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Post by jervistetch on Sept 29, 2021 16:46:50 GMT
If I told you half of what I was about to post you’d call me a liar.
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Post by mattgarth on Sept 29, 2021 16:48:53 GMT
No, not even if I thought so. But if you give me the post, I'll figure out the insult.
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Post by teleadm on Sept 29, 2021 17:47:57 GMT
Orson could have played the corpse in The Trouble with Harry.
He could've played Vandamm, since he could play refined characters, and since it's not a physical part. Vandamm let's others do the dirty work. North by Northwest. If Mason had turned down the role.
Topaz. Rico Para could also have suited him.
I have a hard time seeing him in any of the heroic parts. Except maybe the Macdonald Carey part in Shadow of a Doubt. When he was younger.
Just a few thoughts.
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Post by Isapop on Sept 29, 2021 18:11:11 GMT
He could've played Vandamm, since he could play refined characters, and since it's not a physical part. Vandamm let's others do the dirty work. North by Northwest. If Mason had turned down the role. Vandamm may not be a "physical" part, but he can't be a man who has physically "let himself go" the way Welles had by that time. Remember, he must be plausibly sexually attractive to Eve for her to have taken up with him in the first place.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 29, 2021 19:23:25 GMT
I have a hard time seeing him in any of the heroic parts. Except maybe the Macdonald Carey part in Shadow of a Doubt. When he was younger. Come to think of it, he could have been a very good Uncle Charlie, easily conveying the casual and glib outward charm masking the ice-cold sociopath underneath. A bit of irony in the concept of Welles usurping a Cotten role. But I think Nalkarj's onto something about he and Hitchcock working together; at the very least, there'd have been some sort of power struggle.
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Post by Isapop on Sept 29, 2021 20:05:47 GMT
If Welles were in a Hitchcock movie, the two of them probably would have killed each other. Welles and Carol Reed didn't kill each other on The Third Man. On the whole, Reed found Welles generally cooperative.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 29, 2021 20:15:29 GMT
If Welles were in a Hitchcock movie, the two of them probably would have killed each other. Welles and Carol Reed didn't kill each other on The Third Man. On the whole, Reed found Welles generally cooperative. I don’t mean this to sound snippy, but—Reed wasn’t Hitchcock. Among other things, control-freak Hitchcock never would have let control-freak Welles write his own dialogue, as he did for The Third Man.
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Post by Isapop on Sept 29, 2021 20:24:04 GMT
Welles and Carol Reed didn't kill each other on The Third Man. On the whole, Reed found Welles generally cooperative. I don’t mean this to sound snippy, but—Reed wasn’t Hitchcock. Among other things, control-freak Hitchcock never would have let control-freak Welles write his own dialogue, as he did for The Third Man. You're right about Hitchcock being a control freak (even for a director). But they wouldn't have feuded (I think). Hitchcock would have quietly said "You just act, or you're fired." And Welles would have believed him and made his choice.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 29, 2021 21:03:06 GMT
I don’t mean this to sound snippy, but—Reed wasn’t Hitchcock. Among other things, control-freak Hitchcock never would have let control-freak Welles write his own dialogue, as he did for The Third Man. You're right about Hitchcock being a control freak (even for a director). But they wouldn't have feuded (I think). Hitchcock would have quietly said "You just act, or you're fired." And Welles would have believed him and made his choice. Just theorizing here, based upon some of what I understand about the personalities involved: it would have depended on when Welles might have worked with Hitchcock. I expect the Welles that Reed encountered in 1949 was a somewhat different creature than the one Hitchcock might have gotten, say, in 1942, when Shadow Of A Doubt was in production. In the intervening years, Welles's crown had slipped, and the shine was off his "golden boy" wunderkind status. By 1946, Welles had experienced the very thing Hitchcock himself had in 1941, when, after the over-budget-and-schedule excesses of Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent (most of which weren't of his doing, it's fair to say), he feared a negative reputation, and duly demonstrated that he could be a good boy and bring in a modest film on time and under budget at penny-pinching RKO with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This was pretty much the circumstance Welles faced in 1946, hiring on at indie company International (soon to merge with Universal) to display his own "modest efficiency" chops with The Stranger, which was his first official directorial credit since '42s The Magnificent Ambersons. So, having been knocked around a bit, Welles might have presented more of a "team player" attitude to a fussily meticulous director like Hitchcock in the postwar years. As I say, just theorizing.
