Recasting the Classics

There is no reason to bother with this silly exercise. They are done, they are finished, they are classic. Now leave them the fuck alone.

Basil Rathbone as Rhett and Norma Shearer as Scarlett in Gone With The Wind.

Fuck off, R1. Just because they're classics doesn't mean they were perfectly cast. You sound like a condescending, wretched control freak.

At the beginning of GWTW Ashley Wilkes was YOUNG. He was only 19 or 20. Leslie Howard was in his forties when he played him, which made the character seem very different. A young, handsome, blonde actor was needed to play Ashley Wilkes. I think Leslie Howard as Ashley is one of the greatest examples of miscasting in film history.

Sterling Hayden would have filled the bill nicely, R4, though he didn't start his film career until 1940.

As no suitable blonde actors of the 1930s come to mind, I'd have given up on getting the hair color right and cast the young Tyrone Power. Because he was dreamy, not just very good-looking but with an air of quietude and a certain physical androgyny that would have made him seem the polar opposite of the hyper-butch Gable. He was exactly the sort of good-looking, slightly feminine man who captures the heart of teenage girls, and remember Scarlett was only 16 and a virgin at the beginning of the story.

Because yeah, there really was a shortage of blond actors at the time, I think it was because fair coloring didn't photograph well in black and white. I mean who was there, Randolph Scott? Jimmy Cagney? Buster Crabbe? Gene Raymond?

That's why I chose Tyrone Power as well, R6. The only blond actor I can think of who may have qualified is Richard Cromwell, who played Henry Fonda's brother in Jezebel and married Angela Lansbury several years later despite being gay.

What about French actor Jean Marais? Either dub his voice in English or have him just learn the lines. He was 26 when the movie came out and he was blond and mesmerizing in Belle et Bete.

This is what Marais looked like in the late 30s.

Ashley should seem only slightly gay, R8/R9, not overwhelmingly gay.

And if people are reaching as far as Franco to find blond actors, I'm right about there being a massive shortage of fair-haired actors in late 1930s Hollywood!

I love the idea of replacing Anne Baxter with Janet Leigh in All About Eve.

How about Jane Fonda instead of Katharine Ross in The Graduate?

I can not believe the casting in The Goldfinch.

Worst casting? Clinton Eastwoid and Meryl Streep in Bridges of Madison County...or whatever that movie is.

R2 is crazy.

I'd replace John Malkovich with Alan Rickman in Dangerous Liaisons.

Apparently Rickman, who played the part on Broadway, was passed over because he was unknown at the time. But he would have brought more sexiness to the part than JM.

I love Vertigo just as it is but sometimes I wonder how Marilyn Monroe would have been in the Kim Novak role.

Is a movie a classic if it has a serious casting mistake in it?

That's an interesting idea, R15, but I think Kim Novak's zombie blankness worked perfectly for Vertigo (which is, after all, about necrophilia). And Novak could feign being a lady, which I don't think Monroe could have pulled off.

I also think Leslie Howard was well-cast as Ashley. Scarlett's obsession with Ashley is isn't supposed to make objective sense to the audience. He shouldn't be played by someone glamorous and sexually attractive. To the contrary, her love for him is a delusion. We're not supposed to be sympathetic to that delusion, either, since it's evident from their first scene together that she belongs with Rhett.

"I love Vertigo just as it is but sometimes I wonder how Marilyn Monroe would have been in the Kim Novak role. "

Not that Kim Novak didn't nail it in "Vertigo" for once in her life, but Monroe might have been even better. She could have played both the ethereality of the first half, and the trashiness of the second. However there was no way in fucking hell that Hitchcock would have put up with her onset behavior, he expected his actors to do their fucking job and not hide in their trailers having the vapors for hours.

Louise Fletcher was brilliant in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but if a star had been wanted for the part, Ellen Burstyn would have nailed it.

R16, it's not that Scarlett's love for Ashley was a sham or incomprehensible to the audience, it was more like a teenaged crush that went on too long because she was too stubborn to let go of it. So Ashley should be the sort of man a teenager could reasonably develop a crush on - good-looking, sexually unthreatening, ever so slightly feminine, a teen-idol type.

The crush was supposed to be explicable to the audience, in the book Ashley was described as not just handsome, but intelligent, honorable, courtly, the most well-read person Scarlett knows, very astute about the big picture, and passionate in private. He's supposed to be totally worthy of a woman's love, just not the right man for Scarlett, if she had the sense to see it. They really should have cast a young matinee-idol type, the kind of man a teenager could reasonably develop a crush on. Leslie Howard just wasn't that man, he was a middle-aged character actor who'd played a brilliant Henry Higgins recently, for fuck's sake!

Richard Gere instead of William Hurt in Body Heat

R4 I'd like to agree on a blond Tyrone Power but Clark Gable was on loan and he would have vetoed a prettier man as his love-rival.

A blonde Tyrone Power would have looked ridiculous. His dark handsomeness was his trademark.

Marilyn Monroe would have been fine as Judy but perfectly awful as Madeline in "Vertigo." Can you imagine her giving the speech about "it was only a moment for you" to the sequoia cross-section in that idiotic breathy voice?

R23, I think she would have done it quite well. In fact, that could have been the role that would have gotten her an Oscar nomination or even a win.

Dame Judith Anderson as Kim and Sir Ralph Richardson as Hugo in "Bye Bye Birdie."

Not that Vivien was miscast, she did a good job, but Paulette Goddard should have been cast instead.

My fantasy Eve in "All About Eve" is Deborah Kerr. Baxter did a good job but I would like to have seem Kerr have a go at Eve's concealed ruthlessness.

Jack Nicholson seems crazy from the first minute of "The Shining." Would love to have seen a "good guy" actor like Redford been cast. Start off bland and safe, then break down.

Kerr seemed to mature for the role of Eve, who was supposed to come across as young and gormless at first. Kerr always seemed grown-up and competent, even when she was quite young, I don't think she would have worked.

And regarding Marilyn in "Vertigo"... the first time I saw the movie I wasn't that enthralled during the first act, largely because Kim Novak didn't seem like the sort of ethereal upper-crust lady she was playing. Well duh, she was a fake and if some of the audience picked up on that, then it worked for the story! So if Monroe wouldn't have been quite convincing as a Lady-with-a-capital-L then that would have worked as well, and I would have liked to see her try. She would have brought a vulnerability to the first act that the film lacks, Novak saved it for the last third of the film and I have to say it worked.

"Clark Gable was on loan and he would have vetoed a prettier man as his love-rival. "

Gable had no reason to feel insecure about someone like Tyrone Power. Put the two of them together and the smaller, prettier Tyrone would have looked like a girl, which would have totally worked in the context of the story.

Someone other than Dorothy McGuire in The Spiral Staircase. She's so bland and annoying I wanted her to be another victim of the killer. I know Joan C wanted the part but not sure about that.

Jack Soo as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Jean Simmons instead of Anne Baxter is a fab idea. Lauren baciall instead of Anne bancroft in the graduate?? Laurence olivier as Ashley? ..

Ashley was 25 when GWTW began and Rhett was 32.

[quote]And Anne Baxter didn't have the necessary luminosity in All About Eve. I'd have cast Jean Simmons, Patricia Neal, Bacall, Janet Leigh or Kim Stanley instead.

Agreed! Baxter almost ruins the film, I think she's terrible in it.

Dream Eves are Gene Tierney or Judy Garland who would have been able to hold their own against Davis.

"Ashley was 25 when GWTW began and Rhett was 32."

Ashley's age is never mentioned in GWTW, but it appears he's around the same age as the Tarleton twins, who are 19. Rhett is 17 years older than Scarlett, so at the beginning of the novel he's 33.

Angela Lansbury as Eve. She would have been 25.

Tierney and Garland would have held their own, R34, but they were just a little long in the tooth by 1950. Garland no longer looked like an ingenue and Tierney was 30 and looked it.

Gene Tierney wouldn't have worked as Eve Harrington. Because divas like Margo Channing do NOT feel sorry for stunningly beautiful younger women and invite them to be part of their inner circle! No, Eve needed to be pretty enough to be an actress but not so pretty that she made other women feel threatened, at least Anne Baxter was right in that respect.

Jean Simmons would have been my pick for the role, although I suppose she was too young at the time - 21 by her official date of birth.

