The book on which it was a big bestseller in the 1980s and received all sorts of praise, particularly in The New York Times, though I never read it. But the movie was famously a huge failure and not just because of the casting. There was even a book (The Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood) written about the making of the movie.
I saw it in the past few months for the first time, knowing nothing more about it than it had been critically “unacclaimed.” I actually enjoyed it more than I had expected, but the casting was odd. Having said that, I don’t know that even with better casting it would have been a box office hit.
I read the book, which is very good. The movie was definitely miscast. Just one example: In the movie the judge is played by Morgan Freeman. In the book the judge is an old Jewish white guy.
I’ve read the book and seen the movie. Didn’t make me want to read/see any more Tom Wolfe. I’ve even read The Devil’s Candy but it was a bit dry and dull. Very disappointing with a title like that.
It’s an adaptation. The point of the character in the movie might not be the same point of the character on the novel. Hanks was unsuited for the role because he couldn’t play the character that the movie was trying to depict.
Simply being black and not Jewish doesn’t demonstrate that Freeman was miscast for the role in the movie without further discussion of how he failed to play the character that the movie was trying to depict.
Somewhere between his dimwitted poet on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and his dimwitted Nazi in Blues Brothers, Henry Gibson was cast as the cunning country-music-star-with-political-aspirations “Haven Hamilton” in Robert Altman’s Nashville. Depending on what lens you look through (and especially whether or not you like country music) his portrayal was either brilliant or inept.
I can easily think of worse examples. Besides those mentioned above
Hello Dolly – Barbra Streisand is a helluva singer and belter, but the part of Dolly Levi should be played by a middle-aged to late middle-aged woman whose husband has died and who is sizing up Vandegelder as possible husband material. Steisand was 27 and looked it.
Man of la Mancha – The original stars were available, and perfect, but in quest of “star” power they cast Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren, two non-singers, in the leads. James Coco, as Sancho Panza, had the opposite problem – I thin he sang TOO well.
I still can’t understand them casting Gerard Butler as The Phentom in Phantom of the Opera or Russell Crowe as Javert in Les Miserables
And Frank Sinatra was WAY too old to play Alan in Come Blow our Horn.
Although size was a huge part of it, he also got the character totally wrong. It would be like casting Joe Pesci as “Lurch” in a new version of “The Addams Family”.
I liked the book of BotV. I couldn’t finish the film, and the casting had nothing to do with it. The screenplay was just clumsy, stilted and dumb.
Worst miscasting: Keanu Reeves in Little Buddha. I mean, seriously? Nothing against Keanu but wow, that’s a weird way to go with the role of an actual Indian prince and, you know, THE BUDDHA.
Brian Donlevy played Professor Bernard Quatermass in the first two Quatermass movies in the 1950s. Quatermass is supposed to be a very British rocket scientist, but Donlevy has a broad an unmistakeable American accent, and feels more like an American gangster in the part that a British scientist.
In the original BBC miniseries Quatermass WAS played by British actors , a different actor in each of the three series. And when they finally got around to filming the third they got Andrew Keir to play the part. (John Mills played him in the fourth TV serial and its movie, but I think about that one as little as possible)
It was a weird casting decision because the racial politics were a big part of the movie. Particularly, the judge is accused toward the end of the movie (by a character who is clearly a surrogate for Al Sharpton) of being racist. It hits a lot differently when the judge himself is black.
John Travolta as (let’s call it what it is) Bill Clinton in Primary Colors. Everyone else in the movie is absolutely perfect, from Kathy Bates to Billy Bob Thornton to Emma Thompson, even down the characters that have one or two scenes. But In the middle of it all is Travolta with whitened hair, attempting a good ol’ boy accent and never coming close to pulling it off. If everyone else in that movie wasn’t so excellent, it wouldn’t stand out as much.
In 1964, there were two moves about an accidental nuclear war. One of them had Larry Hagman, Dom DeLuise, and Sorrell Booke; the other was a comedy.
Fail Safe may not have been miscast at the time, but after those three actors went on to some broad, comedic roles, it’s hard to take the movie as seriously as it deserves.
The book does describe one of the best continuity errors of any movie, ever. They filmed exterior scenes in New York City, then took a break while the production moved to Hollywood to shoot the interiors on sound stages. During the break, Melanie Griffith got breast implants.