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Post by divtal on Sept 29, 2021 23:06:57 GMT
(This group is fun!)
I first thought of the Lars Thorwald role in Rear Window. But, by 1954, Wells was probably too big a star, for the role. At that point, Raymond Burr was still something of a character actor, pre-Perry Mason, on TV.
However, Hitchcock made a point of having Thorwald made up to resemble producer David O. Selznick, whom he disliked/hated/whatever.
In Hitchcock humor, it might have been a lark for him ... and, maybe for Wells ... to put Wells in that disguise, and have viewers catch a familiar glimpse, and say: "Wait, a minute! Is that Orson Wells??"
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Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 29, 2021 23:44:37 GMT
(This group is fun!) I first thought of the Lars Thorwald role in Rear Window. But, by 1954, Wells was probably too big a star, for the role. At that point, Raymond Burr was still something of a character actor, pre-Perry Mason, on TV. However, Hitchcock made a point of having Thorwald made up to resemble producer David O. Selznick, whom he disliked/hated/whatever. In Hitchcock humor, it might have been a lark for him ... and, maybe for Wells ... to put Wells in that disguise, and have viewers catch a familiar glimpse, and say: "Wait, a minute! Is that Orson Wells??" That does sound like a fun idea. Welles was certainly a name, although not necessarily a star at the time. In '53-'54, he wasn't doing much of substance or prestige; a scant handful of cameo or supporting roles in European films. And best of all for Hitchcock, no dialogue except for a few lines during a telephone conversation and a half-dozen brief ones in his final scene. From what I've read about both men, there was never really what you'd call active enmity between Hitchcock and Selznick, although their professional association could be a resentful and contentious one in its own way. Each had a personal talent for being a thorn in the other's side: Selznick with his constant meddling-by-memo; Hitchcock with his characteristic, passive/aggressive, go-his-own-way air of unconcern. And ever the practical joker, Hitch did love to tease, not only by way of the Thorwald character, but again in North By Northwest, giving Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill the middle initial "O," which stood for nothing, just as it did in Selznick's appellation.
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Post by Isapop on Sept 30, 2021 0:02:03 GMT
in North By Northwest, giving Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill the middle initial "O," which stood for nothing, just as it did in Selznick's appellation. I didn't know that. I like that.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 30, 2021 0:32:20 GMT
in North By Northwest, giving Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill the middle initial "O," which stood for nothing, just as it did in Selznick's appellation. I didn't know that. I like that. And now I've spoiled it as a clue for a future Isapop quiz. Given no middle name at birth, Selznick adopted it because he felt it gave his name more gravitas. Why he selected "O," I've forgotten (if I ever knew). Has he lived another 20 years, one can only wonder what he'd have made of it when "DOS" became ubiquitous terminology among users of early PCs.
