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© Tony Crawley 2019
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TC by GM - back in the day when this fetish started.

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CHAMPIONS' LEAGUE

There are 7,769 actors detailed on the CCC website. Some have missed a single film. Others, many more. Then, there are the champions. Like these … and look how Nicholson is closing in on Brando … Exciting huh?!

1. Brando - bypassed 159 movies
2. Nicholson - 158
3. Cary Grant -142
4. Paul Newman - 139
5. Robert De Niro- 122

Highest Brit Sir Sean at 105.
Highest lady is Bette Davis, 88 items; Jodie Foster, 76; Liz Taylor, 68; Julie Christie, Katharine Hepburn, Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Meryl Streep, 66.
Newer Brigade: Tom, 120; Brad, 103; Johnny, 97; Julia, 64; Leo, Jim Carrey, 60; Madonna, 59.

(You'll find the full list at Champions in the Main Menu)

CCCLIPS

Atlas Shrugged

Been reporting a lot (too much) on comicbooks lately, Captain Marvel, Shazam! Now I hear of a new superhero line based on such unknown Atlas comic-cuts as Tarantula, Cougar, Destructor, Morlock, Scorpion, or Wulf The Barbarian (sounds like competitors at Crufts Dog Show). I’ve never heard of Atlas (I did read The Eagle as a lad), so I asked my cohort Alan McKenzie for his take. Because when it comes to comix, former Marvel and 2000AD editor Alan knows all. As you’ll discover at his Marvel in the Silver Age blog.

He says when Marty Goodman sold Marvel in the '70s, he invested the money in a new outfit, hired some Marvel creatives and set about trying to beat his old company into submission. "Didn’t work out that way, because he didn’t have Stan Lee, and so the characters Atlas put out were poor, lasting only two or three issues each. If someone’s bought the Atlas characters thinking they have another Marvel on their hands, they’re (very) sadly mistaken. None of those characters have any backstory or, um, character to draw on. There’s none of the richness of an Iron Man or a Captain America."

A Hunting We Will Go!

Two Hollywood Hunters, Jeffrey and Tab, found themselves booked for films in Madrid. Over dinner, the Lake Arrowhead water-ski-ing buddies discussed their drekky assignments and decided to, quite simply, switch movies. “What the hell?” they agreed. “The producers won’t know Jeffrey Hunter from Tab Hunter.” And so, Jeff made Tab’s Western, The Christmas Kid, and Tab made Jeff’s thriller (re-writing most of it “from a lacklustre thriller to a lacklustre comedy”), El Dedo del destino/The Cup of St Sebastian. Or as it was called, quite appropriately, in the US: The Fickle Finger of Fate.

Extras Who Made Good

Clint Eastwood, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, David Niven, Brad Pitt and John Wayne all started out as movie extras. They were not alone… Billie Holliday was in the crowd of The Emperor Jones, 1932. Among the Ziegfeld girls in The Great Ziegfeld, 1935 was Pat Ryan, Richard Nixon’s future First Lady. Fidel Castro was in Holiday in Mexico and Easy To Wed, 1945. Sophia Loren (and Mama) were in Quo Vadis, 1955. Sylvester Stallone had a 1970 walk-on Jane Fonda’s Klute. Bruce Willis was in the Verdict courtroom in 1980, just as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were in Field of Dreams, 1988. Brian Blessed joined the Collliseum fans in Gladiator, 1999. And Megan Fox was a dancer in Bad Boys 2, 2002.

GEMINI MEN

Will vs Smith

On and off studio shelves since 1997 and Disney’s Sean Connery plan in 2002, Gemini Man has a top hit man becoming the termination target of a mystery youngster who predicts the old-timer’s every move. "I know why he's as good as you," says Mary Elizabeth Winstead. "He is you!" Yeah, a younger clone. Yeah, yawn, like Bruce Willis in The Kid, 1999, and Looper, 2011. Only this time, one guy, is playing both roles, young and old. Will Smith.

Eastwood vs Clint

Back in the day, test footage was shot of an old Mel Gibson (in Payback, 1998) versus young Gibson (in The Year of Living Danerously, 1982). As directors changed from Tony Scott to Curtis Hanson, similar tests were made of Nic Cage, Jon Voight, plus Joe Carnahan’s above mashup of Clint Eastwood footage. No need for all that palaver these days, due to the stunning de-ageing or youthification possibilities as seen in the Lola VFX work for many Marvel movies, such the young Sam Jackson helping Captain Marvel.
Ang Lee, an SFX expert after Hulk and Life of Pi, finally made Gemini Man with the aid of Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital combine. "It’s my great fortune to be able to experiment and test the limits of what new digital cinema has to offer … [and] to work with two Will Smiths - one beautifully sophisticated, the other exuberantly honest. In my opinion, this is Will at his very best, and when the two come together, it’s something truly magical."
Oh and by the way, no matter what you might read elsewhere, Harrison Ford swears blind was never contacted for the role(s).

