I mentioned in another thread that—as good as Bette Davis was in “All About Eve”—Tallulah Bankhead would have been even more brilliant as Margo Channing. Can you think of any other films you’ve watched where you thought, “Ooooh, why didn’t they cast . . . ?”
• Marilyn Monroe in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” OK, Audrey was chic and stylish; but even Truman Capote said that Marilyn would have been more on-target as the self-destructive bubblehead Holly Golightly.
• Divine as Uncle Fester in “The Addams Family.” He died too soon—he would have brought a sweetness and genuine wackiness to the role that Christopher Lloyd lacked.
• Carole Lombard as Scarlett O’Hara. OK, call me nuts. I think she would have rocked in this.
I always thought Daryll Hannah should have been cast as Buttercup in The Princess Bride. Robin Wright is, yes, pretty, but she doesn’t have the ethereal yet gormless sort of beauty that D.H. has, and that worked so well in Splash.
Definitely needed someone other than Leslie Howard in Gone With the Wind. The man refused to adopt a Southern accent for the role. How unprofessional. I would have like to have seen someone like Gary Cooper in the role. Not sure if he would have been the right age for the part though.
I was not iompressed with Huimphrey Bogart in Sabrina. He was playing it too wooden. If I recall correctly, he worried about coming across as a dirty old man. They should have had William Holden in that role, rather than as the irresponsible brother. Not sure who should have played the brother.
Strangely enough, I made the exact same casting decision at the time the movie came out. Before I even saw it, in fact. You and I weren’t separated at birth or anything like that, were we?
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Oh, I so agree about Ashley in GWTW. Horrible casting.
I thought “Disclosure” (reverse sexual harrassment, with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore) would have been far more effective with an older, bitchy, non-beautiful woman playing the Demi Moore character. I’m picturing Janet Reno.
Along the same lines, another Demi Moore flick, “Indecent Proposal”, would have also been far more effective should someone slimy (e.g. Jack Nicholson) have played the Robert Redford character. Or even better. I’ll give you a million bucks to sleep with Gary Busey… Now there’s a dilemma.
Green Bean - I have to admit you are 100% right. Although in the stand, the Flagg character was ok with me, but the Stu and Fran characters? Blech!
Unfortunately, I think that happens a lot in King’s movies; generally I find the casting to be pretty awful. But most of the movies are pretty awful to in comparison to the books.
OK, let me see if I can fix Bram Stoker’s Dracula a movie with great potential, which was horribly miscast, and mis-directed:
Hugh Grant to replace Keanu Reeves. Lets try an authentic English accent, shall we? (Not some weird surfer-speak hybrid.) Plus Grant has the proper mixture of reserve and nervous energy for the character.
Nicole Kidman to replace Winona Rider. Nicole could pull off the accent and the balance of innocence and strong, but repressed, sexuality required of this character.
Anthony Hopkins to replace Anthony Hopkins. That is, replace the bizarre, screaming, over-the-top Hopkins we see in Dracula with the darkly reserved Hopkins we see in Silence of the Lambs and The Edge. The man is right for the Van Helsing part. He just needs to approach it differently.
Liam Neeson to replace Gary Oldman as Dracula. The Dracula described in the book is a huge man, nearly 7 feet tall. But he is also a seducer. Neeson might be able to pull off this combination of traits.
Ridley Scott to replace Francis Ford Coppola in the director’s chair. Give me the brooding and slowly-building tension of Blade Runner and Alien instead of the yelling, screaming, maniacal and disjointed goulash Coppola cobbled together.
I was thinking about bad performances, with an eye toward recasting them, and it occurred to me that one of the all-time worst screen performances I’ve ever seen was Shelley Winters in Cleopatra Jones.
So how would I recast it?
I wouldn’t. Somehow, Winters and that whole implausible screeching kung-fu Pillsbury dough-boy thing just works in that movie.
As much as I love “The Maltese Falcon,” I have never understood having Mary Astor as Brigid–just can’t see Spade falling hard enough for her to have difficulty shopping her to the cops. Now, if it had been Ida Lupino!