I can see Lansbury as Eve. That would have put her where she belonged in that era instead of the downward spiral that the 50s actually became for her, other than a very few bright notes.

Jack Torrance is not supposed to be bland and safe. He's a violent alcoholic who broke his son's arm and beat the shit out of a student.

Travolta instead of Richard Gere in Chicago.

Nick Nolte instead of Spacey in American Beauty.

Johnny Depp instead of Di'caprio in Titanic.

R4, David O'Selznick wanted more than anything to have an appropriate Ashley, but there was nobody who was the right type who could also act it and embody the requisite qualities believably. There's a guy in one of the screen tests who is all wrong as to type - and also too old - who did a great job acting it, but was just not Ashley. They kept going back to Leslie Howard. Even though he was too old, he had everything else they wanted - physically opposite to Gable/Rhett, temperment and personality opposite, blonde, and believable as this sort of cerebral, noble kind of guy.

What was wrong with Randolph Scott? He was young,handsome,blond, and southern as well.

I agree about Ann Baxter. For one thing, she looked a little matronly in the role, not like a dangerously young threat. She was cast because she looked like Claudette Colbert, who was originally supposed to play Eve but dropped out. I never believed Baxter was really going to make it in theatre - not as she dressed and looked.

Randolph Scott wouldn't have been believable as a bookish weenie, R43! Much too vital, much too butch, much too sexy, too much the man of action. Too much like Clark Gable, only not as good an actor.

Gable really was perfect in the role, I have to say. Expetations were so high that he was actually terrified of taking on the role, but for the first and last time in his career he dug deep and absolutely nailed a complex and difficult part.

Exactly, R43! Randolph Scott would have been great--and the audience would have understood why Scarlett saw him as so appealing. You need someone who can go to to toe with Gabke in the sex appeal department; Howard just leaves most viewers cold. I don't know if Selznick even considered Scott; he had starred in the box office bomb Civil War drama So Red the Rose a few years before so it's possible Selznick wanted to avoid any comparisons between his very expensive property and a notable box office failure.

Howard hated playing the role of Ashley and also shared the opinion that he was miscast. Here's a blondish Tyrone Power.

My only request was that they not make me look like the fag doorman at the Beverly Wiltshire.

Interesting thread!

I think Leslie Howard was great as Ashley - he looked worn, unhappy and haunted from the get-go, which seems reflective of the fact that he knew the South wads not only doomed, but deserved to be and that he was trapped by the reality of slavery and his family's complicity in it, two things the book made more clear than the film. He also projected a wan vulnerability that seemed as if it might be attractive to Scarlett's better nature, as opposed the virile and sexy Rhett, whose good looks obviously carried a carnal attraction.

I agree that Anne Baxter seemed a bit off as Eve Harrington, but then in some way she's supposed to seem off - and she really owns the role in the climatic fight with Addison, when we see the depths of her corruption and viciousness. That girlish face seems to lose all its lovely curves and turn into awful twitching lines -a mask, slipping.

Monroe is far better an actress than Novak, but too soft and sultry a presence to carry off the unnerving, artificial ice queen persona the first half of the film requires. Grace Kelly might have managed it, likewise Tippi Hedren, but not perhaps at that time.

The most miscast actor in my opinion is James Stewart in Rear Window. Too much the well-meaning WASP hick.

Agreed about Stewart in Rear Window. He and Grace Kelly were not remotely believable as a couple. William Holden, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas would have been more plausible. I'd like to have seen what Clift would have done with the role of Jeff Jefferies.

I'm going to assault a mega-classic here.

I've always wondered how much more interesting "The Wizard of Oz" would have been with Shirley Temple as Dorothy and W. C. Fields as the Wizard. This was part of M-G-M's original plan, or so the story goes.

Would a preteen Dorothy make the movie more endearing or more childish?

And I think Fields would've brought a lot more character to the role of the Wizard.

And if they were casting Gone with the Wind today? You know someone will try eventually. any ideas? The story is SO RIPE for revision as well.

These days the title of Gone with the Wind carries entirely different connotations.

I shudder thinking about cutesy Shirley Temple as Dorothy singing anything. But Fields as the Wizard would have been sublime along with Buster Keaton as The Tin Man, and Laurel and Hardy as The Scarecrow and The Cowardly Lion.

What a fun thread! I love so many of the ideas here.

Jean Simmons as Eve would have been brilliant casting!

Anne Baxter looks manipulative and hard edged from the get go, so there’s nowhere for her to really go with the character as an actress. It’s obvious she’s evil from the first scene—and also totally unbelievable that all these jaded, world weary NYC theatre people would believe a word out of her phony mouth.

She seems more like a scheming diner waitress from a B-grade film noir than a young ingenue enchanting the theatre elite of Broadway...

Simmons could have fooled everyone with a false waif-like vulnerability and then *really* pulled the rug out from under both the characters in the film and the audience when Eve’s ruthless core is steadily revealed.

Her innocent outward appearance also would have made the film and character even more unsettling than it already was (even after it’s over).

William Holden in Rear Window would've been amazing.

I love “Gone with the Wind” and think most of the casting is spot on (good chemistry between most of the cast and characters).

I think Tyrone Power (hair lightened a bit) as Ashley could have been *really* interesting....

Age aside (I get that he’s supposed to be younger), has anyone considered how Ronald Colman would have done in the Ashley role?

(His voice alone was magnificent)

After watching Valley of the Dolls, I remember thinking that Judy Garland could really have sunk her teeth into the Helen Lawson part, and it's a camp classic to boot. But I guess she was kind of out of films by that time. But even earlier, at the tail end of her MGM years, they gave Betty Hutton the lead in Annie Get Your Gun, when Garland would have easily been able to shine in the part. Oh well, that's Hollywood.

R35 Just took out my copy of GWTW because I did believe the ages were mentioned. They were. When Ashley returned from abroad after school he was 19, which was less than a year before the beginning of the book; so he was either still 19 but no older than 20. Melanie is mentioned as being 17 and Rhett as 33, and "the oldest beau Scarlett had ever had" (from the book).

If Shirley Temple had been a teen, as in The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, I think the movie would have had similar appeal. Though audiences tend to remember her as a three year old tapdancing midget, I think she really had an underrated star quality when she started to mature. Had MGM made the film and cast her when she was still that annoying curly-haired, miniature Georgia Engel, no. I think Wizard would be forgotten today.

No one has forgotten The Little Princess though.

Randolph Scott was the least butch guy on the planet based on the movies I've seen, but he was too stupid to play Ashley. Ashley needed a good actor.

Shirley Temple wasn't annoying at her peak. She was charming. When you look at her baby burlesque movies (and dear God, were those eye brow raising - pedophilia bait), she has the most presence, charm and "commitment". In her feature films, it was her maturity combined with how they played up the curls and the little kewpie doll face that made her work. She was smarter than other kids, more poised, etc., juxtaposed with being adorable.

When she was a tween, her precocious personality caught up with her appearance, so she wasn't as compelling.

Good Day Dataloungers...any juicy re-cast roles for me?

Temple was the right age for Dorothy, who was 11 in the book series, but she really couldn't carry a note despite The Good Ship Lollipop. If the movie had been faithful to the book, it'd have also featured Eureka, a pink and purple cat, and a cow named Imogene. Over the Rainbow would have induced cringes.

Scarlett was attracted to Ashley because he was the opposite of her father. Her father was foul-mouthed, short and coarse. Her mother was very refined who only married Gerald O’Hara because her family broke up her romance with he cousin Phillipe. Scarlett was well aware of her own coarseness and ruthlessness. Ashley represente

Karen Black as Margaret White in Carrie

Black was only ten years older than Spacek.

[quote]If the movie had been faithful to the book, it'd have also featured Eureka, a pink and purple cat, and a cow named Imogene.

Eureka the pink cat (not the pink and purple cat) only appears in "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz," which is a much later sequel--the third, after "The Marvelous Land of Oz" and "Ozma of Oz." She does not appear anywhere in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

Imogen the Cow never appears in the books, and only appears in the turn-of-the-century Broadway play version of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" as a replacement for Toto.

Pardon Wikipedia and me, R69.

Judy Garland was cast as Helen Lawson but was fired for being drunk and belligerent. These costume fittings are the only remaining footage of her.

