Worst casting ever!!!

Hey gang, let's have some fun...what are some of the biggest mistakes in movie history as far as casting goes?...how about-john wayne as[ghangis khan-what was the duke thinking]...christian bale as[moses-guess he didn't have a batmobile fast enough to go across that desert]...russell crowe as[noah-he must have been drunker than the real noah to take that role]...lawrence olivier as[zeus-sad end to a great career]...kevin cosner as[robin hood-dude brought california cool to sherwood forest,before there was a california] what cha got?

Any blue eyed actor who played Jesus. Don't know what he looked like, but I'm pretty sure Middle Eastern Jews did not have blonde hair and blue eyes.

But I'll go with Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor in that Lifetime movie last year.

Any of those Roman dudes in Biblical movies. They all had British accents.

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Originally Posted by ralpht

Any of those Roman dudes in Biblical movies. They all had British accents.

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Quite right Ralph!! All of those movies should have been made in Latin, Ancient-Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic etc. etc. with subtitles ..... :)

On the subject of characters with unbelievable accents it is difficult to beat DICK VAN-DYKE in "Mary Poppins" .. it is still regularly referred to as the worst attempt at a "cockney" accent here in Merrie Olde England. :)

Roger

ANYTHING with James "Say It Don't Spray It" Franco!

Bill Paxton in Titanic. Most 'wooden' performance I've ever seen. Actually, anything he's in.

Bill Paxton made a living off of two films, "Near Dark" and "Aliens". Everything else has him playing the exact same character in different films.

Are we ignoring the obvious non-Native Americans who played Injuns in old B Western movies? Ugh... And am I the only one who watches Western and historical movies and wonders where the characters get the razors they use for such clean and close shaves? Or who gave them their haircuts [[those guys look good)? Or pressed their clothes? Am I thinking too hard about this?

Thanks, arr&bee...

Haaaaaaaaaa,no thank you jerry, you're right on i watch those old shoot em ups all the time,and the wigs and lipstick on the squaws and those blue eyed indians which brings me to another bad casting choice...chuck connors as[geronimo]i almost forgot about him,keep em comin jerry.

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Originally Posted by ralpht

Any of those Roman dudes in Biblical movies. They all had British accents.

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Good one! LOL!!!!

If British accents sounded strange in the Biblical movies, don't forget John Wayne playing a Centurion with a strong American drawl in 'The Greatest Story Ever Told'......

Tony Curtis in Spartacus was real real funny. LOL

Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Rubble in "The Flintstones". And I used to have a crush on Betty Rubble...

http://1.fwcdn.pl/ph/03/62/10362/317899.1.jpg

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Originally Posted by Jerry Oz

Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Rubble in "The Flintstones". And I used to have a crush on Betty Rubble...

http://1.fwcdn.pl/ph/03/62/10362/317899.1.jpg

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Rosie wouldve made a better Barney. lol

Rex Harrision as the King of Siam.

Diana Ross as Dorothy in the Wiz!

Al Pacino as Satan in "Devil's Advocate".

David Niven as "James Bond"

Roberta,
You may be too young to remember a very early Tony Curtis movie. I think the title was "The Purple Mask" He played some sort of Middle Ages guy that became some sort of hero, but spoke with a Brooklyn accent.

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Originally Posted by ralpht

Roberta,
You may be too young to remember a very early Tony Curtis movie. I think the title was "The Purple Mask" He played some sort of Middle Ages guy that became some sort of hero, but spoke with a Brooklyn accent.

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I dont remember that movie Ralph but Im sure Tony Curtis spoke in a Brooklyn accent he spoke in the same Brooklyn accent in Spartacus. He was a real nice man but a real bad actor IMO.

fondly,

Roberta

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Originally Posted by marv2

al pacino as satan in "devil's advocate".

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hey marv...i actually like al in that one,bet he had a devil of a time.

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Originally Posted by arr&bee

hey marv...i actually like al in that one,bet he had a devil of a time.

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Don't me wrong. He did a fine job acting. In fact he is one of my all time favorites. It's just that made him come off a bit too sleasy in that particular role.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,sleasy as the devil but not as the murderous[scarface]...say hello to my little friend..haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

I always wondered why Spike Lee caught hell for casting John Leguizamo [[a Colombian-American actor) as an Italian in "Summer of.Sam" but Brian de Palma took no such heat for casting Italian Al Pacino as a Cuban in "Scarface". And that portrayal was an.offensive and vicious slant against Cubans, by the way.

