Word: miscasts
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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While shooting scenes in Reno for Johnny Dark, a sports-car story, a Hollywood movie crew hired a local amateur-Nevada's leonine Senator Pat McCarran -to play the role of road-race starter. Although miscast in the silent role, McCarran whipped the green flag down with such artistry that only one retake was necessary. The Senator announced that his $10 pay would go to charity...
...great disappointment of Sherlock Holmes, however, is the quality of the principals' performances. While Nigel Bruce played Watson as a slow, but solid aide to Holmes, Jack Raine makes him a retarded Colonel Blimp, rather mildly interested in Holmes' adventures. Similarly, Thomas Gomez is badly miscast as Professor Moriarity. Though unctuously sinister, Gomez looks more like an indigent music teacher than a Napoleon of crime. His great girth and flowing hair hardly suit the "lean, ascetic" arch-criminal of Doyle's imagination...
Torch Song (MGM) should make a lot of Joan Crawford's fans uncomfortable. Joan is miscast as a belligerent musi-comedy star who wears her heart on her fist; the fist is directed mainly at Michael Wilding. Fortunately, the camera decides most of the time that it is more fun to look at Actress Crawford's remarkable legs. Even this is an obvious mistake, for by reducing a performer of Joan's experience and hard-won skills to the cheesecake class, the picture stints her of the human qualities she has developed. Best scene: one in which...
Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto was both the highlight and the lowlight of the evening. The orchestra was vigorous and forceful; Munch conducted with sweeping brilliance. But pianist Leila Goussean was as miscast playing the Emperor as Pier Angrli would be, playing Moby Dick. It takes a man--a strong man--to make this showy, difficult concerto come to life...
...himself a hero in Korea; a ballet dancer (Leslie Caron) who hoofs in a honky-tonk to support her blind father (Kurt Kasznar). Pretty Leslie (An American in Paris) Caron, playing a Belgian girl in America, is on her toes in a couple of dance numbers, but is otherwise miscast. Satchmo and Trombonist Jack Teagarden contribute a few hot jazz licks, but most of the picture is just tepid theatrics...