The Casting

i thought alan arkin and art garfunkel were the closest to what i pictured in the book. aarfy (charles grodin) wasn't what i had pictured at all, but he did a good job. bob newhart just butchered major major. but that could be the directing also. i felt he was too jumpy. i always pictured him as sort of reserved and resigned to his fate. dunno, maybe it's just me.

bob balaban was good as orr, just not what i pictured physically. i thought of him as a little plumper, i guess. but as a character, he was good. also doc daneeka was way, way off. i had him pegged as a little younger. doesn't it say in the book how his practice was just getting good when he was drafted? i had him for about late thirties, early fourties, but this guy was old.


He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!

Catch-22 is my favorite book of all time, and when I saw the movie I was pretty disappointed. Not a bad movie by any means, but I think it'd be impossible to turn the novel into a film that seems complete without it being 8 hours long. It did the best it could.

Anyway, I thought the best thing about the film was the casting. I agree with just about everything Beatnick said, actually! Major Major's character was butchered more by the script than anything else, but Bob Newhart I felt was really NOT a good choice at all. Didn't particularly like Gilford as Doc Daneeka either. I love Martin Sheen and I thought he did as good a job as he could with Dobbs, even though, like you said, it was more the script's version of the character that was flawed than Sheen himself.

Onto the strengths. I agree completely that Perkins was perfect as the Chaplain. Both he and Jon Voight were - without me realizing it at the time - EXACTLY who I pictured while reading the book! It was strange to see my vision of them right there on screen. Charles Grodin was just fine as Aarfy, Orson Welles as Dreedle and Balsam as Colonel Cathcart and, much to my surprise, Art Garfunkel I thought was quite good as Nately. Just as fresh-faced and naive as I imagined, expecially in the scene with the old Italian man.

When I started reading the book, I knew there was a film version but waited until I finished to watch it, and the whole time I was dying to know who played Yossarian. I just couldn't picture anyone. When I finally watched it and saw Alan Arkin, I thought he was absolutlely perfect. He did a wonderful job with those quiet moments (the Snowden scene, his delivery of when people ask him why he's not wearing clothes, etc.), and was superb when he was freaking out (Milo's bombing of their camp, when he begs the Chaplain to get him off any more missions).

The movie sure was flawed, but still pretty good, and I thought the casting was really well done. Just my opinion of course.

First of all, I don’t know how anyone could be a fan of the movie without ever reading the book. I don’t even see how anyone can not read the book. I read it yearly. Anyway, I liked the movie, but not nearly as much as the book. I imagine it must be hard to follow the movie if you haven’t read the book.

I actually didn’t like the movie at first because I thought the main casting was off. But I warmed up to it after I decided that what these people look like wasn’t too important. It’s such a good story, you’d really have to screw it up big time for it not to be good.

My main problem was Alan Arkin as Yossarian. I like Alan Arkin, but Yossarian is supposed to be a big, somewhat swarthy man. But the movie was made in 1970, when it was in vogue to cast a leading man who was kind of mousy – thanks to Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. Incidentally, the book that that movie was based had a strapping blond lad as its main character. I believe Robert Redford was originally cast.

Although Alan Arkin’s physical presence wasn’t how I pictured Yossarian, everything else was done rather well. I also didn’t think Jon Voigt was a good fit for Milo. I pictured Milo to be less intimidating and unassuming – despite the fact that he ran the war. Someone like Bob Balaban, who played Orr, was more of what I had in mind for Milo. Someone unassuming, yet calculating and deadpan. Which, come to think of it, sounds like Orr as well.

It seems like we disagree on quite of few of these, which I find rather interesting. Because I actually thought Art Garfunkle as Nately was a good match. I pictured him to be a dainty, waspy, sensitive wuss. However, I think it was a colossally bad idea for the man to end his run with Paul Simon in order to chase his dreams of becoming a movie star. That has to be one of the worst career moves of the 20th century.

As for Major Major, I can’t even recall anything Bob Newhart did at all. Which can’t be good. Of course the obvious person to play that role was Henry Fonda. That would have been hilarious.

It's good that this thread was created because I've always marvelled at the casting. If there is one film where the casting is going to be compared with the book this is it. The casting was the most important aspect of this film and whoever was in overall charge of that must have thought long and deep. The result is close to perfection, most of the characters are strangely how I pictured them. This is impossible but it is almost as if the book was written with the actors in mind.


Put it on the tripod!

I had a couple of reservations the first time I saw the movie. Yossarian is described in the book as being tall and muscular-- a sort of all-American fair-haired boy. Alan Arkin is most decidedly not that, but I still think he did a good job in the role, and the combination of frustration and dismay that he projected was just right. Bob Newhart was sort of problematic as Major Major simply because Major Major was described as looking exactly like Henry Fonda. However, once again, I think that Bob Newhart did a fine job of playing the character.

Anthony Perkins was absolutely perfect as Chaplain Tappman, as were Richard Benjamin as Major Danby, Norman Fell as Sgt. Towser and Charles Grodin as Aarfy. Jon Voight took a bit of getting used to as Milo, simply because he's a fairly imposing person, and Milo was described as relatively mousy with that sparse mustache. However, I think that Voight conveyed the wide-eyed naivete of Milo quite well, especially in the scene in the tree at the cemetary. Buck Henry was properly scheming and manipulative as Colonel Korn and Martin Balsam was properly blustery and ineffectual as Colonel Cathcart. As has been pointed out, Jack Gilford was probably a bit old for Doc Daneeka, but I thought he caught the weak, watery-eyed and fearful character of Doc perfectly. Bob Balaban as Orr didn't quite look like I had pictured him, but he talked and acted exactly right, even down to the monotone and the annoying giggle, and there was a nice elfin quality to him. Art Garfunkel also wasn't physically what I envisioned Nately as, but he caught the character very well, and the same could be said for Peter Bonerz as McWatt.

The true test of the casting, to me, is that ever since I first saw the movie, when I reread the book (as I do every couple of years or so), I mostly see the characters as they were cast in the movie. I visualize Anthony Perkins and Buck Henry and Martin Balsam and Norman Fell and they fit perfectly. Even with the characters that I don't visualize as they appear in the movie (Yossarian and Major Major primarily) I still hear, respectively, Alan Arkin's and Bob Newhart's voices coming out of them.

I can't think of any other book to movie translation that has actually added to my enjoyment of the book.



"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." --David Hume

Best casting: Arkin, Balaban, Voight, Perkins, Prentiss, Benjamin, Garfunkle
Worst casting: Newhart

I though they were all well-cast except for Bob Newhart as Major Major.

perfectly cast - Arkin, Perkins, Balaban, Sheen, Gilford