- 12 minutes ago
From uncanny lookalikes to actors who would later play siblings, these movies are excellent but feature some truly distracting casting choices.
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00:00Movies can live or die by their casting choices.
00:03Get it wrong and it can sometimes prove too hard for a great script or director to overcome.
00:08Get it right and a production can come together seamlessly and even be elevated altogether.
00:14Sometimes though, even the well-casted roles can end up being weirdly distracting.
00:19So without further ado, I'm Ewan, this is WarCulture and here are amazing movies with
00:24weirdly distracting castings.
00:26Henry Grace – The Longest Day The Longest Day is a true epic Hollywood production.
00:33An international effort pooling together filmmakers and actors from the United States, United
00:37Kingdom, France and Germany, The Longest Day recounts in detail Operation Overlord and the
00:43events of D-Day during World War II, from the planning stages of the operation through to
00:48the airborne assaults and Normandy landings.
00:50While occasionally plodding, the all-star cast and scale of the battles depicted makes
00:55it a must-watch.
00:57But there is one aspect of the film that has always been distracting to me and that is
01:02the man who plays Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Supreme Allied Commander and later US President.
01:08Growing up and even today, I always did double takes because Eisenhower in The Longest Day
01:14looks just like the real deal, to the point where each time I watch the movie, I am convinced
01:19that they got the man himself.
01:21The actual reality is that Henry Grace, an Oscar-nominated set decorator, was hired to
01:26play Eisenhower specifically because of his resemblance to the general.
01:30It's his sole acting credit and the uncanny similarities between them never fails to amuse.
01:36Arnold Schwarzenegger – The Long Goodbye Before he was an actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger was
01:42a renowned champion bodybuilder and athlete.
01:45He got his first film role in 1970's Hercules in New York, but it wasn't until 1982's
01:51Codem the Barbarian that his star truly began to rise.
01:55Arnie came to dominate the 80's with iconic performances in films like The Terminator, Commando,
02:00and John McTiernan's Predator – arguably the best action film ever made.
02:04Before Schwarzenegger made a home in the action genre, however, he had several roles of varying
02:09prominence.
02:10Undoubtedly the most surprising of these is his brief turn as a henchman in Robert Altman's
02:15Philip Marlowe adaptation, The Long Goodbye.
02:17Altman's film is one of the finest efforts in the noir genre, an exhaustive, dreamlike
02:23mystery anchored by a career-defining performance from Elliot Gold.
02:27It's sort of the last place you'd expect Arnie to show up, but show up he does in a scene
02:32where Marlowe is interrogated by local gangster Marty Augustine.
02:36Arnie has his shirt off and menacingly flexes his pecs.
02:39The fact he goes uncredited in this one makes it an amazing jump scare.
02:44Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor Johnson – Godzilla 2014
02:49Gareth Edwards' 2014 Godzilla film has never really been given the flowers that
02:54it deserves.
02:55While complaints regarding the human protagonists are justified – trading a post-Breaking
03:00Bad Bryan Cranston for literally anyone else didn't do it any favors whatsoever.
03:05Edwards is the sole filmmaker outside of Japan to really render the anguished terror of Godzilla
03:11in all his glory.
03:12That being said, there is one element of the film that jars through no fault of its own,
03:19but rather because of some unfortunate timing with the MCU.
03:22You see, Godzilla's two main human protagonists are portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth
03:28Olsen, who play husband and wife.
03:31Their performances are solid – not Cranston levels of good, but hey, few things are.
03:36The main issue is that less than a year later, they were cast as siblings Pietro and Wanda
03:41Maximoff in Captain America The Winter Soldier and Avengers Age of Ultron.
03:46It's not enough to make the whole thing super weird per se, and they're good in both movies,
03:52but it was kind of jarring at the time given how they released in such close proximity.
03:57And also because of the whole incest thing in the Ultimate comics.
04:00Well, anyway, swiftly moving on.
04:02Larry Hagman – Nixon
04:04Oliver Stone's Nixon is a fascinatingly underrated piece of 90s cinema.
04:10A strangely sympathetic portrayal of one of the United States' most infamous presidents,
04:15the film stars Anthony Hopkins as Tricky Dick, chronicling Nixon's failed first White House
04:20bid all the way to his impeachment and the Watergate affair.