Leslie Howard's casting makes sense if you have ever seen ‘The Petrified Forest’ where he plays a drifter. I think Mr. Joan Crawford #2, Franchot Tone could have been a good Ashley. He was younger, good looking and would come across as more intellectual than Clark Gable.

Also, no to Paulette Godard as Scarlett. In her screen test, she seemed kittenish but too modern and mature to me.

And of course the classic would have been is Doris Day in The Graduate.

Huh. I remember Leslie Howard as looking very young in Petrified Forest but it was made only three years before GWTW. Was it the makeup? The technicolor?

I think Patric Knowles would have been good as Ashley.

What about young, blond Vincent Price as Ashley?

He was was 27 in ‘38, and had a couple of pictures under his belt.

Perhaps he was already contracted to play Sir Walter Raleigh in (Bette’s) Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex also filming then.

I wonder if he was considered.

He seems to fit a lot of the other poster’ criteria.

Shirley Temple would have been awful in "The Wizard of Oz". If you've ever seen any of her films from the late thirties you'd know that although she was still singing and dancing away, she'd stopped doing anything resembling acting. By that point she played directly to the camera, stuck to her child-star schtick, and the only feelings she could register were cheerfulness and pouting.

The thing is, TWoO only works because Judy Garland played it very, very real. She reacts to the insane events and cutesy sets like a real person would, her loneliness, happiness, and fear are very real, and give a heart to a film that would have been a sticky mess without a core of real feeling. Shirley Temple would NOT have given the film a solid emotional core, she would have tried to out-cute the Munchkins with flower pots on their heads.

Lucille Ball as Mrs. Iselin in "The Manchurian Candidate" is another classic "could have been"

What if Judy Garland had played Scarlett and Vivien Leigh had played Dorothy?

Viv would have out-wickeded the Witch!

Michelle Pfeiffer was the first choice for Clairce Starling in "Silence of the Lambs," but she turned it down because she found the screenplay "immoral." She must regret that decision now--it would have been her sure Academy Award.

Did she really say “immoral “?

I could understand if she had said violent or sadistic.

She doesn’t usually take the “moral” high ground when choosing roles, does she?

Not to be snarky, R81, but do you have a link?

R74, perhaps it was the fact that he was 27 years older than Ashley's age (19) in the book, and old enough to have fathered both Leigh and De Havilland. I like Power as a recasting choice, also Knowles or maybe Richard Cromwell or Jon Hall. Tone was a little too old and Price was too sharp and caustic and not really heartthrob material.

Ashley was older than the T-twins. He had actually gone and stayed to graduate from college, and then he spent three years away on his Grand Tour, before returning to the county the previous year.

Honestly, there wasn't an appropriate name actor for the role of Ashley in the Hollywood of 1939. Dark haired, dark eyed men photographed better in B&W than fair-haired ones, so there just weren't that many blond actors around, and there really weren't a lot of actors who built bookishness or intelligence into their persona, it wasn't in style. Ronald Colman and William Powell were about the only stars who were known for any degree of intelligence into their persona, and Colman was too old for the role and Powell was too much of a smartass.

Ashley couldn't have a sense of humor, or at least be someone who was known for comedy! Or a good-looking lummox like Jon Hall, he had to have something behind the eyes.

Vincent Price wrote to Selznick, pleading to be considered for the part of Ashley. Either George Cukor--then director for the film--or Selznick did not care for the idea and he was never given a screen test.

Can't remember which biography I read this in, but wasn't Montgomery Clift attached to Sunset Boulevard before William Holden was? And didn't they want to pair him with Mary Pickford?

I like Monty as much as anyone, but I can't imagine Sunset Boulevard working with him as Joe Gillis.

I can definitely imagine Clift in Sunset Boulevard, then again I've always been a much bigger fan of his than of Holden. Clift could especially bring realness to the role since the purported reason he turned down the role down was his involvement (platonic or otherwise but in some sort of symbiosis) with older woman/torch singer/tobacco heiress Libby Holman. Mae West was first sought as Norma Desmond. I can only imagine that if she let go of her shtick entirely.

From Wikipedia:

According to Brackett, Wilder and he never considered anyone except Gloria Swanson for the role of Norma Desmond. Wilder, however, had a different recollection. He recalled first wanting Mae West and Marlon Brando for the leads, but never approached either with an offer. He contacted Pola Negri by telephone, but had a difficult time understanding her heavy Polish accent. They also asked Norma Shearer if she would portray Norma Desmond, but she rejected the role due to both her retirement and distaste for it. They were considering Fred MacMurray to play opposite her as Joe. The filmmakers approached Greta Garbo, but she expressed no interest. Wilder and Brackett then visited Mary Pickford, but before even discussing the plot with her, Wilder realized she would consider a role involving an affair with a man half her age an insult, so they departed. They had considered pairing Montgomery Clift with her.

R51- I thought the original plan for The Wizard of Oz was to cast Deanna Durbin as Dorothy?

Hall could act with intelligence when given the rare opportunity, though bookishness might be a stretch for him. Just as Leigh wasn't a box-office draw at the time, another newcomer might not have been a bad idea. Peter Finch both started their careers in the late 30s. Here's a young Finch. Supporting players Richard Denning or William Henry could also have stepped into it more believably than Howard, who was pushing 50.

William Henry...

Judy Garland as Mama Rose in the '62 version of GYPSY. She could have been definitive, but unfortunately, it was a Warner film and Jack Warner hated her and Rosalind Russell's husband had bought the rights so that Roz could do the film. It's one of the great missed opportunities.

Karen Black as Margaret White in the '76 version of CARRIE wouldn't have made much sense. She was too young for it then, but by the time that awful 2002 TV version was made, she'd have been a much bitter fit for the role than Patricia Clarkson who was about as interesting and intimidating as a Happy Meal toy. Honestly, any movie could be made better by having more Karen Black. I miss her.

I do often wonder what Rosemary's Baby with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford would have been like. Even then, Jane just didn't seem like a victim. I don't know if she could have pulled it off. Redford would have been ideally cast, though. I always thought the casting of Cassevetes kinda spoiled the twist where we find out he's in on the whole thing. He just seems more capable of evil than Redford.

Also, a Stepford Wives starring Diane Keaton as Joanna would have been interesting, I can see her being wonderful in that role. I also wonder why the original Bobbi - Joanna Cassidy - was replaced by Paula Prentiss. I adore Prentiss and think she's one of the best parts of the film, but both she and Cassidy had that wacky, kooky thing down. I'd have thought Cassidy could have played that role in her sleep. I've never heard a real reason why she was fired a week into shooting.

Debra Winger as Karen Silkwood.

"Ashley was older than the T-twins. He had actually gone and stayed to graduate from college, and then he spent three years away on his Grand Tour, before returning to the county the previous year."

No, they were about the same age. The Tarleton twins kept getting expelled from the colleges they attended. While they were doing that Ashley going on a Grand Tour of Europe. It's never really said that Ashley graduated from college in GWTW although he seems quite educated, possibly self educated. The Wilkes are readers, which sets them apart from their neighbors who have no use for books or music or art. The Wilkes are considered "queer" because of that.

Edgar G, Robinson's performance in Little Ceaser is justly admired, but in the book on which it's based (a terrific read, by the way) the character is supposed to be a very young guy, still in his early twenties. He's "little" not as a reference to his height, but to his youth (and, at the start of the story, his status as a punk).

R57, after Clark Gable, whom "everybody" wanted for Rhett (except, per legend, Clark Gable) Ronald Coleman was the next most mentioned for the part. He was Rhett, not Ashley.

Tyrone Power as Ashley is intriguing. There has to be a reason he wasn't in the running - Selznick was casting his net everywhere, he knew everyone - it's not like Power's existence was unknown to him. There wasn't a thought Selznick had that he didn't dictate or type. I don't believe he thought Power was too sexy or leading man for Ashley - Leslie Howard was a ladies man and a leading man in his movie prime, even if not in Gone with the Wind.

I would have cast Mickey Rooney as the teenager Gene Tierney lets drown in "Leave Her to Heaven". I imagine audiences would have risen to their feet and cheered, "THANK YOU!"

^ If you listen to the DVD audio commentary by Darryl Hickman he is so unkind about Gene Tierney that you are glad he was drowned.

