Casting call

[laughingrat]

Every so often I'll hear someone say, "That movie would have been so much better if X was cast in it instead." I'll admit it, though: I'm terrible at envisioning that sort of thing (although I am pretty happy that George Raft turned down The Maltese Falcon), although it's always interesting to hear others' thoughts about it. Are there any classic films you think would have been better with a different cast?

Comments

[klia]

Funny you should mention The Maltese Falcon. I've always wished another actress had been cast as Ruth Wonderly. I just never bought Astor as a femme fatale, especially in TMF. For the life of me, I could never figure out why Sam fell for Astor's Ruth, or her treacly-sweet helplessness.

Not sure who I'd cast instead -- maybe Ida Lupino? She could play very vulnerable with those big, luminous eyes, but she also that tough, brittle edge. Or, I would've loved to have seen someone like Joan Fontaine really stretch beyond her usual sweet, innocent roles.

[laughingrat]

Ida Lupino played well with Bogart in High Sierra, too! That could totally have worked.

[klia]

Yes, she did. MAN, now every time I watch TMF, I'm going to wish it had been her! :(

[franzeska]

Hey, isn't she the one who said she'd never work on another picture with him?

[laughingrat]

No way! Do tell. :-D

[franzeska]

I know I read it somewhere. It seems to be a common anecdote. Here for example:

"By 1940, although she was only twenty-two, Lupino already seemed an ideal fit for the emerging genre of film noir. She had been perfect as tough-minded dames in pictures like They Drive By Night and High Sierra, opposite Humphrey Bogart, who was himself getting ready to jump into noir with both feet. (Alas, Lupino and Bogart did not get along, and she refused to work with him on subsequent pictures.)"
http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2011/07/ida-lupino-noirs-indispensable-dame

Or here:
"he was to star again with Ida Lupino in Out of the Fog. Lupino objected; refusing to work with Bogart again"
http://www.backalleynoir.com/showthread.php?1582-High-Sierra-%281941%29

I have no idea if anyone knows exactly why, but if biographies of Bogie are anything to go by, he sounds like he was a womanizing pig, and any woman who managed to get behind the camera back then probably wasn't the sort to put up with that. But that's just speculation.