04:23It's less enjoyably chaotic than Stone's previous effort, JFK, except for one scene,
04:30which essentially sees Nixon threatened by a bunch of Texan oil barons and bank tycoons,
04:35which the film also implies may have been behind Kennedy's death.
04:39We're through the looking glass here, people.
04:41The scene on its own is fun enough, but it takes on an added weird dimension thanks to
04:46the presence of Larry Hagman, who was most famous for portraying ruthless Texas businessman
04:51J.R. Ewing on Dallas.
04:53Hagman's appearance in Nixon invokes the spirit of J.R., to the point where it feels
04:58like it's the same notorious oil magnate training his eyes on Tricky Dick.
05:03Hagman's cameo still works, but it's hard to shake away J.R. as he puts pressure on
05:07Hopkins' crumbling executive.
05:10All the Cut Rolls
05:11The Thin Red Line
05:13The Thin Red Line is up there with the greatest war films ever made, but it's also one that
05:18had an infamously difficult production.
05:20There's no arguing with the finished results, which are exceptional, but the production process
05:24did leave some peculiar wounds, most notably in the form of several actors having their
05:29roles drastically cut.
05:31The most noticeable casualty of the film's edit was Adrian Brody, whose character, Jeffrey
05:36Fyfe, was originally intended as the lead.
05:38Malick's final cut reduces Brody to a background figure, a fact Brody allegedly didn't discover
05:44until a press junket before the film's premiere, and knowing those behind the scenes changes
05:50does make his presence more peculiar.
05:53George Clooney, who shows up in a minor role in the film's closing scenes, was also meant
05:57to have a bigger part, while Mickey Rourke was excised from the final cut entirely.
06:02None of this takes any of the shine away from the Thin Red Line.
06:05It's beautiful, and if anything, seeing prominent actors like Clooney and John Travolta make such
06:11brief appearances adds to its charm.
06:13But it is one of those where knowing the behind the scenes drama does occasionally encroach on
06:18repeat viewings.
06:19Alice Cooper
06:20Prince of Darkness
06:23Prince of Darkness is one of John Carpenter's most overlooked efforts, a terrifying entry
06:28in the writer, director, and composer's apocalypse trilogy that revolves around the resurrection
06:33of Satan.
06:34The film reunited Carpenter with Halloween and Escape from New York's Donald Pleasance,
06:39as well as Bitchable and Little China's Victor Wong and Dennis Dunn.
06:42There were also first-time collaborators included in the cast, with one in particular likely to
06:47raise a few eyebrows once recognised.
06:50Yep, Alice Cooper himself has a small role in Prince of Darkness as one of the key homeless
06:56figures who surround the monastery housing Satan.
06:58Cooper, credited as street schizo in the film, lovely, is spotlighted as one of the leaders
07:05of the throng, and even gets to kill one of the scientists in the building with his trademark
07:09stabby thingy he used in his own live performances.
07:13Cooper also recorded a track, Prince of Darkness, to go with the film.
07:16As far as cameos go, this one is seamlessly integrated, and if anything, it's cool to
07:21see Cooper get a recurring role rather than featuring for just one scene.
07:26It's still distinctly him though, and while he does a great job standing there and staring
07:32menacingly, it's difficult to shake his stage persona.
07:35That's kind of the fun with it though, and Prince of Darkness is still a perfect horror
07:40film.
07:41Gregory Peck, Cape Fear 1991 A remake that's a shade better than the
07:47original, Martin Scorsese's 1991 thriller Cape Fear reinvented Max Cady for a new generation,
07:55with Robert De Niro's performance as the obsessed former convict undoubtedly one of his most iconic.
08:00The film honors and reinvents Jaylee Thompson's 1962 original to chilling effect, with one
08:06of its more genius moves being to bring back Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck.
08:10Mitchum famously portrayed Cady in the original film, a performance almost as good as his
08:15turn in The Night of the Hunter, while Peck, true to type, was cast opposite as resolute
08:20lawyer Sam Bowden, the focus of Cady's ire.
