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Post by teleadm on Mar 18, 2017 15:30:53 GMT
Joseph and His Brethren, a big biblical spectacle scripted by Clifford Odets and produced independently by Louis B. Meyer and released via Columbia Pictures, starring Hayworth, Orson Welles and Dick Haymes (!). Cancelled by Harry Cohn who refused to co-finance a movie with those special request of co-stars by Hayworth. The 1961 Italian movie bearing the same name and directed by Irving Rapper has nothing to do with this movie. Welles and Haymes were both Rita's husbands at various times. Haymes was very bland in his '40s musicals, but I recently listened to a Suspense radio drama he did in the '50s, an excellent thriller about a man trapped in a home's private elevator while killers burglarize the house, and he's not bad. Was this project connected to Thomas Mann's book series? In the '40s Columbia owned the film rights to Porgy and Bess. Harry Cohn intended to make it as a vehicle for... Rita Hayworh. At one point Cohn was going to film it in blackface, with Al Jolson as Porgy. When he he realized the absurdity of that idea, he changed the characters to white, and cast Fred Astaire as Porgy. That's right, Cohn planned to have the screen's most celebrated dancer play a crippled beggar. Eventually Cohn realized he could not cast current stars in any P&B adaptation. This and the story's dependence on censorable plot devices such as drug use and cohabitation convinced him to abandon the project. That Columbia once owned Porgy and Bess I didn't know, Fred Astaire in blackface sounds obscure by todays standards, but hey didn't he do such a rutine in a Bing movie.....
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Post by Doghouse6 on Mar 18, 2017 18:38:56 GMT
That Columbia once owned Porgy and Bess I didn't know, Fred Astaire in blackface sounds obscure by todays standards, but hey didn't he do such a rutine in a Bing movie..... Bing and Marjorie Reynolds did one ("Abraham") in Holiday Inn, which costarred Astaire. Fred did one ("Bojangles Of Harlem") in Swing Time, but it wasn't of the minstrel variety, and was intended at the time as respectful homage.
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Post by Richard Kimble on Nov 8, 2022 11:08:37 GMT
Film got made, but not with this cast.
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Post by Richard Kimble on Nov 8, 2022 11:15:45 GMT
Two Bette Davis vehicles of the late '30s:
They Shoot Horses, Don't They w/Henry Fonda
Not sure I wish this was made, but... The African Queen, c. 1939 w/David Niven -- yes, David Niven; the character is much younger in the novel.
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Post by Richard Kimble on Nov 8, 2022 11:23:00 GMT
Around 1954-5 William Holden planned to make his directorial debut as well as star in an adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel Elmer Gantry. However censorship problems led to the project being abandoned.
A few years later Richard Brooks revived the property, intending to cast Pat Hingle in the title role. Wikipedia: Hingle would go on to a successful career, but he had missed his chance to break out of movie support roles.
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Post by politicidal on Nov 8, 2022 14:13:59 GMT
Special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen was developing a new adventure movie based off H. Rider Haggard's novel The People of the Mist for a time.
Apparently he had trouble getting financial backing because this was much later in his career, when such films were seen as unpopular. Lo and behold, Indiana Jones changed all that in the eighties.
But some concept art surfaced a while back and it looks like it would had been an interesting addition to his filmography.
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Post by timshelboy on Nov 8, 2022 17:10:09 GMT
there was a poster on old board who did them to request - I got June Allyson & Van Johnson in THE NIGHT PORTER - sadly deleted the pdf of it accidentally
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Post by timshelboy on Nov 8, 2022 17:16:30 GMT
The 30s I CLAUDIUS abandoned in 37 (Laughton, Oberon) Welles's THE DEEP from 68. Some 90% of it shot I have read but I;m not among the small group invited by Oja to view the footage. If WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND can be "finished" and released can I nominate this as a next project. Orson, Oja, Laurence Harvey & Jeanne Moreau - said to be a DEAD CALM riff.
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Post by timshelboy on Nov 8, 2022 17:20:25 GMT
Dick Haymes was also,as you say, a husband of Hayworth the 4th maybe? I knew that. But seeing him in a biblical movie.Mmmmmm. Only seen Dick Haymes in State Fair. He was a good crooner though. Haymes grew a beard hoping it would make him more likely to be cast in it. A version was finally made in 61 or so with Geoffrey Horne, Robert Morley and Belinda Lee
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