While watching Brokeback Mountain the odd thought occurred to me that “if this had been made 70 years ago, it probably would have been a Henry Fonda/Jimmy Stewart movie”. (Who’s Jack and who’s Ennis… to quote Big Julie from Guys & Dolls, “eeder way”.)
When I saw Narnia I had a similar thought that "The White Witch would have been played by Bette Davis, with Edmund Gwenn as the Professor and, of course, Bert Lahr as Aslan.
Any other suggestions for who’d have played other modern movie roles if actors from the Golden Era were immortal?
As long as we’ve got Anthony Perkins on the casting couch (so to speak), I think it would be cool to re-unite him with Janet Leigh in Memento. Peter Lorre would take over for Joe Pantoliano.
My wife and I, while watching "Mr. and Mrs. Smith, allowed that if all the silly explosions, etc., were removed, perhaps this could have been a 1950s Hitchcock production with Cary Grant and (we couldn’t agree on who would do the Jolie part) Grace Kelley or Audrey Hepburn.
I think Humphrey Bogart would have made a great Rick Deckard in “Blade Runner,” which Ridley Scott obviously intended as an homage to Forties film noir anyway.
The Coen Brothers’ “Intolerable Cruelty” owed a lot to the Howard Hawks, Grant/Hepburn-type screwball comedies. I’m not sure if it would make it a great film, but I’d be curious to see how that film would look if those two were actually in it. There are tons of films I’d like to see Cary Grant in, actually.
Serenity: The Duke as Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Audrey Hepburne as Inara, Jimmy Stewart as Simon, perhaps… I’m drawing a blank for the rest of the cast.
Make the movie 20 years later in Italy then you cast Clint Eastwood as Mal, Lee Van Cleef as The Operative, whoever played Tuco in Good The Bad and The Ugly would be Jayne. Again, drawing a blank for the rest of the cast.
Seven, with Robert Mitchum in the Morgan Freeman role, Sidney Poitier in the Brad Pitt role, and James Stewart in a career-redefining role as John Doe.
Frodo: Carey Grant
Bilbo: David Niven
Merry: Stanley Baker
Pippin: Michael Caine
Sam: Nigel Green
Gimli: Victor McLaglen
Legolas: Errol Flynn
Aragorn: Gregory Peck
Gandalf: Boris Karloff
Saruman: Christopher Lee is perfect as is.
Denethor: Peter O’Toole
Borimir: Sean Connery
Faramir: Roger Moore
Galadriel: Jean Simmons
Gollum: Peter Lorre
Grima Wormtongue: Vincent Price (good call, tdn!)
Elrond: Laurence Olivier
Arwen: Audrey Hepburn
Theoden: Peter Ustinov
Eowyn: Maureen O’Sullivan
Brad - Anthony Perkins
Janet - Kim Novak
Riff-Raff - Christopher Lee
Columbia - Tallulah Bankhead
Magenta - Marilyn Monroe
Dr. Frank’n’Furter - Roddy McDowell
Rocky - Tab Hunter
Eddie - Marlon Brando
Dr. Scott - Erich von Stroheim
Narrator (a.k.a. Man with no neck) - Raymond Burr