Random casting: The Long Ships

[Little_Wing]

Last edited Wed Feb 12, 2014, 04:23 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057259/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

This was playing on the Sony channel tonight. Richard Widmark, Russ Tamblyn, Oscar Holmolka (sp?)! and... Sidney Poitier? As an Islamic ruler? Never saw this one before, and it made me wonder...


What movie casting really made you go "Wha?"

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. I loved that movie when I first saw it in a theater as a teen in the 60s

Then I saw it again as a adult a few years ago and it was pretty bad in my opinion. But the music was good.

[Little_Wing]

3. Oh yeah, it was realllllly bad

I couldn't watch it for long, but it was fun to observe such a weird combination of actors

[valerief]

2. Isn't She Great

Bette Midler was an awful casting choice for Jacqueline Susann. Stockard Channing would have been a better choice.

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/media/barbara-frum-pioneering-broadcaster/early-frum-a-shaky-start.html

[Little_Wing]

4. I agree, a strange choice of roles for Bette

But then, the whole "wacky comedy" approach to the subject was a weird idea. And while Stockard Channing is a gem, I'm not sure even she could have saved this. That trailer is scary What a cast!

[valerief]

5. Right, the wacky comedy was not the form the movie should have taken.

It should have been as melodramatic and trashy as Susann's novels.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. The one example of "make you go wha" casting I've seen most frequently mentioned

is virtually the entire cast of the 1956 epic The Conqueror. John Wayne cast as Ghengis Khan still sounds like and looks like he's on the way to the nearest wild west saloon. And Susan Hayward as the captive Tartar princess looks like she just came out of a Beverly Hills beauty salon. Agnes Moorehead and William Conrad don't add much to give the impression that we're seeing Mongols on the screen, either.

Something beyond "wha" and in fact great fun is the casting of Bela Lugosi as the narrator in the film about a crossdresser, Glen or Glenda. The bizarre and cryptic "pull the string" line as a herd of buffalo rampages across the screen is probably best viewed while you are very, very high.