08:23Scorsese cleverly flipped the script for the remake, bringing Mitchum back on the side
08:27of Bowden as a police lieutenant who steers him outside the law, and Peck as a stereotypical
08:33southern lawyer who represents Cady in court.
08:36The two of them played these minor roles excellently, but whereas Mitchum, who throughout his career
08:41had portrayed heroes, villains, and everything in between, blends more seamlessly into the proceedings,
08:48Peck does not.
08:49While Peck certainly took on a variety of characters over the course of his career, he's mostly
08:54remembered as the dashing Hollywood leading man.
08:56Juxtaposing that in the Cape Fear remake is a great way of subverting that persona, and
09:01again, he's great to watch, but the contrast compared to Mitchum is profound.
09:06Audie Murphy – To Hell and Back
09:09It might be weird to label the main casting of a film distracting when that's essentially
09:14the central conceit here, but watching To Hell and Back, it's impossible to silence
09:19my brain thinking about not only the behind the scenes process that led to Audie Murphy,
09:23the most decorated US soldier of World War II, playing himself in a film based on his exploits,
09:29but also what it must have been like for him to relive those experiences for the purposes
09:33of big screen entertainment.
09:35Countless directors and actors who fought in the Second World War would go on to develop
09:39and star in films about it.
09:41Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One was inspired by his own wartime experiences, and starred Lee Marvin,
09:46who himself fought as a sniper in the Pacific theatre, to use just one example out of the
09:51dozens available.
09:52But to relive the events of the battles they fought in specifically, in a film where they
09:56played themselves, is a whole other thing.
09:59The closest example I can think of that isn't To Hell and Back would be The Longest Day, where
10:04Richard Todd portrayed Major John Howard having himself fought in the battle for Pegasus
10:09Bridge, but it's still not Murphy playing himself levels of on-screen vulnerability.
10:13In more than one way, To Hell and Back is a pretty unremarkable 1950s war film, but there's
10:19something so unique about seeing Murphy play himself and relive those combat experiences
10:25but in a more sanitized environment.
10:28Murphy's real life story was remarkable, and there's an uncanny quality seeing it rendered
10:32in To Hell and Back.
10:34Brian Doyle Murray Christmas Vacation
10:37Look, through no fault of his own, Brian Doyle Murray is an actor I am always distracted
10:43by.
10:44This is simply down to the fact that he bears a big resemblance to his brother Bill Murray,
10:49so whenever he shows up, I am constantly brought back to the same thought process of,
11:02I am constantly doing double takes when he shows up, which is very silly given Brian Doyle
11:08Murray is an accomplished actor and writer with his own storied career, but the shadow
11:13of Bill looms large.
11:14Ghostbusters 2 gives me the, I'm seeing double here, for Murray's moment when they share the
11:20screen, but National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is the biggest offender solely for
11:25the fact that it's a holiday staple, and I am somehow incapable of retaining the vital
11:29knowledge that Brian Doyle Murray exists.
11:32Ronald Reagan The Killers
11:36Don Siegel's 1964 remake of The Killers is amazing for several reasons.
11:42First of all, it stars Lee Marvin, who is the best, as a cold-blooded hitman on the search
11:47for truth, backed up by a despicably good Clue Gulliger.
11:51Secondly, it has a banging, pizzazz-filled score from an early career John Williams.
11:57Third, it looks great.
11:59And fourth, it has a scene where John Cassavetes punches HUAC collaborator and future US President
12:04Ronald Reagan in the face, plus a later bit where he knocks him out with a pistol and throws
12:09him out a moving car.
12:10Get rekt, bozo.
12:12That'll teach you to deregulate our financial markets and weaponize space.
12:16Well, anyway, watching Ronald Reagan in The Killers is a bit of a wild experience, because
12:22it was his final film before he retired from acting and became Governor of California.
12:27Compared to his earlier B-movies, where he looks like a typical young 40s guy, the version
12:32of Reagan that shows up in The Killers is only a fraction away from the one who had become
12:37President in the 1980s.
12:38The pomade, slicked haircut and wrinkled face of the then 53-year-old Reagan looks just like
12:43his presidential persona.
12:45And while The Killers is a great, great film, seeing the president trading bars with Cassavetes
12:50and Marvin will never not be weird.