Worst casting ever!!!

[robb_k]

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.