I recently watched a movie, courtesy of Netflix, that I’d not seen for many years. The movie’s title is Bunny Lake Is Missing. I used to really like it and on the whole it still was a pretty good movie. Carol Lynley was perhaps not the best choice as the girl’s mother. She goes through the movie appearing more annoyed than scared about the fate of her missing, and perhaps non-existant child, but the movie still works.
However, there was one bit of miscasting that was probably as bad as any I’ve ever seen. Noel Coward is cast as the landlord and decadent HETEROSEXUAL lecher who tries to hit on Carol Lyndley’s character. He handled the decadent part well, not so much the hetero part of the role. For Og’s sake, he carries a pekinese under his arm the whole time he’s on screen. He comes across as very fey. No one past the age of puberty would ever mistake him for straight. His supposed passion is totally unbelievable. The whole time he was on screen I wondered whatever possessed Otto Preminger to cast him for the part. It didn’t ruin the film but it did create a speedbump in my suspension of disbelief.
Other than Sonia Coppola in Godfather 3, what other instances can you think of where a totally inappropriate choice was made in casting and how badly did it affect your enjoyment of the movie?
I still haven’t forgiven them for Man of la Mancha. Great musical. They used none of the principals from the Off-Broadway/Broadway productions, even though they were all available. Instead, they used noted non-singers Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren for Don Quixote and Aldonza. They looked great, and they can act. And their singing wasn’t atrocious. But, dammit, for a musical you want great voices. James Coco sang amazingly well, but I don’t think his was an appropriate voice for Sancho Panza.
If you’ve ever read Philip K. Dick’s “We can Rember it for you Wholesale”, then you know how completely wrong Arnold Schwartzenegger was for Total Recall. You really wanted somebody like Woody Allen for the part of Quayle (changed to Quaid because of our Veep’s name).
All Night Long could have been a nice little film, except for the last-minute to case Barbra Striesand in the lead. The character was supposed to be meek and mousy – not the type of thing Streisand was good at. She played a very wrong note and sunk the film.
There’s the same problem with Liza Minnelli in Arthur. Just not right for the role.
Robert Young in Secret Agent seems to be acting in a completely different movie from all the others. The light comic role clashes with everyone else’s more serious take.
Brian Donlevy played Professor Bernard Quatermass in The Quatermass Xperiment (AKA The Creeping Unknown) and Quatermass 2 (aka Enemy from Space). These are two of the best of the 1950s SF films, but Quatermass is supposed to be a British scientist, and he sounds and looks more like an American gangster. The guys playing him n the TV serials were better, and so was Andrew Keir in Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million Years to Earth).
It’s possible Preminger cast Noel Coward as sort of a show business in-joke. Bunny Lake came out in the mid 60’s and, during that somewhat naive time, I don’t think the general movie-going public was aware or picked up on the seemingly obvious outward signs of Coward’s homosexuality even if it was well-known within the industry. (That’s just my guess. Maybe somebody who was around when this movie was first released can correct me.)
As for epic miscastings, just go to the IMDB listing of Bonfire of the Vanities, scan the credits, and take your pick.
Michael Crawford on-stage as Count von Krolock in “Dance of the Vampires” and County Fosco in “Woman in White.” I guess Crawford just can’t play a c*unt (Did my finger slip?)
Not that it was a great movie, but The Rock had Nicholas Cage (not that he’s a great actor) being…well…Nicholas Cage, like in all his movies, The problem was, that his character was suppossed to be a meek, shy, nerdy, scince lab-rat. He plahyed that part ok for the first twenty monutes, but the second he was actually on Alcatraz, he turned back into his macho, “I’m so awesome” persona, and suddenly was killnig peopel left and right without remorse or even so much as a “Holy crap, I just killed someone for the frist time!”
Instead of Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Reagan was almost cast as Ric in Casablanca…the entertainment world dodged a bullet on that one.
Same as almost casting Shirley Temple instead of Judy Garland in Wizard of Oz.
But those were GOOD choices in the end.
George Lazenby as James Bond probably wasn’t such a wise idea.
Casting Keanu Reeves in anything where he has to actually speak and walk at the same time has generally been an error.