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Post by marianne48 on Sept 30, 2021 2:52:36 GMT
How about some comedies? Dean Wormer in Animal House, perhaps..."Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son...two out of three isn't so hot, either." Or maybe some drag roles would have been fun.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 30, 2021 16:04:07 GMT
You're right about Hitchcock being a control freak (even for a director). But they wouldn't have feuded (I think). Hitchcock would have quietly said "You just act, or you're fired." And Welles would have believed him and made his choice. Just theorizing here, based upon some of what I understand about the personalities involved: it would have depended on when Welles might have worked with Hitchcock. I expect the Welles that Reed encountered in 1949 was a somewhat different creature than the one Hitchcock might have gotten, say, in 1942, when Shadow Of A Doubt was in production. In the intervening years, Welles's crown had slipped, and the shine was off his "golden boy" wunderkind status. By 1946, Welles had experienced the very thing Hitchcock himself had in 1941, when, after the over-budget-and-schedule excesses of Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent (most of which weren't of his doing, it's fair to say), he feared a negative reputation, and duly demonstrated that he could be a good boy and bring in a modest film on time and under budget at penny-pinching RKO with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This was pretty much the circumstance Welles faced in 1946, hiring on at indie company International (soon to merge with Universal) to display his own "modest efficiency" chops with The Stranger, which was his first official directorial credit since '42s The Magnificent Ambersons. So, having been knocked around a bit, Welles might have presented more of a "team player" attitude to a fussily meticulous director like Hitchcock in the postwar years. As I say, just theorizing. That’s definitely a fair point, Doghouse. And for all his blustering Welles did, late in his career, act for strong directors like John Huston and Mike Nichols. That said, I just can’t imagine Hitchcock’s putting up for a second with Welles’s trying to rewrite dialogue and direct the director, which he reportedly did as late as Three Cases of Murder and Compulsion. Would Hitchcock just have fired him, as Isapop wrote? Maybe. Does anyone know what the two men thought of each other? I remember Welles said nasty things about Hitchcock late in life, but that was probably just Welles being Welles. Offhand I can’t think of anything Hitchcock said about Welles.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 30, 2021 21:17:46 GMT
Just theorizing here, based upon some of what I understand about the personalities involved: it would have depended on when Welles might have worked with Hitchcock. I expect the Welles that Reed encountered in 1949 was a somewhat different creature than the one Hitchcock might have gotten, say, in 1942, when Shadow Of A Doubt was in production. In the intervening years, Welles's crown had slipped, and the shine was off his "golden boy" wunderkind status. By 1946, Welles had experienced the very thing Hitchcock himself had in 1941, when, after the over-budget-and-schedule excesses of Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent (most of which weren't of his doing, it's fair to say), he feared a negative reputation, and duly demonstrated that he could be a good boy and bring in a modest film on time and under budget at penny-pinching RKO with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This was pretty much the circumstance Welles faced in 1946, hiring on at indie company International (soon to merge with Universal) to display his own "modest efficiency" chops with The Stranger, which was his first official directorial credit since '42s The Magnificent Ambersons. So, having been knocked around a bit, Welles might have presented more of a "team player" attitude to a fussily meticulous director like Hitchcock in the postwar years. As I say, just theorizing. That’s definitely a fair point, Doghouse. And for all his blustering Welles did, late in his career, act for strong directors like John Huston and Mike Nichols. That said, I just can’t imagine Hitchcock’s putting up for a second with Welles’s trying to rewrite dialogue and direct the director, which he reportedly did as late as Three Cases of Murder and Compulsion. Would Hitchcock just have fired him, as Isapop wrote? Maybe. Does anyone know what the two men thought of each other? I remember Welles said nasty things about Hitchcock late in life, but that was probably just Welles being Welles. Offhand I can’t think of anything Hitchcock said about Welles. It's not the same as wholesale rewriting of dialogue, but Cary Grant did make small but numerous alterations to lines in Ernest Lehman's script when shooting North By Northwest. Whether these were discussed with either Lehman or Hitchcock, I don't know. But Grant: big star; fourth film with Hitch; had the director's complete trust. Martin Balsam did the same on Psycho. But not a big star; first and only film for Hitchcock. Again, just small omissions, additions or rewording. Tangential interjection alert! There was an HBO documentary some years back about Woody Allen, following him through the creative