Speaking of Mickey Rooney, imagine how progressive it would have been if he had played the old lady in the wheelchair Richard Widmark pushed down the stairs in "Kiss of Death"!!!

Sometimes I think one of my favorites, Ginger Rogers, was the only leading actress in Hollywood not angling to play Scarlet O'Hara. She was in prep for "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" at the time, and the real Irene Castle, age 40something, was making her life hell. Castle had been a famous dancer, famous for her figure, a commendable tennis player and swimmer to boot, all things the much younger Rogers was now famous for and accomplished at performing, and Castle appeared jealous out of her mind. Castle became vicious every time Rogers or the production resisted something she wanted in Irene, but she had no issues at all with Fred Astaire playing her British husband without a British accent. Anyway, in her bio, Rogers says that she really thinks what Castle wanted was "a nationwide hunt for a discovery in the role - like that Scarlet thing." Ludicrous, since the property had been purchased for Astaire Rogers. But otherwise, who didn't want Scarlet, besides Olivia de Havilland? Katherine Hepburn (same studio as Rogers), Carole Lombard, Lana Turner, Jean Arthur.

I think the casting for GWTW was pretty perfect. On youtube there are different Mammy/Scarlett pairings and you can see their screen tests. I forgot the other actress in contention for Mammy. Hattie McDaniels was an MGM stalwart who had appeared in a billion movies with Clark Gable before - as Jean Harlow's maid (twice) or similar, usually. While IMO she was sometimes just going through the motions in her other roles, as Mammy she perfectly hit that maternal POWER, but I love you, but I'm going to speak my mind thing, where you know she had influence and was nobody's fool. In the same scenes, her competition didn't have the same authority. Vivien Leigh was also working very well with McDaniels' rhythms.

Powell was also too old for the role, in 1939 he was the same age as Leslie Howard (Powell was born in 1892).

Paulette Goddard was too hard. And not interesting. She lacked the charm Leigh had when Scarlet was charming. She lacked the genuine childlike quality - it came across as calculated with her.

R100 Wasn't the other Mammy contender Louise Beavers?

Why not Laurence Olivier as Ashley? He was a better actor and he also had the right look. He and Scarlett would have had great chemistry, and he could have managed a Southern accent. But I think the U.S. public would have rebelled against having British actors play two of the lead roles.

Vivian Vance as Mildred Pierce might have earned her a well-deserved Oscar and given her twilight years some class.

R195, let’s dream cast Vivian Vance as Karen Holmes in From Here to Eternity...give her the timeless love making scene on the beach?

Doris Day instead of Mitzi Gaynor in South Pacific.

Marilyn Monroe instead of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Well, if we're gonna dream cast, I will go all the way: Viv Vance in a brown wig and with a Puerto Rican accent as Maria and William Frawley in a corset as Tony. Imagine that pas de deux during the Dance at the Gym. I like the WSS we got, but that would be one for the ages. Bitch could move better than Wood, and Crawley had a set of pipes that could sell the score.

I still think that Barbara Stanwyck would have made a better Mildred Pierce than Joan Crawford.

No offense, Vivian, but maybe Angela should have stepped in for Lucille in that film from 1974. And then Madeline wouldn't have been fired.

Mame is a sad could-have-been story. Same with Judy as Mama Rose, as an earlier post mentioned. That surely could gave been a classic.

I love Natalie Wood, but not as the best casting choice in either WSS or Gypsy.

Judy Garland didn't have the toughness to play Mama Rose. That's why she was unable to play Helen Lawson; she couldn't be bitchy enough. Loud and brassy was NOT in keeping with Judy Garland's screen persona. That was why she was so wrong for "Annie Get Your Gun." Loud and tough and bitchy was not something Judy Garland could bring herself to play convincingly.

Although James Mason gave a fine Oscar-nominated performance in "A Star Is Born", I think original choice Cary Grant would have been terrific as the fading star Norman Maine. Another vote for Angela Lansbury or Janet Leigh to replace Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington.

R104 Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, as English or British as Laurence Olivier.

Olivier was certainly beautiful enough in 1939, and I think that he could have carried off blond, as he did later. At 31 he was bit old to play Ashley, though.

I think Judy had it in her to be a wonderful Rose. There was a darkness and toughness that she tapped into rarely, but it was there.

Ella Raines in Christmas Holiday rather than Deanna Durbin. I don't know what Universal were doing to Durbin with this film because, opposite Gene Kelly, she looks like a burly transsexual, and her acting stinks.

Yes, R31, Shirley Temple would have brought so much heart to "Over the Rainbow."

Er, R51^^^

R115, Thanks for the correction. I am duly chastened. I still think Olivier would have made a fine Ashley, though.

They could have hired a worse Ashley than Laurence Olivier. He wasn't blond but there weren't any good blond actors available, he could play an intelligent dreamer stuck in his own head, and he wasn't too old. The action of GWTW takes place over what, 10-15 years? A man of thirty could play a man who ages from 20-ish to 30-ish, but a man of nearly fifty could not. But the problem with using him was that he and Viv were madly in love, and it simply wouldn't do for Scarlett and Ashley to have more chemistry than Scarlett and Rhett!

And I disagree that Judy Garland could have played Mama Rose in "Gypsy". Her greatest strength as an actor was her vulnerability, and she was ALWAYS vulnerable and even when she was trying to hide it the insecurity was still there. She couldn't turn it off! And Mama Rose is the least vulnerable human being angry, she's a ferocious bulldozer of a woman crushing everything in her path, even her own children, and she never shows any hint of vulnerability until the very end. Some diva actress said that they key to playing Rose is to remember that she was always angry, and Judy Garland couldn't play angry to save her fucking life.

Judy plays angry in this scene.

The actor Jeffrey Lynn was Ashley in some of the screen tests (the scene at Tara after the war, when Scarlett asks him to run off with her). He looked right and was kind of pleasant and anemic. He in fact was opposite OdH in a film called "My Love Came Back," which was rather charming.

The same year as GWTW Howard was in a film where he does leave his wife and runs off with Ingrid Bergman--"Intermezzo." She had already been in the Swedish version.

[quote]r14 Apparently Rickman, who played the part on Broadway, was passed over because he was unknown at the time. But he would have brought more sexiness to the part than JM.

John Malkovich is very unsexy in that part, it's true.

[quote]r58 But even earlier, at the tail end of her MGM years, they gave Betty Hutton the lead in Annie Get Your Gun, when Garland would have easily been able to shine in the part. Oh well, that's Hollywood.

They did a week or so of shooting with Garland in the role and she wasn't shining at all.

Fred Astaire in "White Christmas" instead of Danny Kaye.

Every Christmas when I watch this movie I think of how much better it would have been with Paramount's first choice.

Tom Cruise in "Milk", as Harvey Milk.

Imagine closet case Cruise in this. Maybe it would have been HIS Oscar.

Re Vertigo. I hate Kim Novak in it and think Hitchcock should have gone with Vera Miles as he had planned. Though she had withdrawn due to pregnancy, the production was further delayed for Hitchcock to have an operation, so by the time he was well enough to start she had had her baby and was available again.

The film is, rightly, rated the greatest, by BFI poll. Kim's contribution is integral to that.

ORDINARY PEOPLE

Dir: Ryan Murphy

Beth: Julia Roberts

Calvin: Dylan Walsh

Conrad: Timothee Chalamet

Dr Berger: Kathy Bates

Jeannine: Indya Moore

Karen: Zoey Deutch

Swim Coach: Ricky Martin

Kim & Kyle Richards would be perfect in WEHT Baby Jane.

Thank God none of you were Hollywood producers. Everyone of your alternate choices have been shit.

Howard was perfect as the unobtainable and sincere Ashley. As a good and courtly a man who Scarlett could never had.

Young women had a crush on Howard at the time as Bacall has admitted. And it would have been ludicrous to audiences throughout a four hour film that Scarlett had at that point a lifelong obsession with an oldster. Her obsession makes perfect sense otherwise the movie wouldn't make any sense. If the insipid bad acting Tyrone Power had played the role people in '39 would have been what the fuck?

I'll give the idea of Garland as Rose a thumbs up but supposedly she was such a nightmare even Cukor ended up hating her as much as he did Monroe.

I don't think Olivier would have been right in the Ashley role.

R133 Clark Gable had jug ears and an Alfred E Neuman face.

