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Post by marshamae on Feb 28, 2020 17:33:59 GMT
I am watching The Actress. It’s a film I always expect to like and never do. I love Ruth Gordon and she is a brillant screen writer but somehow these people aren’t too engaging. I finally see what I don’t like. Of the four leads three are playing profoundly against type. Jean Simmons as young Ruth, is playing the kind of guileless ingenue often played by Teresa Wright. The trouble is, she has already played a girl who commits suicide(Hamlet), a girl who lives naked on an island with a boy ( Blue lagoon) , a girl who signifies evil and eroticism ( Black Narcissus) , and earlier that year , a girl who kills everyone around her ( Angel Face) and a young Princess who tries to take her step mother’s husband( young Bess). She has an affinity to these dark parts. She can play comedy, but it has to have an edge. I doubt she was ever this simple ingenue.
It’s the kind of part normally played by Teresa Wright, here inexplicably cast as the mother. She still seems more innocent than her stage daughter, more at home with the innocent expressions. Wright is about 10 years older than Simmons , and at 34, her ingenue days are done , but in the 50’s , playing a mother meant your days as a lead were over. I am surprised she took this role , she unbalanced the drama. It needed Mary Astor or Spring BYINGTON.
Even Spencer Tracy , who generally makes everything work is cast against type as a grouchy one note father. Although he actually shows sympathy at the end, the turn around is too slow in coming, and it’s not funny. A solid unsympathetic character after like Charles Lane would have done it better.
Tony Perkins played a charming young man, but the part is not special enough to make up for all the lack of charm elsewhere.
My question- any examples of actors badly miscast ? Any actors who were miscast but managed to bring it off? I’d rather have One miscast actor with an explanation and or pictures. But suit yourself
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Post by mattgarth on Feb 28, 2020 17:52:57 GMT
Harrison Ford -- the villain in WHAT LIES BENEATH (hard to take here)
John Cassavetes -- the husband in ROSEMARY'S BABY (he's supposed to be practically a matinee idol ... maybe the young Robert Redford)
Glenn Ford -- usual good guy, but in THE MAN FROM COLORADO he is nearly psychotic
Mark Wahlberg -- in THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE ... completely lacks Cary's charm in the original CHARADE.
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Post by marshamae on Feb 28, 2020 18:12:05 GMT
Agree with all of those but I love Cassavetes in Rosemary’s Baby. It might have been more upsetting with Guy as a handsomer leading man. His betrayal and joining the coven would have been much more shocking. But Cassavetes’ off beat sexiness , foreshadowing the rise of leading men like Gazzara, Pacino, Hoffman et al., works fine for me
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Post by cynthiagreen on Feb 28, 2020 18:43:02 GMT
Wright's heyday was over by this time... I think there was a falling out with Goldwyn circa 1950 (I have her biog on order so will get back to you on detail) - and by this point she'd already been demoted to third billing and second female in 1952's SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR. I imagine she accepted THE ACTRESS because it was an A movie and the opportunity to work with Spencer Tracy and Cukor. She hadn't had a big hit since THE MEN in 1950. I think on the TENDER IS THE NIGHT thread we discussed stars lowering their standard contractual wants if an opportunity ticked a personal box (nice holiday, Balmain wardrobe I can keep, opportunity to work with Genius X, need a new pool, agent says a support nom guaranteed and they'll give me special billing, etc).
I'd mention Joanne Woodward in THE STRIPPER as it fresh in my mind - cast wildly against type as a Monroe like blonde down on her luck
involved with a younger man. I thought she pulled it off splendidly. 
More recently I thought Cameron Diaz gave an excellent account of herself in THE COUNSELLOR as a treacherous, murderous drug baron's plaything - a memorable femme fatale - good enough to suggest she's been miscast over the years in all that dim romcom fluff cluttering up her CV 
Count me another Cassavetes as Guy fan... he's no matinee idol but pretty sexy - frankly I prefer him to Redford (never got the appeal there - I know I know I plough a lonely furrow!) and wasn't Redford in the frame for the part but didn't want to play a heavy or somesuch?
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Post by marshamae on Feb 29, 2020 3:34:07 GMT
Totally agree about Woodward . She is hard to miscast since apparently she can do everything. The stripper was way against type and she did indeed pull it off. ( sorry)
Cameron Diaz did very well in TGE counsellor. A great example of an actor who had a lot more 8n her tool kit and was not allowed to show it.