process of one of his films (might have been Small Time Crooks), from his longhand writing of the script (!) through shooting. And for a writer/director whose dialogue always sounds so eccentrically his, it astonished me when, just before a take, he told an actor, "Don't worry too much about the dialogue on the page; any way you're comfortable with it, as long as you get across the general sense of it." Or words to that effect. Safe to say Allen could never have directed a picture from a Paddy "Don't Change A Syllable" Chayefsky script. But back to Hitch. These are all guesses, informed only by ubiquitous characterizations in dozens of books about him. The first time, non-confrontational Hitch might have said, "Let's get it the way it was written, and then we'll try one your way." And then go ahead and use the original version for the edit. If Welles persisted, it would have been just like Hitch to say to Peggy Robertson and other trusted assistants, "Keep Orson away from me." And if it reached the point where it was just too much for Hitch, Welles would probably have gotten a phone call in the evening from the production manager or someone informing him that his work on the film was completed, which was the experience of Roy Thinnes when he was dismissed without explanation two weeks into Family Plot's production. I know what you mean about "Welles being Welles:" the colorful raconteur, happily furnishing provocative interview and talk-show fodder. Hitchcock made two films at RKO during Welles's '40-'42 tenure there, and although I'm sure they must have encountered one another from time to time, it's probably anyone's guess what Hitchcock's opinions about him were. He tended to play close to the vest in that regard, unless he was in his own "colorful raconteur" mode. If he'd had anything to say publicly about Welles that was critical, it would likely have been couched in oblique, "There are some directors who..." terms.
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Post by mortsahlfan on Nov 16, 2021 17:21:12 GMT
I just learned that he wanted to play Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
I heard him say he would have sold his soul to play that... But in another interview, he said something different - can't remember.
I'm glad Brando did it (my favorite actor), but I was thinking about this last night, and trying to imagine Orson playing Vito Corleone.
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Post by marshamae on Nov 16, 2021 20:09:44 GMT
I doubt would have inhabited the Italian vibe that was central to the picture. It was the first time I know of that an American film showed Italian family culture in a way that was not a collection of stereotypes. ( of course they are stereotypical now ) the core of that success was having Coppola at the helm, Al Pacino as a center piece with Brando at his best. IAM not sure Welles had that ability to inhabit another culture. I know I said he was great as Col. Haki , but who knew what a Turkish colonel was like. He flashed the uniform around, had fun with the accent. It was the same type of performance CHARLES Laughton gave as Tony in They Knew What They Wanted. What Brando did was head and shoulders above that. He was natural in his affection for his daughter, his sons and his grandchildren. His cold decisions and his ability to read situations and people were a natural outgrowth of his love and his desire to keep them safe.
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Post by mattgarth on Nov 16, 2021 20:20:19 GMT
Speaking (as we were on another thread) about screen time, I don't suppose Brando would have considered his role a supporting one. And yet, he occupies (and dominates) the screen much less than Pacino does. Michael's story is the real arc (from uninvolved returning Marine to ruthless family head). And yet his performance is bunched in the Supporting category with correctly placed Caan and Duvall.
Can't help wondering if Al had been in the Lead category as well --- whether they might have cancelled each other out. On the other hand, in G Part 2 DeNiro copped the supporting award in spite of having Michael Gazzo and Lee Strasberg on the same ticket.
A decade later Brando was a supporting contender in A DRY WHITE SEASON.
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Post by marshamae on Nov 16, 2021 21:34:13 GMT
Speaking (as we were on another thread) about screen time, I don't suppose Brando would have considered his role a supporting one. And yet, he occupies (and dominates) the screen much less than Pacino does. Michael's story is the real arc (from uninvolved returning Marine to ruthless family head). And yet his performance is bunched in the Supporting category with correctly placed Caan and Duvall.
1- I think the studio must have had a lot to do with that . They still were not sure about Pacino or Coppola.
2- A second issue was the respective styles of Vito and Michael. No one would doubt Brando’s ability to spit lava, but Vito was a quiet guy. The book makes the point over and over that Hollywood had it completely wrong showing bombastic , threatening guys as Dons. Vito’s main weapon was to confuse his enemies with his mild demeanor. Michael , on his arc , had to show some anger to underline the shift he was making. Do you really think Brando did not make his mark on screen.
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