He would have vetoed pretty boys Larry and Tyrone.

I'm no particular fan of Howard but it was important that Ashley represented the old-fashioned, ultra-respectable, hide-bound Old South.

And Rhett Butler was a law-breaking scallywag— he was a gunrunner, wasn't he?

Donald O'Connor was originally cast in "White Christmas" but came down with a virus from working on one of those "Francis the Talking Mule" pictures. it's a shame he couldn't do the film, because he has wonderful chemistry dancing with Vera-Ellen in their only picture together "Call Me Madam".

Did Ashley have to be a blond actor? Leslie's acting is very good, though Scarlett's obsession with him doesn't seem worth the trouble. Since they were hiring Brits, did anyone consider the very handsome Ivor Novello?

I love Deanna Durbin, and she would have sung beautifully in "Wizard of Oz", but she was too strong a presence; it would be assumed she'd get home safely after arranging a concert to raise funds for her return to Kansas, upon which she'd do a special concert for the adoring fans at home in the farm community. Then she'd sing a high C and causing a big lighting fixture break and fall, killing Miss Gulch.

[quote]Did Ashley have to be a blond actor?

I think the physical contrast between Gable and whomever they hired for Ashley was necessary. Wilkes needed to be aristocratic and genteel in the face of Rhett’s swagger. It’s an easy visual cue— light-haired good, dark-haired bad— even if the whole point is to show how suited Rhett is for Scarlet as opposed to Ashley.

That's actually not a horrible Ordinary People remake cast. If they hurry up and do it now, it could work. Although, as perfect as Dylan Walsh is for that role, I think I heard somewhere where he and the Nip/Tuck cast despise Murphy and would rather not work with him again.

That If I Could Go On Singing clip is one of the reasons why I think Garland could have played Rose. Rose doesn't have to be angry the entire time. That's such bullshit. The worst versions I've seen have had Rose coming on the stage during the first scene as if she's ready to do "Rose's Turn." She has bouts of anger here and there, but you have to remember that this was a charming, manipulative woman. One of the best versions I ever saw had Rose so hopeful and wistful during "Some People" that you were immediately on her side. If anything, she was a lovable kook who didn't mean to hurt her children, but wanted what was best for them. The mask began to slip towards the end of act 1 and she'd become a legitimate terror by act 2. It was genuinely horrifying and very disturbing to see what happens to someone like that. For me, that seems like the best way to play the role. That's the most interesting.

Judy's actually pretty good here. She could have probably been awesome as Rose.

I think the premise of this thread, while kind of fun, is flawed. A movie becomes a classic in part because of good casting, or good enough casting, so to speculate on alternatives doesn't really make sense, almost by definition.

"Did Ashley have to be a blond actor?"

"I think the physical contrast between Gable and whomever they hired for Ashley was necessary."

Most of the actors people have been discussing for the role of Ashley have had dark hair, but have been so much smaller and slimmer and classically better-looking than Gable that there would have been an intense physical contrast without a yellow wig.

Henry Fonda! He's got that straight arrow, bookish, courtly, honorable mien. He was in Jezebel which was probably filming at the same time but if Selznick had gotten to him first, imagine!!

I think he's the perfect choice.

I understand R139's point. But imagine if the wife in The Good Earth had been Anna May Wong, who campaigned for the role, instead of Luise Rainer. (Never mind Dragon Seed, with all of those Caucasian actors and actresses only too recognizable behind their Asian makeup.)

But I think Nils Asther was terrific in The Bitter Tea of General Yen, so I suppose I'm inconsistent and I contradict myself. So be it.

If Judy Garland had lived she would have been fantastic as the main character in "The Killing of Sister George"

It would have been interesting to see Montgomery Clift play Brando's character in Reflections in a Golden Eye. Too bad he died before filming began. According to Wikipedia, Richard Burton and Lee Marvin had turned the role down. Imagine seeing Lee Marvin in that movie!

Shirley MacLaine in "Molly Brown" - she was the first choice. Angela Lansbury would have made a perfect Nurse Ratched - I always thought Louise Fletcher was too young & too pretty. Spacek as the daughter in "Terms of Endearment" - she looks more like MacLaine. I actually would have loved for Dolly Parton to get rid of all the hair and make-up....she could have done several roles "August: Osage County." Faye Dunaway or Angelica Houston in "Doubt." Julie Christie in "Devil Wears Prada"...or Faye. I get sick of Streep getting every role.

On you tube I was watching the scene where at the barbecue at Twelve Oaks Melanie tells Scarlett how much she admires her and Scarlett accuses her of idle flattery.

Howard as he gently adjusts Melanie's shawl tells Scarlett nobody can accuse Melanie of insincerity. Howard is pitch perfect embarrassing Scarlett and yet unselfconsciously making her want him all the more.

I think you people saying he was badly cast are nuts. Who else could have pulled that off?

R141, I always found Henry Fonda to be chilly and even a bit creepy. I could never buy him as a romantic lead, and IMHO better Leslie Howard than him.

Regarding Mongtomery Clift in "Sunset Boulevard", well, it would have been a very different movie - but possibly a better one. I never liked Holden in that role much, he looks like a hard fifty and radiates discomfort. The last is deliberate, of course, but it would have been interesting to see the story told with an actor who could bring more to the role of Joe than a constant feeling of wanting to be somewhere else, maybe a little emotional variability or depth. It also would have been interesting to see the story told with an actor who looks visibly younger than Norma Desmond, and someone beautiful rather than hunky.

"Judy plays angry in this scene."

She was playing HERSELF in that scene, which is why she could do it. But playing a fictional character that way was not in her range.

"I think you people saying he was badly cast are nuts."

He was too old and stuffy to play Ashley. Ashley was young and well read and mannered and educated but not stuffy.

Grace Kelly in Marni. Would have been sweet but she was a married serene princessa at the time.

Yes, he is a bit of a stiff r147

And nobody has mentioned Blanche Dubois. Supposedly written originally for Lilian Gish. The movie role ws supposedly offered to Olivia DeHavilland.

I always thought Jack Soo would have brought something to the part of Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's that Mickey Rooney, for all his mugging, lacked.

I do think it helps having a Joe in Sunset Boulevard who looks early 30's tops. It's just old enough to where he's really starting to get desperate, but young enough to where it still looks like there's a big age gap between him and Norma.

I think this can work sometimes with characters like Fay in The Day of the Locust and Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Even though they seem to have been constructed to be played by frivolous, fun loving 20-somethings, there's something really tragic and desperate about a woman in her 30s or even (God forbid) her 40's playing those roles. You just wanna grab them and shake them and say "you're not going to be a star, you talentless bitch." I do sometimes wonder how Cabaret would have been treated if it had a non-singer in that role the way Sally was supposed to be.

[quote]I do sometimes wonder how Cabaret would have been treated if it had a non-singer in that role the way Sally was supposed to be.

Wonder no more.

Yes, R152, de Havilland turned it down. What if Paramount had gone ahead with Streetcar with Bette Davis in '49 and Wyler directing? That was in the works for a while. Or if Davis hadn't turned down Come Back, Little Sheba? Warners also bought The African Queen for Davis before she got pregnant. And of course Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf if Albee'd had his way to have her and James Mason cast?

Frances Farmer for Blanche in STREETCAR, stage and screen.

Unfortunately she had a previous engagement in the nut bin.

David Selznick considered Douglass Montgomery and Melvyn Douglas for Ashley, but felt that Montgomery was too wooden and Douglas too beefy. You also have to consider the studios that stars were contracted to. Power made FIVE films in 1939 and his boss Darryl Zanuck would never have loaned out his biggest male star for a supporting role at another studio.

For Ashley, how about Claude Rains? He and Viv were so good together in "Caesar and Cleopatra."

Melvyn would have made a terrible Ashley. What about Brian Aherne?

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was a fair-haired actor of the era, but IMHO he was much too dynamic to play Ashley.

R153 Jack Soo was too tall, masculine and thuggish to play Yunioshi. That role was just a comic cypher.

R147 Pretty Monty Clift would be been hopeless in 'Sunset Boulevard' because he would have appeared madder and more vulnerable than Norma Desmond. He would have been fine as the pervert in Reflections in a Golden Eye’ R144 because everyone was crazy in that one.

and re-casting Sunset Boulevard with todays crop? Jessica Lange or Glenn Close?