How about[lorne green]as[ava garner's]father in[earthquake,heck she was probobly older than him.

Well, Angela Lansbury was Lawrence Harvey's mom in "The Manchurian Candidate". In real life, she would have given birth to him when she was three years old.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...the miracle baby.

With the exceptions of Barbara Parkins and Sharon Tate, everyone else in VALLEY OF THE DILLS . . . er, DOLLS [[1967). I think Lee Grant encapsulates the entire movie when she announces in it: "I have to go heat up the lasagna."

Hey methuselah,i remember that flick from way back in the day.

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Originally Posted by Methuselah2

With the exceptions of Barbara Parkins and Sharon Tate, everyone else in VALLEY OF THE DILLS . . . er, DOLLS [[1967). I think Lee Grant encapsulates the entire movie when she announces in it: "I have to go heat up the lasagna."

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That movie is one of my all-time favorites. I thought Patty Duke was wild in that movie! When she tore off Susan Hayward's wig and flushed it down the toilet! Great fun drama lol

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Originally Posted by Roberta75

Tony Curtis in Spartacus was real real funny. LOL

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Attachment 18285
With his super-heavy New York [[Brooklyn-right?) accent:
No! I'mmmmm Spaaahhhtigus!!!

Attachment 18289
American Anglo directors have no idea how languages other than American English sound. They also don't have decent researchers to find out what things looked like, what people used, how they ate, how they dressed in whatever place and era. Most of The American films I've seen which take place in eras before the decade of the film's development, have lots of errors [[many of them grievous).

Interestingly enough, the most ridiculous language mistake in an American film I can remember was directed by a Brit [[Alfred Hitchcock) in the 1940 film, "Foreign Correspondent". But, The British aren't much better at knowing what foreign languages sound like.

Casting hired a veteran Austrian actor with the thickest Viennese accent, to play the Dutch Minister of State, who was kidnapped in The Netherlands by Nazi agents. The guy sounded like a cross between Sigmund Freud and Professor Ludwig von Drake. Couldn't they have found a Dutch expatriate living in L.A. who could memorise a few lines? I know for a fact there were some there in 1940, who would have been glad to have that opportunity. The part didn't have a lot of lines, but was important to the film's plot. One can hear that he is clearly not Dutch, but Viennese, and the wrongness of it takes one away from attention on the film [["living in the film) - just like Tony Curtis speaking heavy Brooklynese as a supposed Greek slave in 60s A.D. Rome.

Then, for bad measure, NONE of the supposed "Dutch people" had Dutch accents, when speaking English, like Dutch people would. Worse yet, when they spoke to fellow nationals, they spoke in broken English, which sounded more like New Guinea Pidgin English, than Dutch. Then, there was the scene when a supposed "Dutch" young girl, who didn't understand English, spoke in Dutch, and another supposed Dutchman translated for the American star, Joel McCrea. The girl clearly had never heard a word of Dutch spoken by a Dutch person before speaking in her scene. She looked away from McCrea and the translator [[obviously towards the phonetic dialogue "helper cards") clearly reading, and never taking her eyes off the cards, and at least, trying to bring them back towards the listeners, to be even a little less obviously reading. It was absolutely ludicrous. The girl was reading at the speed of a 2 year old overdosed on qualudes. She sounded like a western American 3 year old, not able to make even ONE Dutch letter sound. The girl looked like she was about 10 or 11 years old. She could have been primed to know the important sound differences from American English. And should have practised her lines enough to need the cheater cards only if she forgot how to continue from nerves, which then , would have required a re-take. But, even if she had done all that, her Dutch would have sounded horrible, as even after a year of practice, she wouldn't have been able to pronounce the gutterals, or several of the vowels [[oe) [[eu) [[aa vs. a) etc. Why didn't they just advertise for a Dutch-speaking father and daughter, and get an Dutch character actor for the diplomat role, who was already working in Hollywood? These problems might seem trivial to many Americans, but they ruin the credibility of the film for some of us.

I feel the same with regard to botching the researching for films. I hate when the history is impossible, like films that have Cave Men fighting dinosaurs. They were only 65 odd million years off!

In 1956's "The Ten Commandments", some of The Children of Israel are riding camels, and other camels are used as beasts of burden. Camels weren't domesticated in Arabia or North Africa until around 900 B.C.E. Whether you think The Exodus [[which is now thought to have been a few hundred people, rather than 600,000 or 2 million) occurred in The 1400s B.C.E. or The 1200s B.C.E., they wouldn't have had camels with them.