Glad to have someone join me on TGE Cassavetes band wagon. I did not get Redford either. I liked him in the Sting and in Butch Cassidy, I think in part , because Newman obviously liked him. Then he was playing a pretty man with substance, who was not stuck on himself, who was something of a protege to Newman. And they were great scripts. Then in THE WAY WE WERE he played against his looks, falling for Streisand, refusing to take what came easy. And it was a great script. But I did not really get him until his interview on Inside The Actor’s Studio. He talked about Art school, and I realized he does not really see the world as an actor. He sees the world as a painter. He stands back, he is quirky and demanding, he has high standards. Then I thought about his friendship with Newman and I realized his extreme beauty was just as much an accident as someone else)s perfect pitch or great coordination. Like him , don’t like him I’m just telling you how I came to like him.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Feb 29, 2020 4:36:08 GMT
Shirley Jones' rather unexpected casting in ELMER GANTRY
"Bad girl" Lulu Bains earned her an Oscar after she played Ultra Good Girls Julie Jordan, Laurie Williams and Liz Templeton and before the rest of her uber-nice women career..
from IMDb:
"Director Richard Brooks did not want Shirley Jones for the role of Lulu Bains, but Burt Lancaster insisted. As a result, Brooks gave Jones no direction in the filming of a very difficult scene. Brooks eventually admitted to her that he couldn't see anyone else in the role."
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Post by Deleted on Feb 29, 2020 6:27:39 GMT
First one that comes to mind is Jimmy Stewart playing a tough guy. Especially in Mann Westerns he did. I would never picture him
as being the tough guy but he did pull it off.
I recently watched Romeo & Juliet (1936) and Leslie Howard was so miscast it was painful. Norma Shearer was 34 at the time which is bad enough but Howard was 43!
Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing. It was like Ted doing Shakespeare."And when I have heard it, what blessing brings it, dude?"
Utter torture.
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Post by cynthiagreen on Feb 29, 2020 7:00:56 GMT
Totally agree about Woodward . She is hard to miscast since apparently she can do everything. The stripper was way against type and she did indeed pull it off. ( sorry) Cameron Diaz did very well in TGE counsellor. A great example of an actor who had a lot more 8n her tool kit and was not allowed to show it. Glad to have someone join me on TGE Cassavetes band wagon. I did not get Redford either. I liked him in the Sting and in Butch Cassidy, I think in part , because Newman obviously liked him. Then he was playing a pretty man with substance, who was not stuck on himself, who was something of a protege to Newman. And they were great scripts. Then in THE WAY WE WERE he played against his looks, falling for Streisand, refusing to take what came easy. And it was a great script. But I did not really get him until his interview on Inside The Actor’s Studio. He talked about Art school, and I realized he does not really see the world as an actor. He sees the world as a painter. He stands back, he is quirky and demanding, he has high standards. Then I thought about his friendship with Newman and I realized his extreme beauty was just as much an accident as someone else)s perfect pitch or great coordination. Like him , don’t like him I’m just telling you how I came to like him. Oh I don't really dislike Redford - just never thought he was good looking - nor in truth a great actor - but for sure some impressive credits on the CV - He was a delight in BAREFOOT IN THE PARK..... HOW TO STEAL A DIAMOND was fun and THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR tense.... he held his own against some heavyweight competition in THE CHASE....I liked GATSBY more than you but he was a fine romantic foil (albeit historically inaccurate) in the lush OUT OF AFRICA and I thought he did well to hold ALL IS LOST together on his own. And although I haven't seen since 1980 ORDINARY PEOPLE was a considerable achievement. INSIDE DAISY CLOVER imho not a success, but it was a brave role for him - and he is living proof that "playing gay" early on won't necessarily hold you back from the big time. Will keep an eye out for the interview.
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Post by wmcclain on Feb 29, 2020 14:14:25 GMT
Maureen O'Hara turns out to be the villain in the minor location thriller LISBON. She said: "Bette Davis was right; bitches are fun to play".  |
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Post by staggerstag on Feb 29, 2020 15:39:11 GMT
Richard 'John Boy Walton' Thomas goes from pesky stalker to full blown one-man murder machine in the bio-pic 'Stalking Laura' (1993) The movie chugs along quite harmlessly with just a hint of menace hanging over it but in the second half the main character, having lost his job and is never gonna have the girl - played by Brooke Shields - turns the girl's office block into a hellish killing field. He is also ominous in Down, Out and Dangerous (1995) |
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