Faysie!

(but of course, only if it's the musical)

Not at all, R162--that was Clift's later persona. From 1948-1950 he could and did play the average (albeit beautiful) guy convincingly, as in The Search and The Big Lift. I think he'd have been much better than Holden, whose performance is pretty one note.

Holden got the cynicism just right. An alter ego to Wilder, who had been some kind of dancing gigolo back in Berlin. And his having a great bod and a face that was prematurely aged was strange, and right for the part. I don't think Clift would have been as good with Olson. It's also hard to think someone of Clift's beauty would get into such a financial bind as Joe Gillis (see Clift in The Heiress and Place in the Sun as a rescued beauty).

Although I don't think anyone's specifically mentioned it here, we all know Clift was slated to be in SUNSET BOULEVARD right up to the last minute, at which point he pulled out, right?

Reportedly, Clift feared parallels between Joe's relationship with Norma and his own relationship with wealthy, older singer Libby Holman would be drawn.

Aspects of Holman's marriage and her husband's shooting were used in WRITTEN ON THE WIND.

Liza Minnelli in "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever".

Could Errol Flynn have pulled off Rhett or Ashley? He might have pulled off whatever costume they were wearing, as he was apparently up for anything or anyone. While he wasn't a great actor, he was kind of like Tom Cruise in that he was very good at what he did best.

R169, if they couldn't get Gable Flynn might have been a passable Rhett, but everyone would have spent the next 80 years wondering how much better Gable would have been. And Gable was great, he gave the best performance of his career in GWTW, it was the one time in his life he brought some real emotional depth to his butch schtick. Flynn wouldn't have done that, he never gave a performance as good as Gable in GWTW.

And the thought of Flynn as Ashley made me laugh! So does the thought of Flynn trying a Southern accent.

R168, very interesting, and very plausible. As much as I love Barbra's vocals on that soundtrack, Liza May would have played a more endearing kook.

Holden was fantastic in SB. He had that beautiful strong body, his handsome face was just past the first flush of youth and he dripped with discomfort and self-loathing.

Fey little Monty would have made it a different film altogether - a bad one.

Yea right, Monty was so fey in From Here to Eternity. He's acknowledged as one of the great actors...I've never found Holden believable in anything.

I always thought it was a shame Barbara Harris didn't get to reprise her role in On A Clear Day. It's also a shame she didn't get to play Tessie Tura in the Bette Midler Gypsy, but that's another story.

I like William Holden opposite Judy Holliday in "Born Yesterday". I'm not a huge fan of some of his other work though.

R173 the editing is great in that scene. The Major (?) is Philip Ober, who was married to VIVIAN VANCE for most of the 40s and 50s, It has been said that he was abusive to her and they eventually divorced.

The actor playing Ashley had to be old because Ashley represented the Old South.

The book was subtitled 'A tale of the Old South'.

The prologue read— 'There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South... Here in this pretty world Gallantry took its last bow... Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave... Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization gone with the wind...'

It was a place of charm and grace but was torn up in a time of mendacity where the only ethic is that are no loyalties, loyalties rearrange themselves daily, treachery is called acumen, and honest men are called fools.

And it's interesting that everybody keeps bringing up Holden. He was one of early 50's very few exclusively straight actors. Just ask a certain first lady.

If that were true, R177, Mitchell would have made Ashley's age much closer to Howard's 46 instead of 19, the actual age of the character in the book.

R179 How old is Rhett in the book?

I bet the book has lots of older WASP characters representing the Old South but the film had to erase them to fit the 3 hours and 58 minute length.

It's upthread, R179--I believe that he's 33 at the beginning of the story.

^ Thank you.

R88 I can't believe that fat, vulgar Mae West was considered for Norma Desmond.

I can't imagine her saying 'Life can be strangely merciful. I cant go on, I’m too happy'.

Let's re-cast another classic, I've always heard that Elizabeth Taylor was miscast in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Who would have been better? What was so wrong about her performance with regard to the character? How is Maggie supposed to be played?

Liz was perfect as Maggie The Cat.

I would have liked Charles Laughton as Big Daddy instead of that crooner.

The play was purchased by MGM with the hopes Grace Kelly (of all people) would do it. Then after she left America, the part of Maggie was offered to Carroll Baker, due to her success in Tennessee Williams' BABY DOLL. Warner Bros. wouldn't loan her out.

I love Taylor as Maggie, but sometimes her Southern accent seems a little off. Joanne Woodward of Thomasville, GA might have been a more convincing choice, and Kim Stanley could have pulled it off since she'd done it well on the London stage.

Woodward is an interesting choice considering that the Broadway Maggie was Barbara Bel Geddes who seemed more the plain jane type than the sexpot.

Maggie should not be played by Minnie Mouse which is what Liz Taylor was, right down to that vile voice.

Taylor was miscast in a lot of things. I would love to have seen Bette Davis as Martha and James Mason as George.

^ I love James but both he and that mouthy American hag were has-beens in 1966.

"I would have liked Charles Laughton as Big Daddy instead of that crooner."

Oh, come on. Burl Ives were perfect as Big Daddy. I thought Paul Newman was perfect for Brick, too. But the performance I liked best in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" was by Madeleine Sherwood as Mae, or "Sister Woman." She should have won an Oscar for that.

Didn't Ben Gazzara TURN DOWN the role of Brick in the movie?

R191, that's exactly what Martha was, a "mouthy American hag" and Davis was exactly whom Albee wanted in the film. Plus she was still riding the box office of her hag horror films that had done well the same year that WAOVW was being filmed.

Bette as Martha. Joan as George.

R194 You say Albee wanted the ghastly, undisciplined Bette to play the "mouthy American hag" in the film.

You know what, I wonder what else Albee wanted? He seemed to be a perverse closet-case. 'Virginia Woolf' was famous because of its bad language but I'm not really sure what it was trying to say. His other plays are rather ho-hum, opaque and they require name actors to bring in an audience.

I would have definitely paid to have seen lovely, sad James Mason star in a 1966 film version. But undisciplined Bette hadn't appeared in a quality film since 1950 and no one could take her seriously after those super-campy, black-and-white, cheap-and-nasty hag horrors.

I vote for Patricia Neal as Martha. Henry Fonda or James Mason as George.

(Fonda would never have the guts to do a role like that, though.)

Eve Plumb would have been good in the Donna Pescow role in Saturday Night Fever. Maybe she could have starred in Angie, too.

Whatever, R191/R196, you little vial of vitriol. I was quoting you re "mouthy American hag".

Albee was quite openly gay. Three Pulitzers, how ho-hum indeed.

I agree that Mason would have been sublime as George. Who would you have cast as Martha? Your distaste for Davis doesn't alter her two Oscar nominations that she received after AAE, or the dozen Oscar nominations her films received. But deride away as you will anyway.

R197, I agree that Neal would have made a great Martha as well. I can also imagine Ava Gardner, Vivien Leigh, Geraldine Page and in some very offbeat casting, maybe Doris Day or Lucille Ball could have carried it off.

Henry Fonda was actually planning to star in in all-male version in the late 60s with Burton as Martha, Fonda as George, Warren Beatty as Nick, and Jon Voight as Honey, but Albee nixed it.

R200 I'll wager that so-called 'all-male version' was no more than a twinkle in the eye of a drunken Burton and some tattle in 'Variety' of 18th November 1970.

R199 fascinating and terrifying

Aaaaa

For those wanting to see Garland gorgeous, sexy, and in great voice, take a look on YouTube at her "Embraceable You" from "Girl Crazy." I think that it was during that filming she was having a fling with Joseph Mankiewicz, IIRC.

R206 How long did that 'fling' last?

R197 I am British so have never understood the appeal for Henry Fonda. He'd appear in all those dreary Westerns and War Movies in the 60s, 70s and 80s in roles indistinguishable from Dana Andrews, Mitchum, Widmark, Holden, Robert Ryan. He was horrendously bad playing Pierre in 'War and Peace' with his squeaky Yankee voice.

But some ancient queen told me he was pretty in the 1940s and he personified a typical American who specialised in being a gallant passive hero.

(I don't know if the ancient queen was talking about 'Grapes of Wrath' or Fury' but I could never be bothered to find out)

Always hated Fonda. No real range as an actor. I always wanted his character in Twelve Angry Men to find out the defendant he set free had killed someone else after being released.