WOODY'S ... BACK

Timothee and Elle in A Rainy Day in New York

No umbrellas for Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning. Not yet.

After his first year off since his 1968 directing debut, Take The Money and Run, Woody Allen is back in business. He has liberated his 50th movie from its Amazon jail and A Rainy Day in New York opened in Europe (well, France, certainly, on September 18). Cast includes Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law. Even better news: Woody is currently shooting #51 in Spain. With Gina Gershon, Christoph Waltz (an end to his villains?), Wallace Shawn, Spanish star Elena Anaya and French hunk Louis Garrel. And Woody’s in safe hands. The film is produced by his sister, Letty Aronson, and the Madrid co-producer of Midnight in Paris, Jaume Roures.

ALL SHOOK UP

In 1966, Julie Christie won an Oscar for Darling. And a Hollywood rôle eventually played … by Elvis! Most surprising news since I found out that the another Oscar-winner, the French Simone Signoret, nearly played his shrink five years earlier in Wild in the Country. The trouble with Double Trouble was, as per usual, E’ s mis-manager, "Colonel" Tom Parker. He routinely rejected anything good - The Defiant Ones, Rio Bravo, West Side Story, Midnight Cowboy, True Grit, A Star Is Born - but actually approved this pap with The King of Rock singing … Old McDonald Had A Farm! Co-star Norman Rossington scored his own special double. He’s the only actor to film with Elvis and … The Beatles.


DON JOHN Among actors in and out of Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote movie was the flawless John Hurt. RIP.	BEST SELLARS "What role?" "All of them!" said Stanley Kubrick. Sellers never finished this fourth ...	LITTLE SHIRLEY After lavish tests of Shirley Temple for 1949's Little Women, MGM chose Janet Leigh as Meg.	GODPOP Shakespeare icon Laurence Olivier as Mafia Godfather Don Corleone – fuhgeddaboudit!

FRIGHT NIGHT

Keep a summer eye open for David Gregory’s fascinating docu, Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson. It’s often as if Woody Allen had made Hollywood Danny Rose, as it covers the z-movies of the US tits ‘n’ terror schlockmeister. In 1971, Al made the only Dracula v Frankenstein with Lon Chaney Jr (a drunk, who couldn’t speak due to larynx put cancer) and J Carrol Naish, who hadn’t warned anyone he was (a) in a wheelchair, (b) had clacking dentures, (c) couldn’t remember lines, (d) needed cue-cards, (e) and only had one eye to read them with, so (f) we’d see that one eye reading from left to right, while his glass eye stayed. transfixed. Oh and Dracula was played by a stockbroker pal, Roger Engel, renamed Zandor Borkov (looking much like Mike Raven in Hammer’s Lust For A Vampire, 1970). Adamson still made it all work. He’d made 31 such films when he was murdered by his handyman in 1995

SO MAY I INTRODUCE YOU TO ...

Susan Hampshire in Swingin' London, circa 1965.

When working as the London correspondent for the French movie magazine, Cinémonde, in the 60s, I introduced Susan Hampshire to her first husband. Without meeting either of them …
I’d received a missive from Paris in 1965 asking me to recommend some British blonde actresses for Paris au mois d’aout - Charles Aznavour falling for a lovely Brit visiting Paris in August, when the city is (almost) empty of French people and packed with tourists. I sent over some photos, adding one of Susan at, literally, the last second, as she was no particular favourite of mine. The rest is obvious. She beat Julie Christie, Veronica Carlson, Justine Lord, Edina Ronay and Carol White to the film! Plus the heart of réalisateur Pierre Granier-Deferre. They wed in 1967, had two children and divorced in 1974. Without ever knowing I had a digit in their destiny.

NOW WHERE HAVE I SEEN THAT BEFORE?

Homecoming poster looks like a saul bass rip off

On the right, a new 2019 poster for a new Julia Roberts film, Homecoming, from Amazon Prime. Except it’s not a poster prime - but heavily, er, influenced, shall I say, by the 1958 poster by the great Saul Bass for Hitchcock’s North By Northwest. I suppose Amazon call it an homage, a tribute. No, sheer laziness.

Photo ©redits:

All The President's Men and The Godfather montages: Reg Oliver, 1976; A Rainy Day in New York: Gravier Productions/Perdido Productions, 2017; Atlas characters: Atlas Comics; Marlon Brando: Paramount Pictures, 1960; Joseph Cotten: AIP, 1972; Gemini Man: Paramount Pictures, 2018; Clint Eastwoods: Joe Carnahan, 2012; Susan Hampshire: Disney, 1962; Homecoming: Amazon Prime, 2018; John Hurt: Quixote Films, 2001; Gloria Paul: Eon Productions, 1965; North By Northwest: MGM, 1959 ; Peter Sellers: Hawk Films/Columbia Pictures, 1963; Shirley Temple: Selznick International Pictures, 1946; TC sketch: Graham Marsh, 1976. Plus enormous thanks to The Man: Daniel Bouteiller.

