- Malcolm McDowell, Voyage of the Damned, 1975. In a Nazi propaganda exercise – “Nobody loves Jews – so leave them to us”- Germany ships Jews to Havana, in the full knowledge that Cuba won’t accept them. Nor will any other nation. They return home, by which time WWII has begun, and of the 937 passengers, more than 600 die in concentration camps! ThIs is no retread of Katharine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools, although similar and both featuring José Ferrer and Oskar Werner (in his final film here). No, this is a terrible true story, stuffed with stars, too many to deal with. Denholm Elliott has one scene, Orson Welles, four; luckier than the jettisoned Janet Suzman and Jack Warden. A good guy this once, Malcolm McDowell was among the crew instead of (take a breath)… fellow Brits Jon Finch, Anthony Hopkins, Simon MacCorkindale, Ian McShane, John Moulder-Brown. Martin Potter and Hollywood’s Keith Carradine, Jeff Conaway, Raul Julia, Martin Kove, Joe Mantegna, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, John Ritter, John Travolta, Jon Voight.
- Vincent Cassel,. Blueberry (US: Renegade), France-Mexico-UK, 2002. Yvan Chiffre, one of Alain Delon’s stunt-doubles turned realisateur, prepared his take of the Western hero co-created by Jean-Michel Charlier, aka Gif, aka Moebius, before auteur Jan Kounen made a pretentious mess of it in 2002 – not released until 2004. Chiffre selected the American Kova because of his resemblance to Mike Blueberry. Kounen tried for Williem Dafoe, Benicio Del-Toro or Val Kilmer before settling for the French Cassel. He did not resemble Blueberry. Nor did the film. Indeed, the Charlier Estate found the changes (especially the shamanism) so appalling that it requested his name to be removed from the credits.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2