Or, in US Westerns [[at least from the silent films through the 1960s and maybe 1970s, The Native Americans were depicted very incorrectly [[both important and small details). The producers, directors and writers didn't have a clue about those different peoples. Why didn't they get some historians from those tribes to be consultants, to make the films at least the slightest bit realistic??? Cochise, a Chiracahua Apache of Arizona would have died every day of heat prostration if he had actually worn long sleeved and long panted buckskin outfits. And Apaches didn't wear eagle feathers in a headband. And the Native Americans weren't really Caucasians with brown dye on their skin. And what about casting Swede, Johan Verner Öland [[AKA Warner Oland) as Charlie Chan, by tilting the angle of his eyes, holding them in place by splints tucked behind the skin folds. Same was done with Hungarian, Sidney Toler, and Boris Karloff, when he played Mr. Wong [[yet another Chinese detective). Didn't they have about 300,000 people of Chinese extraction in California at the time these films were made. Surely at least a couple of them could have read lines in broken English with a Chinese accent. That's how they spoke every day. They probably could have found a few that were actual detectives. That might have made those films less ridiculous.

I know the truth. They didn't want to spend a penny on realism, because they figured the majority of their viewers just want to see the "White Men" shoot and kill The bad [[enemy) "Indians", anyway, and realism would just hurt the Chauvanism of The American People, and how they "Won" their continent-long country [[which wasn't really used to its fullest by its original people.

What about that chubby not very muscular, and mild-mannered, William Bendix playing tough crooked gang bosses, and Babe Ruth??? He was certainly better cast as "Riley" in "The Life of Riley". Most people that still remembered Ruth remember him in his last years as a player, as an overweight, tub of lard, who struck out or hit home runs, and then trotted slowly around the bases, wheezing as he got to home plate. They don't remember his first 15 years as a big, but very strong, agile super athlete, who could run very fast, hit legged out triples, steal bases, and throw pitches faster than most. At 6 ft 5, he would have towered above Bendix, who was a shrimp, at about 5ft 7. Ruth was loud and blustery, while Bendix was basically meek, and was not at all convincing as a tough guy, or a rebel type.

There are hundreds more bad casting jobs, but I need to get some sleep.

I find it interesting that a LOT of actors who played organised crime bosses were really short. Maybe we were to believe that they all became feisty and ornery from being picked on as little kids by bullies or the regular gang boys. So, their tough-guy persona came from needing that just to survive childhood. And they could use guns as a means to even the field, or even have power over others to get their revenge. Peter Lorre, Edward G. Robinson, Lloyd Nolan, and so many others of the '20s, '30s, '40s, and even '50s gangsters were little guys.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...right on robb,those casting directors were terrible,like wagons circling when indians attacked,buffalo bill invented that tactic because his shows were held in a tent,haaaaaaaaaaaaaa,liz taylor as cleopatra? And speaking of babe ruth they overlook the fact that he was a pitcher who won ninety games before he went to new york.

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Originally Posted by arr&bee

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...right on robb,those casting directors were terrible,like wagons circling when indians attacked,buffalo bill invented that tactic because his shows were held in a tent,haaaaaaaaaaaaaa,liz taylor as cleopatra? And speaking of babe ruth they overlook the fact that he was a pitcher who won ninety games before he went to new york.

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Attachment 18322
He pitched a handful of games for The Yankees during 1920-22[[his first few years in New York).

Thanks robb,i didn't know that.

Wasn't sinatra once cast as a priest?...haaaaaaaaaaa the biggest little gangsta in hollywood in a collar!

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Originally Posted by robb_k

Attachment 18289
American Anglo directors have no idea how languages other than American English sound. They also don't have decent researchers to find out what things looked like, what people used, how they ate, how they dressed in whatever place and era. Most of The American films I've seen which take place in eras before the decade of the film's development, have lots of errors [[many of them grievous).

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Very true. I'm always amazed at how well talented English and Australian actors perform various American accents [[usually the generic non-regional accent most actors use). It's almost painful to hear American actors perform European accents of any sort. In a similar vein, I'm always amused when Asian movies are dubbed in English and they choose to speak in Asian accents. We know they're speaking Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Viet Namese in the original films and the lips are never in sync. Why not just have the voice actors speak with an American accent?

By the way, I'll take a subtitled version of any movie over a dubbed version. Sometimes, I need subs to watch some British or Irish films. I was lost watching Sexy Beast and The Wind That Shakes The Barley until I loaded up the subtitles. They may as well have been speaking Greek.