Now, I really wish I could see Lucille Ball as Martha. That would have been wild. Probably much closer to her real persona than Lucy Ricardo was.

R208 Fonda had no range as an actor. He was cast in easy Atticus-Finch-type roles but he was quite boring to watch (there was nothing going on inside his head).

I'm surprised he actually went on the scary theatre stage for so long in the 1950s.

Fonda was okay in "Daisy Kenyon," but then Preminger was a wizard, as well as an SOB. Even Crawford underplays in that.

Darwin Porter goes to great lengths to relate Marilyn Monroe's quest to play Maggie.

R35 Actually Ashley had already done his "Grand Tour" of Europe, what sons of the wealthy usually did after they finished their university education, so most likely he was at least 22 or 23.

R212, thanks for the chuckle!

Did any of you NY Eldergays see henry Fonda onstage in Mister Roberts in the mid-50s?

Did they use microphones on stage back in those days?

They sure as hell didn't for musicals.

Ethel and Elaine were like Foghorn Leghorn, no need for such contraptions.

Gabourey Sidibe in the remake of FATAL ATTRACTION. Instead of throwing acid on Dan’s car, she sits on it!

Re: “All About Eve” - I may not be remembering all of this correctly, but wasn’t Margo based on Tallulah Bankhead? Supposedly once she found out, she was furious she hadn’t been approached for the role. I could def see Tallulah as Margo and Jean Simmons or Angela Landsbury as a better Eve.

Margo/Eve was based on either Tallulah/Lizabeth Scott, or Elisabeth Bergner and Bergner's secretary.

Warning at R204 Tragic Talent Free drag queen voiceovers.

I thought it was a hoot, R221...

R215 So when did microphones became acceptable in Broadway shows? in the 1970s?

R220 I can't imagine the ebullient Margo Channing being based on Elisabeth Bergner.

Bergner was an Austrian shrimp who specialised in playing boyish gamines but was as dreary as Luise Reiner.

You can hear Tallulah play Margo in a radio production if All About Eve on YouTube. I found it underwhelming; it was odd hearing Tallulah play Bette playing Tallulah. Plus she races through the dialogue.

Or you can hear Tallulah right here...

"How long did that 'fling' last?"

A while. He was considered one of her more important lovers, maybe the love of her life. Little Joey was named after him.

[quote]r223 I can't imagine the ebullient Margo Channing being based on Elisabeth Bergner. Bergner was an Austrian shrimp who specialised in playing boyish gamines but was as dreary as Luise Reiner.

Bergner had the real life crafty, manipulative assistant, tho....Ruth Maxine Hirsch.

Bergner also knew Mary Orr, who wrote the short story the film is based on.

From the New York Post:

[quote] In 1944, while starring on Broadway in a melodrama called “The Two Mrs. Carrolls,”actress Elisabeth Bergner noticed an aspiring actress and fan, Ruth Maxine Hirsch, waiting by the stage door every night. “Touched by her devotion,” Bergner hired the young woman to work for her and her husband, producer-director Paul Czinner, and helped Hirsch secure a small role in a Broadway show. But when Bergner found her fan reading aloud the older actress’ lines to a new cast member one night, she believed Hirsch was undermining her. She also began to suspect Hirsch of trying to steal Czinner. As a result, Hirsch was banned from the theater, although she did continue working for Czinner for a time. After the show closed, Bergner shared the story with director Reginald Denham and his wife, Mary Orr, who turned it into a short story called “The Wisdom of Eve,” which was published in Cosmopolitan in 1946.

I wonder whatever became of her.

[quote]r223 I can't imagine the ebullient Margo Channing being based on Elisabeth Bergner. Bergner was an Austrian shrimp who specialised in playing boyish gamines but was as dreary as Luise Reiner.

But Bergner had the real life, scheming assistant...a Ruth Maxine Hirsch.

And she knew Mary Orr, who authored the short story the film's based on.

From the New York Post:

[quote]In 1944, while starring on Broadway in a melodrama called “The Two Mrs. Carrolls,”actress Elisabeth Bergner noticed an aspiring actress and fan, Ruth Maxine Hirsch, waiting by the stage door every night. “Touched by her devotion,” Bergner hired the young woman to work for her and her husband, producer-director Paul Czinner, and helped Hirsch secure a small role in a Broadway show. But when Bergner found her fan reading aloud the older actress’ lines to a new cast member one night, she believed Hirsch was undermining her. She also began to suspect Hirsch of trying to steal Czinner. As a result, Hirsch was banned from the theater, although she did continue working for Czinner for a time. After the show closed, Bergner shared the story with director Reginald Denham and his wife, Mary Orr, who turned it into a short story called “The Wisdom of Eve,” which was published in Cosmopolitan in 1946.

I wonder whatever became of that girl?

Missed opportunities: Hepburn and Davis in Stage Door, Davis and Hepburn in Old Acquaintance, Hepburn and Davis in The Whales of August.

I don't think they'd have any natural chemistry together. One forceful, slightly batty eccentric per film is enough!

I'd love to have seen it even if it were a train wreck.

Hepburn could not do Millie in OLD AQUAINTANCE, because she wouldn't be believable as a trashy, no talent novelist.

I guess she could have played Miriam in CHARLOTTE, if she'd let go of her persona and sex it up a bit.

That would of course be unthinkable to her, though.

If they'd switched roles in OA, R232, and I still think the other two would have worked.

I think their pairing sounds dreadful. They're too much alike in personality. There would be no contrast.

Tomatoh

Yeah, but one of us is informed.

This isn't a debate, R236. You cite the reality of their personalities as too similar and their egos as too strong for a film to happen. Obviously it didn't. History supports you. I would have liked to see them in something together regardless of how repulsed you are by the concept. It's something entirely outside the realm of information.

No, it has to do with casting, and what different performers can do well. Hepburn would have been unbelievable in the roles you see as "missed opportunities". She would have been unbelievable in them, and the stories would have fallen apart.

And we can agree to disagree. I'm not proposing a different role for Hepburn in Stage Door. And I think she could have easily pulled off both Kit Marlowe and Sarah Webber.

But Davis wouldn't be any better as Millie than Hepburn. And it's a comedic role, which wasn't her forte.

I coulde see them in THE GREAT LIE together....

Perhaps not, but I'd liked to have seen Davis try Millie since Davis' roles weren't as class-bound and rigidly cerebral as Hepburn's. Davis seems adept sometimes in comedy, at least in some of her very early roles, then The Man Who Came to Dinner and of course All About Eve. At the very least it would have been bad high camp.

The Great Lie does seem a better bet. I hadn't thought of that one.

I wish that good-looking (but dull) musical 'Gigi' could have starred the first choice actors— Hepburn and Bogarde. I wish the delightful Martita Hunt could have been paired with Maurice Chevalier.

I wish good-looking Greg Peck could have been paired with his first choice of actress Margaret Leighton in his first non-Hollywood film 'Capt. Horatio Hornblower'.

[QUOTE]'Gigi' could have starred the first choice actors— Hepburn and Bogarde.

In what roles?

Audrey Hepburn and Dirk Bogarde as the young lovers.

Maurice Chevalier and Martita Hunt as the old lovers.

I wish the mercurially-handsome James mason could have cast off his shrewish Ostrer-wife!

She dragged him down

In the other classics thread, people are talking about Breakfast at Tiffany's and how compared to the novella, Audrey Hepburn was wrong for the part. Okay, say it was Marilyn Monroe, who should take the George Peppard role? Can Patricia Neal stay?

A link would be ever so helpful, R246....

Overrated Classics

Shit, no, it's this link.

Then Monroe, Warren Beatty, Bette Davis and Victor Sen Yun in Breakfast at Tiffany's

Sunset Boulevard - starring either Greta Garbo or Mary Pickford. Or maybe even Bette Davis, since she always looked older than her age.

Charlie Hunnam is going to be in Papillion.......yum.

Did I spell that right? If not, I am SURE I will be corrected.

Warren Beatty for George Peppard, I like that. Also as a brunette, he pairs nicely with Monroe.

Bette Davis though... what's wrong with Patricia Neal? She was young but they made her look matronly.