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WELCOME to a unique directory of what you never saw on-screen. The films the stars did not make. The movies that never were. The most definitive collation of casting stories ... Check up on all the films - of yesterday, today and tomorrow - that your favourite stars never made... A cast of thousands - 7,884 actors - to click on... More than 40 years in the making!! And 2,370,575 words of spirited text. The ultimate in movie trivia ... Better! Exactly the kind of history that Hollywood deserves. Back to front. Upside-down. Inside out. Full of flashbacks, close-ups, tracking shots (and, alas some badly edited sequences - sorry about that!) forming a fascinating, new and often bizarre flip-side perspective on your treasured movies and stars.

This is the film that bred this site ... after Robert Redford told me he'd planned a little black-white version - with Robert De Niro, and Michael Moriarty as Woodstein.

BOND LADY

Gloria Paul, the Briitsh gift to Italian movies was among the final few testing as Thunderball’s Domino in 1964. She previously auditioned for Tatiana in From Russia With Love - won in 1963 by a genuine Italian, Daniela Bianchi. Gloria retired in 1996 after a freak accident left her semi-paralysed.

WHERE TO FIND ..?

FULL METAL HALL

For the fullest story of why Anthony Michael Hall did not make Stanley Kubrick's 'Nam classic, go to Hall's page. (The blue section).

PERFECT GRYSHENKA

How Hollywood ruined Marilyn Monroe's dream role in The Brothers Karamazov is on Marilyn's page - item #17

TORN APART

Why didn't Rip Torn make Easy Rider - see his blue section on his page.

STREEP KONG

Meryl v Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis. Read all about it - in her first item.

QUOTES

"Bitch, please. You've been to space." Nick Fury.

"I don’t care what it is, how much I’m getting paid, I’m not leaving my trailer in a cape.” Mark Wahlberg on superheroes.

"I need to know what it's for. If you can't really tell why you've got your tits out, you're probably in the wrong scene." Phoebe Waller-Bridge on screen nudity.

"Fox at the time thought [HR] Giger was a bit obscene and a bit rude and a bit sexual. And I said: ‘Sounds good to me.’ Which nearly saw me off the case."Ridley Scott on the Alien designer.

"If anything came up at Fox studios I’d do it. I sang a song about prunes once. I would dub in the sound of footsteps in movies." Gwen Verdon.

"Acting is acting. It’s pretending. It’s not going down a coal mine, it’s not saving lives." Charles Dance.

"You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can’t make a good film out of a bad script. It’s that simple." George Clooney.

Early titles were All You Need and Jack Got Hit By A Bus, before it became Yesterday. “It works well in conversation… ‘I saw Yesterday yesterday’ or ‘I‘m going to see Yesterday tomorrow’.” Scenarist Richard Curtis.

"It’s like talking to a crumpled bag of sweets." Tilda Swinton on Bill Murray.

"I did not get into acting to just play people like me. You have to draw the line somewhere, and I don't want to live in a world where straight people play straight people and gay people play gay people." Taron Egerton.

"I didn’t care about the movies really. I was tall. I could talk. It was easy to do." Joseph Cotton

"His voice was so melodious, he could talk a gal out of her pants in five minutes." Katharine Hepburn on Joseph Cotton.

Why didn’t you direct a western? "Maybe fear that I couldn’t do it very well." Director John Carpenter.

Steven Spielberg asked Javier Bardem to be Witwer in Minority Report, 2001. No way. "I didn’t want to just run around chasing Tom Cruise.".

"I didn’t leave the movie industry, it left me." Francis Ford Coppola.

"I always chose movies that I thought would fail so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the fame thing." Barbara Harris.Yeah, movies like.,. Robert Altman’s Nashville and Hitchcock’s finale, Family Plot.

"The difference between filming in Hollywood and France? They don‘t have wine in the canteen!" Jean Diujardin.

"Oh my god, it sounds like a room deodoriser. I hated the title." Director Phil Alden on his classic Field of Dreams.

"My first picture was with (Elia) Kazan, who was nobody to sneeze at." Warren Beatty.

"You should be naked when you are young. You want to have that on film." Regina Hall on screen nudity.

"I’m making a film called Hope with Hans Petter’s wife, who’s also directing. So basically I’m playing Hans Petter… But I’m not playing him. He’s so slow it would be too boring." Stellan Sjkarsgard.

"Not today." Arya Stark, GoT.

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