Eye Patch Adams," anyone?

MARK FEENEY