Talullah had nothing to do with All About Eve, The role was originally cast with gamine Claudette Colbert. (And Anne Baxter was chosen in part because they were the same physical type.)

When Davis had to step in to the role she had just had throat surgery that made her pitch her voice lower.

That is what made the role "Tallulah-esque." It was circumstance not anything in the conception.

Henry Fonda couldn't have pulled off a southern accent to save his life. He's midwest through and through.

But, R240, Davis and Astor just crackle together in TGL. Astor won a Supporting Oscar and gave Davis a lot of credit. That sequence in the desert, when they're hiding out -- perfection.

I wouldn't want to see Astor replaced in THE GREAT LIE...I was just trying to come up with a role Hepburn could have conceivably played in a Bette Davis picture, because the other poster was giving somewhat woeful examples.

Call the ideas as woeful you want, R257, I still think Hepburn and Davis in Stage Door, Old Acquaintance (roles reversed), and The Whales of August would have worked with Davis in place of Rogers, Davis in place of Hopkins, or Hepburn in place of Gish. Maybe they wouldn't have worked as well, we'll never know--except for you, of course, since you're the omniscient one.

R253, Neal was fine in the role, I just would love to see what Davis would have done with it.

R253 Neal may have been appealing back in 1948. And she may have garnered our sympathy after all those illnesses. But, frankly, she could never be trusted appear to on the legitimate stage.

She looked perpetually sad with that wide mouth of hers. And she had the monotonous vocal delivery of Robbie the Robot.

R200 You complain about my "little vial of vitriol" whilst campaigning on behalf of that undisciplined creature Bette Davis.

Miss Bette Davis made a career dispensing vitriol from 1935 until the very last day she was carted off to the crematorium.

R250 The thought of the nubile Warren Beatty in "Tiffany's' being forced to copulate with old hag Bette is repellant. The idea is grotesque and irreligious! (to quote Augusta Bracknell).

Any film with Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn

Viggo Mortensen as Lestat in Interview with the vampire

R260 is so cute. Whatever other things Davis was, "undisciplined " wasn't one of them. And whether or not she dispensed vitriol, she dispensed decades of magnificent performances. I doubt R260 can say the same for itself.

1. Uber-bitch.

2. Useless without Wyler.

You seem a tad short-sighted, R264.

TWELVE ANGRY BITCHES:

Dir: Ryan Murphy Adaptation: Ryan Murphy

Juror #1 A high school guidance counselor; As the jury foreperson, she is somewhat preoccupied with her duties, although helpful to accommodate others - CONNIE BRITTON

Juror #2 A meek and unpretentious bank worker who is at first dominated by others, but as the climax builds, so does her courage - LEA MICHELE

Juror #3 A business executive with a hot temper. She has a strained relationship with her son - JULIA ROBERTS

Juror #4 A rational, unflappable, self-assured and analytical stock broker who is concerned only with the facts - JESSICA LANGE

Juror #5 A Baltimore Orioles fan who grew up in a violent slum, and does not take kindly to insults about her upbringing. - GABOUREY SIDIBE

Juror #6 A house painter, zhe is tough but principled and respectful of other people and zhir opinions - SARAH PAULSON

Juror #7 A sales executive, she is not concerned at all about the young man on trial, and eager to complete her jury assignment so she can attend Hamilton that evening - GWYNETH PALTROW

Juror #8 An architect and the first to vote "not guilty". She mentions that she has three children - LAVERNE COX

Juror #9 An observant senior - STEVIE NICKS

Juror #10 A garage owner; a pushy and loud-mouthed bigot - MO’NIQUE

Juror #11 : An immigrant antique clock restorer fleeing Brexit, she believes in justice in America and will see it get done - JOELY RICHARDSON

Juror #12 An aging ad executive beset by incipient senility, she is swayed very quickly by others' opinions, and does not have a full understanding of the life at stake outside of the jury room - CATHERINE ZETA-JONES

Hepburn and Davis would be impossible together. They were employed by different studios.

Zukor and Goldfisch.

R262 Great choice

I thought Tammy was good in that film

I know people loved Gene Wilder to death in this role but having read the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a kid, I always thought someone like Burgess Meredith would've been better cast as Willy Wonka. Wonka was suposed to be an old, impish little man with a beard.

I always thought that the role of Atticus Finch was meant for Jimmy Stewart (who incidentally played a small town lawyer in Anatomy of a Murder a few years before). Gregory Peck was terribly miscast as the character, who was not only middle aged but near-sighted. This was a large part of who the character was. IIRC, there's a scene in the book involving a rabid dog that makes a point of emphasizing that he was older than the average father and was considered past his prime because of his age and poor eyesight.

I think Truman Capote was right to insist that Marilyn Monroe play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Hepburn looked too natural as a socialite and too phony as a country bumpkin. MM would've nailed both aspects of the character (as a beautiful woman who looked the part of a socialite but was clearly unsophisticated, and as someone coming from humble rural roots).

Also, it should've 100% been Brigitte Bardot as Barbarella. She looked exactly like the character (buxom, innocent looking, naive blonde with tousled hair); Jane Fonda was too rail thin and cerebral-looking.

And call me crazy, but I actually think that Jackie Martling should've been cast as Barney Rubble in The Flintstones movie. (From what I heard, he tried for the role). He not only looked like the character, but had the laugh down pat and could've done the voice.

R266, I’d watch that.

TWELVE ANGRY BRATS

dir: Ed Zwick

Adaptation: Bret Easton-Ellis

Juror #1 A high school football coach; As the jury foreperson, he is somewhat preoccupied with his duties, although helpful to accommodate others - EMILIO ESTEVEZ

Juror #2 A meek and unpretentious bank worker who is at first dominated by others, but as the climax builds, so does her courage - DEMI MOORE

Juror #3 A business executive with a hot temper. He has a strained relationship with his son - TOM CRUISE

Juror #4 A rational, unflappable, self-assured and analytical stock broker who is concerned only with the facts - JAMES SPADER

Juror #5 A Baltimore Orioles fan who grew up in a violent slum, and does not take kindly to insults about her upbringing. - SEAN PENN

Juror #6 A house painter, she is tough but principled and respectful of other people and their opinions - MARY STUART MASTERTON

Juror #7 A sales executive, he is not concerned at all about the young man on trial, and eager to complete his jury assignment so he can attend an Eagles concert that evening - ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Juror #8 An architect and the first to vote "not guilty". She mention that she has three children - MOLLY RINGWALD

Juror #9 An observant senior - MARTIN SHEEN

Juror #10 A garage owner; a pushy and loud-mouthed bigot - KIEFER SURHERLAND

Juror #11 : An immigrant macrobiotic chef, he believes in justice in America and will see it get done - LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS

Juror #12 An ad executive swayed very quickly by others' opinions, and who does not have a full understanding of the life at stake outside of the jury room - ROB LOWE

Richard Carlson tested for Ashley Wilkes. I think he would have been decent in the role, at least he was closer in age to Vivien Leigh than Ashley Howard was.

I agree that Carlson would have made a much more dynamic and convincing Ashley, not unlike the character he played in The Little Foxes (David, Alexandra's suitor).

I love the suggestion of Barbara Stanwyck as Mildred Pierce

erwrw

Clark Gable vetoed any rival under 40.

He sacked pantywaist Cukor because he was effeminising the story and taking the best shots way from him.

Another purported reason that Gable wanted Cukor out was that Cukor knew about Gable's gay for pay days in the 20s.

Gable was King.

He didn't want any rivals. The only young ones he allowed were homely-looking schmoes like Spencer Tracy or Franchot Tone.

I don't think Tone was homely but he didn't have Gable's charisma

Tone is gorgeous in Mutiny on the Bounty. First in those British 18th century naval uniforms and then a shear when wet bathing suit in Tahiti.

Thalberg knew he had to get women to see this mostly men on ships movie.

Fonda is great in Jezebel and The Lady Eve.

In Jezebel his acting in the ball scene with Davis on his arm is perfection.

"Clark Gable vetoed any rival under 40. "

If that's true (hah!), then Gable was being silly. Put him next to a man in his early twenties, as Ashley was supposed to be for much of the film, and that other actor would look like a boy while Gable looked like a MAN.

R281 You and I might like men. But there's lots of females and queens in this thread and elsewhere who prefer twinks.

Franchot Tone had a flat nose like that Don Lemon.