MovieChat Forums > Saboteur (1942) Discussion > Who Should Have Been the Leads?

Who Should Have Been the Leads?

posted 4 years ago by twilliamson (126)
1 reply | jump to latest

I liked this movie, I really did. I thought the storyline was interesting and Otto Kruger did a nice job as the villain. But it deserved better leads than Cummings and Lane, and I'll admit I spent most of the movie trying to decide who I would cast.

Bob Cummings is boring in everything I've seen him in, even in movies I really like, like "Kings Row" and "Moon Over Miami." I think Jimmy Stewart would have been great in this, or maybe Dana Andrews.

I actually like Priscilla Lane in her Four Daughter, Four Wives, Four Mothers movies. But she is out of her depth here, and just comes across as kind of irritating. I read that Hitchcock had wanted Margaret Sullavan, but I'm not sure she would have been believable as a glamorous billboard model. I'm going with Ginger Rogers as a good pick for the female lead.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Hitchcock wanted Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, too. No go. Henry Fonda. Said no.

And weirdly enough, he wanted Gene Kelly...who wasn't big enough at the time.

Evidently, the fact that the movie was being made at Universal when that studio was considered "kind of B" led to a lot of star turn downs...and stuck Hitch with Cummings and the (very pretty) Lane(who gets billing over Cummings.)

And yet, the very next year, Hitchcock was able to get Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten' for Shadow of a Doubt on his second "Universal loanout of the forties" by David O. Selznick. Maybe a better storyline for stars?