Walken through time

If Christopher Walken didn't exist, Hollywood would've had to invent him. The celebrated movie madman who jolts even the lousiest flick to life even for just one scene (as he did in "Gigli") returns to the screen today to give Adam Sandler a life-changing remote control in "Click."

It's one of the many bizarro roles he's played in a film career spanning five decades. He claimed a close encounter of the intrusive kind in "Communion," tap-danced in his underwear in "Pennies From Heaven" and, playing an intense studio engineer, begged for "more cowbell" in a (fictional) Blue Oyster Cult recording session on "Saturday Night Live."

Tracy Bennett/Columbia Pictures (enlarge photo) Adam Sandler (left) and Christopher Walken star in the 2006 comedy 'Click.' Read reviews of "Click."

As David Letterman said about the actor earlier this week while chatting up "Click" star Adam Sandler, Walken's "every scene is a study in 'Can you be a little weirder?' "

Here we consider an octet of his choice roles, and rate his performance with our patented Walken Craze-O-Meter:

"Gigli" (2003)

Role: A police detective paying a visit to Ben Affleck's small-time crook for a single, memorably bizarre scene.

Crazy talk: "Man, you know what I'd love to do, right now? Go down to Marie Callender's, get me a big bowl, pie, some ice cream on it, mmm-hmm good! Put some on your head! Your tongue would slap your brains out trying to get to it!"

Rating: Somebody call 911!

"Sleepy Hollow" (1999)

Role: A ghostly, ax-wielding horseman with pointed teeth and, oh yeah, a detachable head.

Crazy talk: Doesn't really speak, which cuts down on the crazed factor.

Rating: Creepylicious.

"Wedding Crashers" (2005)

Role: U.S. treasury secretary hosting romantic scam artists Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, who make him look perfectly sane.

Crazy talk: "Well, the guy who wants to run for president, he thinks 'Moby Dick' is a venereal disease."

Rating: Mildly unnerving.

"The Deer Hunter" (1978)

Role: Small-town Joe who ships out to the Vietnam War and into madness and an addiction to Russian roulette.

Crazy talk: "Did you hear about the happy Roman?" (Oops, sorry — we can't print the rest of the joke in a family newspaper.)

Rating: Creepylicious.

"Annie Hall" (1977)

Role: As Annie's (Diane Keaton) morbid brother.

Crazy talk: "Sometimes when I'm driving ... I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The ... flames rising out of the flowing gasoline."

Rating: Somebody call 911!

"The Comfort of Strangers" (1990)

Role: A Venetian gentleman who can take you for a dinner of pretzel sticks at his gay bar, punch you in the gut, then wink.

Crazy talk: "My father was a very big man. And all his life he wore a black mustache. When it was no longer black, he used a small brush, such as ladies use for their eyes. Mascara." (Not so weird? It is when he says the same speech over and over.)

Rating: Somebody call 911!

"The Stepford Wives" (2004)

Role: Patriarch of a gated community who may or may not be turning the neighborhood's women into robots. (He's tame compared to Glenn Close as his scenery-chewing wife.)

Crazy talk: "My real name isn't Mike, it's just a nickname from where I used to work."

Rating: Mildly unnerving.

"Pulp Fiction" (1994)

Role: Captain Koons, a soldier who brings a young boy his late father's wristwatch.

Crazy talk: "He hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something: his [behind]. Five long years, he wore this watch up his [behind]."

Rating: Back away slowly ...